Want proof that there is no benevolent God? That
Intelligent Design is a flawed concept? That life really is random,
meaningless, chaotic and cruel? I can provide it in one word.
Mosquitoes.
Just before my trip to Ghana, I spent $70 at Sports
Basement on a thin hooded jacket sprayed with insect repellent. I was picturing
mosquito swarms torturing me each evening and I was determined to beat the
system. But here’s the amazing truth: in my two weeks there, I never saw, heard
or felt a single mosquito! Zero. Zilch. Nada.
Likewise, none in Verona, none in Salzburg, none in
Cinque Terre, none in Positano. Each evening outdoors freed from the tyranny of
the whine, buzz, sting and slap. My Sports Basement jacket lay unused at the
bottom of my suitcase.
And yet last night in San Francisco, determined to
overcome my jet lag and stop waking up at 3:30 in the morning, I heard the
whine from hell. At 3:30 am. Moved to the couch, a few moments of peace and
there it was again. What for the hell? Mosquitoes in San Francisco? Cold,
chilly, summer-fogged San Francisco? And not just mosquitoes, but supremely
intelligent mosquitoes who would wait just until the moment I was about to
drift back into blissful sleep and then attack.
Today I begin teaching my five-day jazz course and
had hoped for a well-rested night before teaching alone 6 hours each day. No
such luck, thanks to God’s flawed— or cruel— plan. How can anyone have faith in
a planet with mosquitoes?
I’m wearing my jacket to bed tonight.
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ReplyDeleteMosquitoes--not the end of the story!
ReplyDelete"The creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time."---Paul, letter to Romans