A Flood of Questions

Was there a Noah’s ark?  Where is it?

How big was it?

What animals were on it?

For some people of faith, these are important questions. I must confess; they are not my questions. On this First Sunday in Lent, those that follow the Revised Common Lectionary heard a portion of the flood story from Genesis 9. What we hear is a covenant story, the story of God’s promise never to destroy the world by a flood; the rainbow in the cloud seals the deal.

Yet every time I hear this story, I struggle with questions. Not questions about the facts. The legend of Noah, like other poetic accounts in scripture, doesn’t need to be literally true to be true. No, what I question is how this story gets overly domesticated.

Want to have a Noah’s ark themed birthday party? There are 116 pins on Pinterest (I checked). My children had Noah’s ark banks and a Noah’s ark puzzle. Sounds like folks in Kentucky are building a Noah's Ark Theme Park. Hmmm...So, to make it really exciting, does it get flooded while everyone is sitting around eating cotton candy?

Ok, so that was snarky ("built out of gopher barky-barky?"). But really: this biblical story is about life and death. Yes, the animals, they came aboard “two-by-twosy” as the camp song goes, but most of them perished. All humanity was wiped out save Noah and his family. And yet it becomes the theme for baby showers and room décor?

The good news in the story, of course, is that that it reveals a promise. We can see past the destruction to the rainbow. I get that. On my good days, I believe it. Yet floods are very real and climate change has and will lead to more flooding in low lying areas around the world, particularly in places that do not have the riches to buttress them. I want to believe whole-heartedly that God will not destroy the world by a flood, but there is no guarantee that humans won’t.

Water cleanses and destroys. This is the truth. It gives life; we do not survive inside or outside the womb without it. This is also the truth. I can believe in a divine power working in and through these waters, but I still have questions.

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.- Rainer Maria Rilke