Warm Fuzzies

Spotted this while eying up the Babylon 5 season 1 DVD set on Amazon.

Babylon 5, quote from Marcus Cole

You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.

One of the horrible things that went with my first run in with clinical depression was the sure and certain knowledge that not only was God real, he was taking a personal interest in making my life hell.  From seven years on, I know it was the lack of serotonin talking, but it made a lot of sense at the time.  It bothers me how easily my feelings can be manipulated by a few choice neurotransmitters.  It bothers me more that there are people out there who will allow any other bodily organ the right to break down, but not the brain.  Likewise people who can't see that a physical problem can have a psychological effect.  It's not nice trying to pick up the pieces of people who've been hit around the head by "there's no such thing as a Christian with mental illness" theology.

I'm always a bit wary of people who say that they know God is pleased with them because they have a warm fuzzy feeling.  God was pleased with Jeremiah, and it's not warm and fuzzy when you've been tossed down a well, or the other inventive means used to end prophets.  It's really easy to say "Oh, you're depressed because you've sinned/insulted God/worn blue and brown together/not read the Bible enough/[insert derogative of your choice here]."  Does the God thing have to depend on warm fuzzies?  What happens when the cat throws up on your favourite t-shirt, the car breaks down, you have to call out an emergency plumber, you forget that the pizza was due out at half past six instead of half past seven, the fridge is empty, and you're coming down with flu?

Habakkuk 3:16-19I heard and my heart pounded,


my lips quivered at the sound;

decay crept into my bones,

and my legs trembled.

Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity
to come on the nation invading us.

Though the fig tree does not bud


and there are no grapes on the vines,

though the olive crop fails

and the fields produce no food,

though there are no sheep in the pen

and no cattle in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the LORD ,
I will be joyful in God my Saviour.

The Sovereign LORD is my strength;


he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to go on the heights.

This guy I can relate to.  This guy had a real life, though without empty fridges and leaky plumbing.  He didn't even have plumbing as we know it, and he managed to get as far as "Life sucks, yet I will rejoice, even if I have to do it through gritted teeth and over the rumbling of my stomach, because God is out there, and this is not over yet."