A Reason to Worry

On my way to Coeur d'Alene this morning, I saw a bumper sticker that read:

"Why worry? God is in control."

Incidentally, the car also had a Bush/Cheney '04 sticker on the window as well. The combination really got me thinking - what a terrible philosophy to go about your daily life with. It's tantamount to saying humans have no responsibility for the consequences of our actions and decisions, whether for ourselves, for others or for our planet.

Let's take global warming as an obvious issue that I'm concerned with. To follow this bumper sticker ideology, we shouldn't worry. And we shouldn't feel the need to take any responsibility either. Sure, the climate is changing, the ice caps are melting, sea levels will rise, populations up to the millions may die or get displaced by flooding as coastal cities find themselves off-coast disaster areas. Infectious diseases will spread increasingly rapidly, drought will juxtapose flooding, food will be scarce - but why worry? God is in control.

We could look at any number of issues - Iraq, Darfur, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - and excuse ourselves from responsibility because hey, God is in control. Iraq is a mess, but clearly God wants us to interfere with the spread of Islam and is in control in Iraq. Millions are dying from disease and conflict, but it's God's bidding, so why worry?

As I see it, the last thing God would say to humanity right now is not to worry. If anything, God would say "My children, why aren't you doing more?! How can you continue destroying your brothers and sisters and my earth??" God would want us not only to worry about the state of the world, but to also do something about it. Tikkun Olam. I just cannot submit to a fatalistic view of God's will. As Jews, we are taught that we've been given stewardship over this planet and all its - God's - creatures. Stewardship has a very specific connotation, different from ownership or signing a lease. A steward is defined as one who administers anything as the agent of another or others. We've been placed in charge, been given this charge, by God to administer the affairs of this earth, which places a huge amount of responsibility in our hands.

For better or for worse, God may be in control, but not in the way the bumper sticker implies. God is in control the same way as a parent or teacher is, who gives their children or students a task and then sits back to watch as the child is then free to make mistakes, to find failures and ultimately successes. In this way, the child is taught accountability for their decisions and actions. They cannot rely on the mantra: "mommy and daddy will make it all ok." And we cannot rely on the mantra: "Don't worry, God is in control, and will make it all ok." If there exists a messianic era to come, we have a lot of work to do - work that only we, as humans, can choose to do - before we've prepared each other and the world for that era.

So don't tell me not to worry. I will worry, as long as humans continue to dominate and destroy each other, as long as humans destroy the planet and its resources. But I will also hope, and that goes hand in hand with worrying. Because if you concede that God is the only factor controlling everything, then it doesn't matter what we do as humans. And if it doesn't matter what we do, what significance do we have in our destinies, individual or collective? I can't accept this lack of significance. So I will worry, and I will hope, and I will choose to take responsibility, because that's what God asks of us.