Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I cry aloud to the Lord;
    I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy.
I pour out before him my complaint;
    before him I tell my trouble.
When my spirit grows faint within me,
    it is you who watch over my way.
In the path where I walk
    people have hidden a snare for me.
Look and see, there is no one at my right hand;
    no one is concerned for me.
I have no refuge;
    no one cares for my life.
I cry to you, Lord;
    I say, “You are my refuge,
    my portion in the land of the living.”
Listen to my cry,
    for I am in desperate need;
rescue me from those who pursue me,
    for they are too strong for me.
Set me free from my prison,
    that I may praise your name.
Then the righteous will gather about me
    because of your goodness to me.

• Psalm 142:1-7

I am the man who has seen affliction
    by the rod of the Lord’s wrath.
He has driven me away and made me walk
    in darkness rather than light;
indeed, he has turned his hand against me
    again and again, all day long.
He has made my skin and my flesh grow old
    and has broken my bones.
He has besieged me and surrounded me
    with bitterness and hardship.
He has made me dwell in darkness
    like those long dead.

• Lamentations 3:1-6

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.

• Psalm 139:14

“The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be miserable. A tree does not know itself to be miserable. It is then being miserable to know oneself to be miserable; but it is also being great to know that one is miserable. …
“All these same miseries prove man’s greatness. They are the miseries of a great lord, of a deposed king. …
“We are not miserable without feeling it. A ruined house is not miserable. Man only is miserable. Ego vir videns. (Lam. 3:1)“

• Blaise Pascal, Thoughts (thought numbers 397-399)

Most people might argue that because we find ourselves miserable, we are not that “great,” but Pascal is observing that a tree and a house, no matter what shape they are in, cannot be miserable.

This is part of that “made in God’s image” thing.  Some animals may have sentience in that when they have an injury, the pain associated with that injury is important to them, as some scientists have speculated based on behaviors while they are in pain, but man has sentience beyond that.  We are aware of our emotions, and we have a wide range of expressions of those emotions.  We have a variety of words that express that range of emotions.  Considering language and the high degree of sentience that only mankind has, we find things that cannot be explained by any level of evolution, which deals only with matter.  Sentience and the sentience to know we have sentience and language have no mass, no calorific value.  They are contained in the mind, which is not exactly the brain, the mind going beyond to consider things beyond matter and energy.

This is the second Pascal discussion that talks about misery, but this one is on a philosophical level.  Of the three things Pascal suggested as being miserable, only man was miserable.  Yet, a tree is a living thing, a house, not so much.

So, in comparing mankind to a tree, we are not saying that living things can be miserable.  Indeed, many things may be in a miserable state, but they do not have the consciousness to understand the state that they are in.

A house is not a living thing, but someone might look at a ram shackled house and feel miserable, knowing that with a lot of work, it might be a home again, but then, it might be easier to level the house to the ground and start over.  Yet, the house was not miserable.  We became miserable looking at it.  We can paint a room in the house and our spirits are improved although the house, as a whole, is still messed up.

All of this points to Psalm 139:14, that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

While we can be miserable, we can turn to God, the source of true and pure Joy.  We can be Joyful in times of sorrow and suffering.  When we know that a loved one who has passed was a strong believer, we know that we will see them again.

These are treasures that God gives us here, on the earth that has been flawed by sin.

Are you miserable right now?  It is not much solace to know that you have the capacity to be miserable that other earthly creatures do not have, but when we are with our Lord in Heaven, He will wipe away every tear.  And those tears will dry here on earth as well.

For while we have the capacity to be miserable, we can be Joyful.  In the meantime, we have Hope that the transition from misery to Joy is a short one.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.