The Disappearing Post Trick
This afternoon I put up a post angrily criticizing a woman in my area for certain remarks she made to the local media. Earlier this week she narrowly escaped being killed in a terrible car crash that claimed the lives of two others. She believes she survived the accident because God has a special plan for her. My initial reaction was one of anger, because her remarks implied that the people who died in the accident were less special than she. Jerry Chandler responded to my diatribe in a very thoughtful way and led me to reconsider. I decided I could not, in good conscience, leave the post up. In its place, I’d like to post what Jerry wrote. Take it away, Jerry:
It’s a coping mechanism.
“Why did I survive when these other people didn’t?”
For some, there more comfort and less terror in the concept that God was looking out for them that day rather then facing the fact that life and fate are extremely capricious things that don’t care if you’re good, bad, honest, vile, a saint or a sinner. I think it’s very confusing and somewhat terrifying to many people out there to live life without that safety blanket and when something like that hits them… Well, they fall back on the first thing that they were raised with to rationalize for themselves why something happened and why it happened the way it did.
Of all the expressions of faith in matters of life and death, this to me is one of the most harmless and less offensive. She’s not damning the other person for being on God’s crap-list or claiming that entire groups are going to die in horrible ways and got to Hell while she lives a long, happy and healthy life and goes to Heaven due to her superior lifestyle and special status in God’s eyes. I’ve met lots of those people. Hell, I’m in Virginia. One of the worst offenders in that group houses his business’s HQ and his University not far down the road from me.
I didn’t see this particular woman or how she said what you’re describing, but I’m betting she’s likely just as confused and looking for answers as she is relieved to be alive.
Thanks, Jerry. Want the blog? You might do a better job with it. 
March 10th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
It’s similar to the way that some people find far more comfort in conspiracy theories than in the obvious truth. It is somehow more comforting to think that a massive government cabal blew up the world trade towers than to accept that it was done by 13 men whose previous greatest achievement was the night they had sex with 3 goats. It’s better to believe that John F Kennedy was whacked by the CIA/FBI/Cubans/Mafia than by a man who should be the picture next to the word “loser”.
If death is truly so random it makes peopl ebegin to worry whether or not life is and we’d all like to think that we are part of Some Great Thing.
Your reaction was understandable. Your willingness to reconsider is what makes you the kind of person who SHOULD be blogging. Most bloggers could not be persuaded to re-examine their words if God Himself suggested it.
March 10th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Whenever I hear about someone talking like that woman, God’s special plan, etc. there’s always a big part of me that wants to say “Maybe God was just really pissed at the other guy and you got in the way.” I’m a little too polite to actually say it, though.
Anger is MY coping mechanism. Something gets in my way, I knock it down. Sounds like her way is a little healthier. In a situation like that, people generally don’t equivocate, they just say whatever’s in their head. Or their heart.
Jerry, I’m pulling for you and Jenn. I hope everything’s all right.
March 11th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Dude, keep the blog. I’d just drive people away from it with really boring and trivial thread headers.
Monday: Geez… Has the WWE replaced its entire creative staff with monkeys?
Tuesday: Why is House another repeat?
Wednesday: Lost blew tonight but did you see what they did on Mythbusters?
Thursday: Am I the only one who thinks that, like with Brimstone, John Glover is the best part of Smallville?
Friday: Geez… Has the WWE replaced its entire creative staff with monkeys?
March 11th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
Thus revealing why I myself don’t have a blog. Besides, the lack of hits I’m sure I’d get would just be depressing.