The Weight of Anointing

In his second autobiography, Always Looking Up, Michael J. Fox spends a few pages on his connection to Christopher Reeve.  “Well-meaning people, struggling to make sense of the senseless,” Fox writes, “assured Chris that the accident had happened to him for a reason, which only added another burden to his physical, emotional, and financial load—the weight of anointing” (page 83).

Few of us have traveled the path from Superman to quadriplegic—or even from Alex Keaton to Parkinson’s sufferer and advocate.  I wonder, though, how many who struggle with the meaning of personal tragedy have also felt “the weight of anointing.”  We humans are creatures who crave meaning and construct it at nearly all costs.  We will settle for bad explanations of events rather than entertain the possibility that no real explanation is available.  “For everything there is a season,” says the Preacher in Ecclesiastes, “and a time for every matter under heaven…”

On the one hand, I can understand the resistance Fox expresses in carrying the weight of anointing.  It may be a fine thing that God or the Universe provides us with inspiring heroes who persevere under the worst circumstances.  I would prefer, however, to nominate someone else for that honor—especially if this role means that someone I love has to die.

On the other hand, I know the power that comes from believing that things “happen for a reason.”  That simple assertion has been a life-saver for people in recovery from a variety of addictions, for people recovering from natural disasters, and for people living through all manner of personal loss and pain.  The trust that somehow my loss and grief fit into a larger scheme of meaning and purpose—that confidence can get me through a lot of dark days and even darker nights.

One of the elements of hope is having ends that give life meaning and purposes that matter.  The clearest testimony to this reality remains Viktor Frankl’s experiences in the Nazi death camps, memorialized in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning.  He reminds us of Friedrich Nietzsche’s assertion that we can survive any “how” with a sufficiently powerful “why.”  It was those who maintained hope in the camps who were the most likely to survive.  And that hope was always rooted in some meaning or purpose greater than the life of the individual.

I find life far too confusing to think that I can know “the” purpose for specific events in my life.  Sometimes things become clearer in retrospect.  Kierkegaard reminds us that we live life forward but understand it only in hindsight.  Even then things are often murky.  It is one thing to suggest that an event has “a” purpose.  It is quite another to suggest that our existence has purpose.

Romans 8:28 lends itself to a variety of translation possibilities.  The one that seems most helpful to me is actually relegated to a footnote in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.  “God makes all things work together for good,” Paul actually writes, “for those who love God and are called to carry out God’s purpose.”  That is not about the weight of anointing—at least not for us.  The Christian Gospel declares that we are part of God’s purpose and that in the midst of tragedy and loss, the Creator and Lover of all will bring good both now and in the end.

So my concern is no longer with the reason why things happen to me or anyone else.  I am concerned with how I respond.  The God I worship is making good come out of even the most horrible tragedies.  Will I collaborate in that mission to make good come of out bad things?  That’s purpose enough for me.