Elizabeth offers a meditation on joy, based on a passage in Job.

Elizabeth Palmberg is the daughter of one science fiction fan and one Presbyterian elder who is federally licensed to dispense medicinal marijuana (although she would like to point out that he, a glaucoma specialist, only prescribes it in the less than .1% of cases in which it works better than eyedrops). She grew up in St. Louis, MO and Miami, FL, with an older and younger sister, both of whom have waist-length hair.

Her long history of meddling with other people's writing began in her first weeks of college; she escalated from editing the papers of hapless friends to editing (as a tutor) the papers of people she didn't even know. Eventually, she went on to doctoral work in English at Cornell University, where the unsuspecting administration allowed her to teach a first-year writing seminar on "Scary Stories of the Nineteenth Century." While at Cornell, she dwelt in Flapdragon House, whose denizens enticed her into the shadowy underworld that is Lindy Hop. After seven years of "gradual school," she gained three letters to add to her name, and went off to teach for a year each at Kenyon College and Scripps College.

Although Victorian British literature is interesting, it turns out that social justice (particularly relating to economic globalization) is even more interesting. Ways in which people imagine economics kept winding their way into all her courses, including "Love Stories of the Nineteenth Century" and "The Clichés From Space: Gender and Science Fiction." In 2002, the Lord smote her upside of the head and instructed her to go seek a career working for a progressive Christian nonprofit.

She's found a home at Sojourners, first as an intern ("editorial assistant"), and now as an assistant editor. She's enthusiastic about (in descending order) Jesus, Sojourners' switch to monthly publication, and bittersweet chocolate.

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A Meditation on the Book of Job for a Chapel with the Theme of Joy

I'm going to give a meditation on a passage from the book of Job, which is a foolhardy thing for me to do, considering that many people in this room have advanced degrees in theology, whereas my interpretation of the book of Job comes from an offhand remark made by a guy I had a crush on in college. Nevertheless, I'll forge ahead.

The basic plot of the book of Job is this: God lets terrible things happen to a good man, Job. His friends come over and tell him that he must have done something unusually bad to have deserved such unusual suffering, and he says "did not," and they say "did so," and so on for several dozen chapters of wisdom literature, which is the "Deep Thoughts" genre of the Old Testament.

Eventually God comes over and says, "did not," and makes Job's friends repent. But first, God tells Job that there are some things in life that Job does not understand. God makes this point by referring to a bunch of sublime things, including the stars and the rain and the ocean. Among other things, God asks Job if he knows where the mountain goats and wild deer give birth, and right after the passage I'm going to talk about God will point out that even domesticated animals, such as the horse, are amazing and majestic.

But first, God has a few words to say about the ostrich. As context for this, I'd like to point out that, as you can see from the pictures in your program, the ostrich is the sight gag of the animal kingdom. Bear this in mind during the following slightly loose paraphrase of Job 39:13-18:

"The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully-which is a really goofy thing for them to do because, unlike (say) the stork, the ostrich is not real likely to achieve liftoff.

"Also, you remember how mountain goats are all sublimely mysterious in giving birth and hiding their young? Well, the ostrich has a somewhat different strategy. She leaves her eggs out on the ground. In the dirt.

"They are, well, liable to get trampled underfoot while they're sitting there.

"Although the ostrich has invested some serious labor into producing these eggs, her philosophy on the trampling issue is, 'Ah, what're you gonna do?'

"And there's a reason why the ostrich does this: she's really, REALLY stupid.

"In fact, God has not given her a lick of sense, and basically has made her the biggest natural fool in all of Creation.

"BUT -

"When she stretches out her wings to run,
she laughs at the horse and rider."

So there you have it. In the midst of solemnity, God puts an interval of goofy pleasure; in the midst of the sublime, the ridiculous. With the ostrich, God tells us that no wisdom literature is complete without its moment of pure and foolish joy.