Karma's tentacles

I did an Internet search for the meaning of karma. Most of the results had the same basic definition -  cause and effect. You control the outcome by your actions, temporally and even eternally.

At face value, there is a small grain of truth to this. If I live heedlessly beyond my means, there are serious consequences for my actions. I will run out of money and be impoverished. But I could be very frugal and save as much as I can. What if the stock market and banks collapse as they did in the 1920s? My frugality will not overcome the bad decisions of both people and institutions. My responsible actions don't have the power to overcome the irresponsibility of others especially those who wield more power and authority to begin with. Thus simplistic cause and effect doesn't take other players and forces into account.

Job's friends fell into karma-like thinking. To them, Job's suffering was obviously the result of something he did that displeased God. Therefore, the sooner he confessed, the sooner he would get out of his predicament. But there were other forces definitely at work outside of Job's control, though not outside of God's. Would his friends have been more empathetic if they knew what was going on behind the scenes? I don't know, but even knowing what is in the Word, we forget too.

This is no-brainer with the prosperity gospel. "If you had enough faith, you would be healed, rich, prosperous, happy, etc." But we can reject the prosperity gospel and succumb to a more subtle, lite version that can worm its way in. "If you educate your children in this manner, they will always follow the Lord. If you behave this way in your marriage, your spouse will never stray or be abusive. If you use/don't use certain medical protocols you won't get sick..." But in these cases, there are people and forces outside of our control. We can't save anyone or change their hearts. Wise lifestyle choices can't add a cubit to our life span. We are at God's mercy to protect us from without and from within because we aren't God.

I ran into another tentacle of karma in my recent reading that I hadn't considered before. In Lies My Teacher Told Me, James Loewen critiques 12 American history high school texts. One of those critiques is treating history as a "simple-minded morality play." So if this country gives everyone an equal chance to be all they can be, go from rags to riches, and pull one's self up by one's own bootstraps, you can too! But what if you don't make it? Loewen writes, "The optimistic approach prevents any understanding of failure other than blaming the victim."¹ 

Jonathan Walton also touches on this same idea in Twelve Lies That Hold America Captive. My success, according to the American dream, "is all about me. Ultimately I didn't just work hard, I am actually better than those who didn't. Conversely if we're all equal and I fail, I am to blame and left to wonder what things I need to work on to get what I want by myself. And ultimately, if I'm not able to attain those things, then other people must be better than me."² Which leads to a very familiar conclusion - "The outcome is my fault or my credit at the end of the day."³

Karma, Job's friends, the prosperity gospel, PG lite, and meritocracy first reminded me of Pelagianism. But really these are all tentacles that go back to the same source - the original lie of "You will be like God." Thus it's on me to make or break my life. On the prosperity gospel/delusional side, God is at my bidding to give me what I want, which really sets man higher than God. But if I realize how much is outside of my control, then I'm sunk. There is no one to turn to for help. No mercy, no compassion, and the weight of being in charge of my own existence. This is impossible for all finite creatures including those made in God's image.

Carrying this burden is crushing, and it can be a battle to combat the lie that it's all up to me to do it right or else. But it is equally harmful to place this burden on others. Like Job's friends I may not have the full picture but assume that I do. Thus rather than empathizing, I may pass judgment. "You should have known more, done better, been... like God." And the irony is that in order to demand this from someone else, I am assuming my own omniscience as though I have full knowledge of the inner workings of another person's mind, heart, and history.

Where have karma's tentacles crept into my thinking about my life and the lives of others? What about you?

1. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, James Loewen, Simon & Schuster, 1996.
2. Twelve Lies That Hold America Captive and the Truth That Sets Us Free, Jonathan Walton, IVPress, 2019, pg. 63.
3. Ibid. pg. 65.
Photo credit: Eric Kilby from Somerville, MA, USA [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)]