Inscrutable

in . scru . ta. ble/ adjective/ mysterious, unreasonable, unexplainable, incomprehensible

I’m sure more than a few of us have questions about the way things are in this world, things that  seem to be beyond our control. They may not relate in any way to major existential matters; nonetheless, they make us ponder.  Sometimes they focus on workplace occurrences or on  the breakup of a  relationship. They may even be  far out of our personal sphere, such  as the recent two volcanoes, spewing lava and suffocating ash and snuffing out lives. Such  things  sometimes puzzle us and nudge us to seek for answers,  and  they can create stress when the  answers evade us.

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Our word for this week  gives off  negative vibes. I have seen it used in tandem with the word  evil, as in “inscrutable evil,” which is quite a metaphysical  construct. But that pairing is understandable  enough since  evil–at  any rate its source and its reason for being–is  hard to explain. The Cambridge  Dictionary definition for inscrutable, which uses a phrase instead of just  single words, makes the concept  easier to grasp: “very difficult to understand or get to know.”  A person with an inscrutable smile may make you think twice before trying to form a relationship with him or  her.

I first saw the word in Countee Cullen’s exquisite  sonnet “Yet Do I Marvel,” and I have been intrigued by it ever since.  Cullen poses questions about a number of seemingly difficult-to understand situations in life; for instance,  ” why the little buried mole continues blind/ why flesh that mirrors Him  must someday die.” This second idea is  something most if not all of us wonder about. This question may be seen as a companion to the well-known one,  Why do  bad things happen to good people? God is kind, Cullen acknowledges, and if He chose to “quibble,” that is, to discuss His ways with us feeble mortals, He  could easily explain some of these puzzling things to us, but He doesn’t, so Cullen finds God’s ways inscrutable.  But when you think about it, there isn’t much of a puzzle concerning “why flesh that mirrors Him must die.” The answer is  clear enough. It is the Fall, as Gerard Manley Hopkins reminds us. However, I’m sure that wouldn’t satisfy the poet, and perhaps it doesn’t satisfy a lot of people today.

Recently, the  death of journalist Charles Krauthammer made a strong impact on his fellow journalists and on a lot of people who admire his writing. A measure of the high esteem in which he was held  emerged when the Washington Nationals baseball team observed a moment of silence in his honor before their game. Despite the handicap of paralysis (the result of an accident), Krauthammer graduated from Harvard University with a medical degree in psychiatry, changed careers, and went on to become a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist.  But  “flesh that mirrors Him” succumbed to cancer at age 68. Inscrutable?  We know that this kind of thing happens in our families, to members of our  church communities, and to our  friends who have excelled in their careers, but whose lives have been cut short by disease or some other difficult-to-understand circumstance. We are puzzled.

I am currently reading a book in which a young airline hostess dies when the flight she’s on crashes. She leaves behind a young son who is devastated by the death of his mother. The child doesn’t understand the loss of the only person he has, the only one who loves him, the one who is the center of his universe. To the  child, as well as to those who must help him navigate the road ahead, the loss is inscrutable.

In my book  Breaking Away, there is an episode with a “difficult-to-understand” situation. Dr. Lola McIntyre, a  major player on the  New Lebanon College campus, is walking to the library when she encounters the college president, with whom she has had a strong difference of opinion. He is  with an entourage of important- looking men. The president stops and greets her cordially and introduces her  to the visitors as one of the lights on the campus. He tells Lola that the men are there to look over the campus for possible investments.  Lola  tells the men they have come to the right place, a college that is rising in prestige and  academic strength. Then she adds a word about the strong values that the college maintains. Abruptly, the president’s mood and attitude change. He turns his visitors aside and continues on the tour.

Lola is left with a haunting feeling that something has gone wrong. She can’t understand the president’s sudden change in behavior.  To her, his action seems inscrutable, and for quite some time she struggles to find an answer. Weeks later when the president  enthusiastically announces to the faculty  that a group of businessmen from Pittsburgh had toured the campus and had found it just the place for investing in a mini mall, the light bulb comes on  for Lola.  She realizes that the president, who had been on a crusade to make the Christian campus secular and so win favor in higher academic circles and the wider community,  had brushed aside her reference to the  values-centered aspect of the college with its spiritual overtones,  fearing that her words could possibly sabotage his desire to have the men invest in the college.

As  Lola’s experience  shows,  some things that seem inscrutable may not be after all.  It’s just that “we know in part,” so that that which is perceived as inscrutable, in time, becomes explainable. This applies to even the big questions. We simply have to wait and be observant. We are fortunate to have the Word that admonishes us to “wait for the Lord.” When we marvel and  wrestle with hard-to-understand questions,  we must wait patiently for Him. He has all the answers.

Blessings,

Judith

Being alive means dealing. As long as you’re alive, painful things will happen.” Susan Taylor