The Story of Job

The following is based on a spoken storytelling I performed last Thursday, 21 October 2024 at an English storytelling event in Beijing. This is not an exact transcription of my performance and the piece was never written as a script, but the main points are all there. Also, be aware that I am writing for a spoken format and I’m doing my best to format the words in the manner in which I speak.

We’re going to get to the personal story in a second, but first I need to talk about the story of Job from the Judaeo-Cristian bible.

It’s a messed-up story.

See, it starts with God chilling at his house…I don’t know…his Holy Cloud, and he’s admiring all the glory He’s created, and He’s focused on this one guy, Job, because Job is a big fan of Jehovah. Like, enormous – Job loves everything God did, does, will do.

Now, to be clear, at the start of the story Job is living a nice life – he’s got money, wife, children, big house, herds of cattle and living the good life. But he’s humble, always praising and thanking God because Job knows he has been blessed, and works hard to do good with his wealth and help lesser fortunate citizens while, again, always praising God.

And God digs this. God is watching and shouts out, “Yo, Job – Jo is my Bro, man!” – for some reason in this story as I see God as a complete Bro-Boy. But back to the story – God is all, “This is tight – my creation of this world is doing good for a good person, and that good person is helping others, and everybody is happy and everyone loves Me, and that’s – well that’s just tight. Cool.”

And Satan stops by.

“Knock, Knock. Oh Jehovah? You home?”

“What? Oh, hey, Lucifer! What’s up my LusLus – come on in!”

“Uh, thank you – uh, Jehov-uh, JoJo. What are you doing, now?”

“Oh, you know, just admiring how awesome I am. You know, everyone’s in awe of me – it’s pretty cool. Kinda, Awesome.”

“Everyone’s in awe?”

“Yeah, like, look at this dude Job – he’s just digging life, and no matter what happens he is grateful that he gets to experience it.”

“Sure, but that’s because he has had such great fortune. Give him some trials, make him suffer, and see if he still praises you.” (The devil slowly snickers as the scene changes and I speak as the storyteller).

And we’re going to pause the folktale there for a moment because I’m going to tell you how just yesterday, I was able to share my storytelling project Who Am I, Again. It’s a piece that shares stories of Traumatic Brain Injury focused around my experience with brain injury, and I was doing this as part of a charity event.

So with that going on, I’ve been thinking a lot about brain injury and how fortunate I was to have had such a successful recovery. These thoughts were on my mind about two weeks ago when I was driving my e-bike to the school where I work, and I pass an ambulance – there – and a man just over there lying still in the middle of the road – it was pretty clear he had been hit by something. He wasn’t covered, so I hope that’s a good sign and he was only unconscious and not dead, but I could not tell from his body, lying still on the street.

I drove half a block to get out of the way and pulled over to catch myself. Seeing this man brought questions of “Why did I survive?” And this brought memories of my friend Mike.

See, Mike and I were casual friends – not super close but both active in high school theatre and chorus – we just ran with different social groups. I was with the retro-artsy-hippies while Mike was a man of service, always looking to help in a practical, hands-on way. If something needed to move, Mike knew where to put it – if a machine broke, Mike knew how to fix it – if something needed built, Mike was there with hammer and nails proclaiming, “I see said the blind man as he picked up his hammer and saw.” And Mike carried this urge to help outside of his friends and outside of the school serving as a volunteer firefighter and EMT with the local fire brigade. Time and time again, Mike dedicated his life to helping and saving other people. He never sought adoration, but he was a small town, hometown hero.

I speak of Mike in the past tense because about three years after my brain injury, Mike was in a car accident with his sister – his sister lived, but Mike did not. I heard about his accident when I was working halfway across the country and was not able to attend his memorial, but I remember thinking, “Why? Why did I live after my accident when Mike did not. As a person, I’m not bad and I try to help others when I can, but Mike was Good. Really good. He went out of his way to serve others, to save others, and not for any reason except that’s what a good person does. What reason do I have to be living, to have healed so well, while Mike…

Excuse me, I’ve got to step away from that real moment and return to the folktale.

So the devil. The devil snickers and challenges God about Job, says God should make Job suffer and God is, “Oh yeah, watch this,” and snap – Job’s cattle begin to die. The wealth Job had spent his life accumulating begins to disappear. Storms come and destroy his house, his farm, all his material things – snap and they are going, going, gone.

The devil looks on, laughing…

And Job thanks God, “I have lived with such privilege for a time, now I must learn to live simply again. Thank you, God, for granting me the humility to return to my roots and find myself again by being absent of all the material distractions.”

And the devil sneers at God, “So you take away his things, what is that? It’s a temporary set back – he’s got this huge family and they’re going to help him out. He knows that everyone will gather round him for support and prop him up – he’ll be living good in no time.”

God responds, “Yo, you think he’s got family, does he now, huh?” and snap, a plague comes and Job’s sons begin to die, one, two, three – and his daughters one, two – all his relatives, the children he raised, until only he and his wife remain.

Job, what’s he do?

“God, you have taken those I raised away from me. The pain is great, more than I know how to express, but before you took them you gave me many years to know and love my children. To watch my family grow, to watch their many celebrations and experience joy with their success. I feel they have been taken too soon, but I am thankful for the time we enjoyed together.”

God smiles and the devil snarls, “Fine, he’s not sad, but his kids were all adults – they were moved out of the house, probably didn’t visit home enough, its not like they were there with him. They’re not really attached to him, like, like, like his body. I’m look at that body – the man’s fit, he’s a farmer, he’s got a beautiful wife – he’s going, what’s that euphemism – oh, he’s going to know his wife tonight and get right back to building a new family.”

God replied, “He does have a beautiful wife whom he loves dearly, but what if his body isn’t that good, and all that was known has to become unknown again.”

“But how can you do that?”

“Dude, I’m God.”

“That’s right JoJo. You’re God.”

“That’s right I’m God, watch this!” snap

I want to get back to that night of storytelling about brain injury.

See, what brought about that night was when I learned that a child my wife and I had taught was hit by a motorbike and received Traumatic Brain Injury. The goal was to share my story to both raise awareness about brain injury and collect donations. Initially the donations were meant to help with medical costs for the family, but sadly, the boy passed before the event could take place. The family asked that we still hold the event in remembrance of their child but give donations to a foundation that helps families in need, so we proceeded as planned.

The storytelling went well, and after the storytelling the floor was opened for anyone in the audience to share an experience – something about a medical challenge, brain injury or otherwise. And we didn’t know how this would go, but it felt appropriate for this event –

- And the response was stunning. For nearly ninety minutes the stage was filled with stories from the audience. Stories of fear, sorrow, danger – shared as a release of personal burden while simultaneously offering support to strangers. I’ve often heard that story begets story, and this was proof.

That said, some stories were really hard to hear, and I’ll get to that, but returning to our Folktale story,

God is all trying to show Satan just how humble Job is, and Satan is going, “Um hmm, um hmm. Try to hit him where it really hurts.”

And God goes, “Oh yeah, I will,”

and SNAP.

His wife. Job’s wife becomes sick, quickly deteriorates, and dies.

And Job – well, Job can take no more –

Job spoke – “God.
“God, what the fuck?
“I have shown my faith – show that I have faith in you while you ravage my life – you take away all that I worked for and still I praise you, you took people I love and I let you teach me, but now you took my wife. The woman I have given my life to – my purpose, my reason, why I work hard and sacrifice with joy, and now she is gone. God, how Dare you. You ignore my faith, my humility to You, my acceptance of your raging whims – I accepted until now – but Now, what purpose could this serve, how dare You.”

And God replied – descending to Earth with full Divine glory – bright lights, wind blowing back his hair, booming voice – “What is this, Job? You challenge me, how dare you. I am God, I know all, and what do you know? How can you dare challenge my reasons when you can hardly comprehend your limited existence? I am your God, why do you question me.”

And just like that, the story says that Job saw the error of his ways, returning to humility. “I’m sorry, I misspoke. I know I should not – cannot question you, my God. Please understand it was only the passion of a moment, and I will continue to feel blessed to serve you for as long as you allow me to remain in this mortal form, and I hope I may continue to praise you in the eternal realms beyond this world. Thank you for your love and the lessons you teach me.”

…

And that’s the story.

That’s it. And put simply, that story pisses me off. Here’s God bragging how awesome He is, and Satan just gives a tiny tug on Gods inferiority complex and God goes and ruins the life of one of his most faithful followers – just to prove to Satan, the fallen angel, that He can do anything He wants. Then, when challenged by the man who’s life was just devastated, God comes on like a…like a first-year university theatre student trying to justify his abstract movement theatre performance piece – “You just don’t understand it, man, because you don’t Know enough.” That’s what God did! What arrogance!

But we’ve got to go back to the recent story sharing night.

The mother of the child who passed came to this event and was the first to share her story with everyone who remained. Her bravery and strength in sharing this fresh tragedy was incredible and I will not repeat any of what she said because it is her’s to share. I cannot conceive of her experience, and my mouth trying to find words that can represent her magnitude of emotion seems false, but understand that her story was difficult.

However, what I did notice is that, as a way of trying to understand her situation – as a way of attempting to contain infinite pain and sorrow and guilt in her soul – a vain effort of comprehension – she has found a story. Again, this story is not mine to share, and it does not provide escape or ease what she faces, but for her understanding it does point to a reason.

And as I think about this story of Job, this story that shows a vein God who dares to hide arrogance behind a veil of power, it occurs to me that the reason for this story, and the reason the listener can allow it, is that this story is a STORY. It does not lessen the pain that Job – or the mother – feel. It does not diminish the no-sense in tragedy. It does not provide a valid excuse for it is just a story, but as a story it can grant a reason to what is unreasonable.