Magic 8 Ball

Some of these thoughts go back a couple years to a reflection on Isaiah 8:19-22. You don't really have to read the verses to understand this post - These thoughts are a reflection inspired by my reading rather than a direct interpretation of that reading.

I used to read about the "wizards that peep and mutter" and dismiss the section as irrelevant to my own life because I don't have a problem with turning to sorcery (or palm readers or tarot cards or astrology or Ouija boards) for help with my problems or answers to my questions. Then one day it occurred to me that even if in our modern society we are far removed from the mystical tendencies that may have plagued ancient Israel, there's still a basic human tendency to seek for signs from sources that cannot speak.

It’s like our fascination with Magic 8 balls. We know perfectly well that it’s all random, and I don’t think most of us would ever seriously consult a Magic 8 ball for any matter of consequence. But we are drawn to the idea that something so small and simple could give us a valuable answer, that the words appearing in the little dark bubbly window could actually mean something. That when five permutations of the question, "Should I put my effort into pursuing a relationship with _____?" consistently produce variations on “yes, absolutely,” then maybe we ought to consider the possibility that we ought to do something other than sit there pining away.

It’s not just Magic 8 balls, of course. All of us played some form of MASH when we were in grade school, or on a bus for a high school or college trip, giggling at our excursion into the immaturity of the childhood in order to cover up the fact that we’re taking it just a little more seriously than we let on. We have picked petals off of flowers to determine whether he or she "loves me or loves me not," have jumped when the song we’ve been thinking about comes on the radio as we turn the ignition and pondered the significance of this chance event, and have flipped open our scriptures at random several times in a row in the hopes that the next verse we see will tell us everything we need to know.

In some ways it’s hard to draw the line between sign-seeking and revelation. Sometimes the scriptures will fall open to exactly what we need to hear. Sometimes a chance occurrence will push us to action and we will later come to believe that the occurrence was not chance after all. Sometimes, I think, God does send messages in the little details of life, if only because he knows that our own confused thought processes need a little push in the right direction. The problem, though, is when we let these little things supersede God as sources of information and direction, when we come to have more faith in what the Magic 8 ball tells us than in the all-too-often vague guidance of the Holy Ghost, when we let ourselves become frustrated because God will not tell us what to do no matter how much we plead faith in the injunction, "Ask and ye shall receive," and try to force an answer out of Him through other means, forgetting that agency is a crucial part of the point to our existence.

But if being forced to decide on our own and deal with the sometimes painful consequences (even when we thought we were doing good!) is generally frustrating and difficult, seeking guidance from sources other than God is inherently unfulfilling. Such signs are immediately satisfying, but ultimately meaningless. In my more cynical moments I feel that life is a lose-lose situation—you can choose to seek for meaning and happiness in a world that ultimately cannot give you either, or you can choose to follow God and learn that the path is still not easy, that bad things still happen when you do what you are supposed to, that good intentions backfire more often than not, and that most of the time God is going to leave it up to you anyway. And this knowledge becomes all the more frustrating when you know that that’s how it’s supposed to be in the first place. The easy answers don’t mean anything, and the meaningful answers seem almost impossibly hard.

It is when I begin to feel this way, when my scriptures keep opening to the war chapter in Alma instead of some red-underlined verses that I have forgotten, when answers are not coming and God is not putting things nicely in place, and when I am at the very edge of my frustration with my own imperfections and helplessness, that I will somehow be suddenly reminded that sometimes God really does step in. Sometimes He does tell me what to do, or put people or events in place to help me pull out of whatever care has me in its grips, or put a song or scripture or idea or idea in my head. And most importantly, I am reminded over and over again that even when I don’t see His hand, He will almost always let me see the big picture retrospectively, and give me small comforts in the meantime before I am ready or able to recognize the big picture.

This is something the Magic 8 ball can never do.