Noah’s Trauma
I’m praying for health care workers, nurses, doctors today. The Covid-19 Pandemic is taking a toll. And its not over. When it is “over,” it will likely not be over for many of them even if it is over for us.
If you are not sure that our health care teams are under a rising and constant stress from the pandemic just a run a search for it. The articles and the stories of tragedies among health care providers are there in many countries.
Recently a parent in our congregation sent me an email with their child’s inquiry. “Why did Noah curse his child?” I had an answer but I framed it within my belief informed by exposure to trauma based care.
I think Noah was wrong; he made a mistake. Even though God called him and God preserved his life, Noah may have carried in his body the mysterious weight of surviving and of leading through the flood. Noah a man of the soil (Genesis 9:20) knew what he was doing when he planted the vineyard, waited a few years to harvest the grapes, and then made wine.
This builder of the ark had become a man of the sea. Where he may have once felt in control on life on land, he experienced an utter lack of control on the seas of judgment. The experience was likely traumatic. Yes, I wonder, what grace from God was available to him. But Noah, even a few years after the flood, after running a ship made for survival, “became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent.”
Ham discovered his father, and told his bothers Shem and Japheth. They covered their father with a blanket, but only after walking in backwards, so they would not see their father naked. When Noah “awoke from his wine” he heard what the “youngest had done to him” and cursed him.
I think Noah’s response is actually a reaction to shame and he brought God into it. Ham stumbled into the moment that Noah had created. I think surely Noah was still working out what he had lived through.
The write of Hebrews reminds us that by faith, “in holy fear” Noah “built an ark to save his family.” (Hebrews 11:7) But what was he doing by faith now?
I’m not sure of all the motivations for health care providers. But perhaps most entered in order to save us. The pandemic has complicated and frustrated that desire. They would like to keep us out of the hospital so they affirm and calls us to the preventative actions we can take. Frustration rises when we don’t act like the pandemic flood is real. And then there is the actual care. The doors of their ship, the hospital, are still open for the sick and dying. So we go and some of us are restored to health.
This pandemic will draw to the close. I’m concerned for the health care providers who have carried the weight of our survival. What safe places of refuge will be created for their soul care?
Dear Health Care Providers, My neighbourhood doesn’t do the 7 O’Clock Health Care Provider Salute anymore. But I haven’t forgotten you. I’m praying for you today.