It is natural, I suppose, in the midst of a pandemic for there to be a little pandemonium. which literally means “wild and noisy disorder or confusion” or simply, “uproar”. Interestingly, ‘Pandaemonium’ is also the capital of Hell in John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost. While Heaven in the poem is a place of beauty and reason, The games and debates of the demons in hell never have an end, and they are all corrupt. The analogy may be a bit harsh, but the endless debates I’ve seen recently on facebook seem analogous to this– endless and pointless in many cases. The pandemic seems to have brought on Pandaemonium– both in terms of noisy disorder and confusion, and in terms of endless pointless debates.
We gain some insight into the causes of the disorder and Chaos from Satan himself when he says, “Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell” and this again seems relevant in the recent endless debates in our contemporary Pandaemonium of facebook etc– frequently I am myself the cause of this wild adn noisy disorder and confusion because I have let myself get sucked into the fear of the uproar.
Of course we have much to be concerned about– thousands are dying, the statistics are going up dramatically, etc. And there are some opportunities for us to help– including financially at least, even if we feel obliged to self-isolate. But what is tempting to do with our spare time and energy is to analyze and pursue knowledge and data to gain control over the situation. Of course we should be properly informed, and knowledge can be power and help us, but an endless pursuit of knowledge for the sake of trying to settle our souls by giving an illusion of control is actually a source of Pandaemonium which we ourselves create for ourselves (and others via facebook, etc).
The traditional story of the fall is that humans thought knowledge could provide power and make us like God. As Lev Shestov the Russian existentialist analyzed it though, the certainty which we gained through knowledge left us in chains because we could no longer hope and have faith in what we couldn’t understand. That which we thought would bring freedom instead brought chains– the opposite of our plans. So to, our plans to create for ourselves certainty in these difficult times can often bring about the opposite. All the eurodite proclamations meant to somehow give stability end up becoming part of the inferno of our own Pandaemonium…
So while this is not a call to do nothing at all, I still find that it is very important to be still, to let things be, and to remember that this too shall pass. To release things into the hands of God and to not take it all upon myself is the very essence of acting in faith in these circumstances. I pray that I will be able to do that more and better in days ahead. I pray the same for all of us…
May God have mercy on us.
Andy Gustafson
Simple Free Church 