Scripts for Our Lives

The story reads like a modern adventure novel (with slightly archaic language):

"Some in our house were fighting for their lives, others wallowing in their blood, the house on fire over our heads, and the bloody heathen ready to knock us on the head, if we stirred out. Now might we hear mothers and children crying out for themselves, and one another, "Lord, what shall we do?" Then I took my children (and one of my sisters', hers) to go forth and leave the house: but as soon as we came to the door and appeared, the Indians shot so thick that the bullets rattled against the house, as if one had taken an handful of stones and threw them, so that we were fain to give back."

This dramatic scene comes not from a modern novel, but from a captivity narrative written by a woman named Mary Rowlandson, who lived these events and even worse.  Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, published in 1682, is her account of being held captive for three months by members of the Wampanoag tribe during King Philip's War in 1676.

In this narrative, she recounts hunger and abuse in passages such as these:

"In this place, on a cold night, as I lay by the fire, I removed a stick that kept the heat from me. A squaw moved it down again, at which I looked up, and she threw a handful of ashes in mine eyes. I thought I should have been quite blinded, and have never seen more, but lying down, the water run out of my eyes, and carried the dirt with it, that by the morning I recovered my sight again.

The first week of my being among them I hardly ate any thing; the second week I found my stomach grow very faint for want of something; and yet it was very hard to get down their filthy trash; but the third week, though I could think how formerly my stomach would turn against this or that, and I could starve and die before I could eat such things, yet they were sweet and savory to my taste."

How does a person make sense of this kind of ordeal?

Rowlandson did what I believe many of us would do.  She drew from conventional perspectives, beliefs, and narratives to form a kind of rational "script" for her experience.

Take, for example, this intriguing passage from the first part of her narrative, in which she describes the attack on her village.

We had six stout dogs belonging to our garrison, but none of them would stir, though another time, if any Indian had come to the door, they were ready to fly upon him and tear him down.

Behind this statement lies an implicit question.  If the dogs typically seemed ready to attack a Wampanoag at the door, why on earth would they not have gone into defense mode in the midst of this full-force assault on the village?

Another incident from a later part of the narrative presents a similar question:

On that very day came the English army after them to this river, and saw the smoke of their wigwams, and yet this river put a stop to them. God did not give them courage or activity to go over after us. We were not ready for so great a mercy as victory and deliverance. If we had been God would have found out a way for the English to have passed this river, as well as for the Indians with their squaws and children, and all their luggage. "Oh that my people had hearkened to me, and Israel had walked in my ways, I should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries" (Psalm 81.13-14).

Today, we sometimes say that actions "speak for themselves," but actions are not words, and they are always open to interpretation.  Centuries after the events Rowlandson describes here, we commonly look to science for explanations of natural, social, and psychological phenomena.  For most of us, for example, an earthquake is the result of shifting tectonic plates, and an epileptic "fit" is the result of electrical activity in the brain.

Other phenomena are harder to explain, even in our scientific age.  Deja vu, UFOs, and other "Unsolved Mysteries" elicit different explanations from different people, often depending on their belief systems.

Judging from her words, we can safely assume, I think, that Rowlandson relied on her understanding of Christianity to make sense of the extraordinary events around her, even to explain the inexplicable.  Consider the following sentence, which comes immediately after the sentence about the dogs and constitutes her explanation of this mysterious phenomenon: "The Lord hereby would make us acknowledge his hand and to see that our Help is always in him."

Similarly, Rowlandson has this to say about part of the journey she made after the Wampanoags took her captive: "But the Lord renewed my strength still, and carried me along, that I might see more of His power; yea, so much that I could never have thought of, had I not experienced it."

Again, Rowlandson's understanding of Christianity provided the logic that helped her make sense not only of her ability to persevere through this ordeal, but also of the ordeal itself.  In her view, the Lord sustained her so that she could witness "His power" — something she believes she could not have fully appreciated without personally experiencing the effects of his sustenance.

All of this is not to say that Rowlandson was wrong.  Everything Rowlandson narrates here very well could be have been part of what she calls God's "strange providence."  Who am I or anyone else to say what is true of matters that may be beyond our perception?

What is interesting — and, I think, highly relevant to our own lives — is that Rowlandson found a rational explanation where one might not seem to exist, and she did so by relying on a script formed from her own belief system.

I hope you never have to suffer as Mary Rowlandson did.  Even in your lesser trials, may you find sustenance in your beliefs.