Why Did God Make Skunks?

I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. There was an incident.

At three-thirty in the morning, standing in a kitchen that smells like burning tires soaked in onion juice, one begins to develop opinions about creation.

And there they were. Two dogs, tails wagging, oblivious to the evidence of the crime they brought into the house.

And here I thought I was just letting them out to "potty" so they'd stop huffing and I could go back to sleep.

But somewhere out beyond the porch light, a small black-and-white creature waddled back to its nest, entirely pleased with itself.

All creatures of our God and King.

Really, Lord? All of them?

It is an old hymn, borrowed from an even older saint. Francis of Assisi looked at the sun, the moon, the wind, the water, the bird, the insect... and called them brother and sister.

He did not, so far as we know, write a verse for Sister Skunk.

But if the theology of the Canticle holds, she belongs there too, somewhere between the fire and the earth, singing her stinky little verse before the "alleluias."

The question is not really about skunks, of course (though for me, that's exactly the question this morning).

The question is about everything we cannot see the point of. The things we're more inclined to call by unspeakable words than "brother" or "sister." Mosquitoes. Ticks. Snakes. That coworker.

There's an entire catalogue of what appears, to at least my tired eyes at three-thirty in the morning, to be nothing but a pointless nuisance.

Why did God make the things that stink?

It probably wasn't because, in His Almighty foreknowledge, He was looking forward to Pepé Le Pew cartoons.

 

The Goodness of Things We Do Not Like

In the first chapter of Genesis, God looks at what He spoke into existence and calls it "good." Six times.

Then, at the end of the sixth day, he looks at all of it together and calls it ”very good” (Genesis 1:31).

Not “mostly good, apart from a few regrettable species.” There's no little warning. He doesn't say, "had a few failed experiments along the way, please just put up with them."

None of that. He calls it all "very good." Somehow. All of it.

This is only a problem for us. We just don't experience creation that way. We experience it as a mixed bag. Some of it delights us, and some of it literally stinks.

But here's the thing. Why do we assume that the goodness of creation is somehow measured by our convenience? Why do we think that, just because we were made in God's image, everything was made for our delight?

A skunk, doing what a skunk does, is being good.

It is being exactly the small striped theologian God appointed it to be.

The offense is not in the skunk. The offense is in the collision between the skunk and my dog, and between my dog and my sofa, and between my sofa and my nose.

Goodness, in the biblical sense, is not the same as pleasantness.

Saint Augustine wrestled with this in the Confessions. His conclusion is a little hard to swallow, but it's true: :To thee there is nothing whatsoever evil, and not only to thee, but to thy whole creation also, because there is nothing without which can break in, and corrupt that order which thou hast appointed it" (Confessions VII.13).

Creation, taken as a whole, is absolutely good. It all holds together. It is only when we take one piece of it and shake our fists at it, at three-thirty in the morning, that we cry foul.

Sometimes, very foul. *gagging*

 

The Humility of Being One Creature Among Many

There is something else going on when we ask why God made skunks. We are, quietly, assuming that the world was arranged for us. That every creature ought to justify its existence by its usefulness or pleasantness to human beings. That we are the point.

Scripture is less certain about this than we are. God made us in His image to care for creation, not to demand that creation bend itself to our every fleeting desire.

When the Lord answers Job out of the whirlwind, he does not explain suffering. He gives a tour of creation, and much of what he shows Job is useless to humans. Wild donkeys. Ostriches. Sea creatures that most humans never encounter. He asks Job, ”Who has let the wild ass go free? Who has loosed the bonds of the swift ass, to which I have given the steppe for its home, the salt land for its dwelling place?” (Job 39:5-6).

The wild ass exists because God delights in the wild ass. Not because it plows anyone’s field.

The skunk exists because God delights in the skunk. For some reason.

This is a hard word for us. We would like the universe to be a well-ordered kitchen. Every ingredient, every utensil, there to serve whatever we're cooking up.

Instead, we live in a wild garden, tended by a Gardener whose tastes are broader than ours.

He made things because he wanted to. He made skunks because, apparently, a world with skunks in it is more beautiful, more textured, more alive than a world without them. He is not obligated to explain this to us.

Julian of Norwich, holding a hazelnut in her hand, understood: "In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it, the second is that God loves it, the third is that God keeps it" (Revelations of Divine Love, Chapter 5).

If God made it and loves it and keeps it, then it is not our place to demand that it justify itself.

 

What the Skunk Teaches

Here is where the skunk becomes a small spiritual director. Because the world is full of things I did not choose, would not have chosen, and cannot escape.

Even hiring an exterminator is but a temporary solution. Because he's not going to deal with all the skunks, all the ticks, all the field mice who get into my house.

Circumstances. People. Sufferings. Interruptions. Losses. Situations that spray my doings in the middle of the night and leave our house smelling worse than feet pulled from waterlogged boots.

The temptation is to spend my life demanding that God explain why.

Why this illness, why this difficult situation, why this person, why this loss, why this delay.

But God answers me without explanations. He answers me, in small ways, the same way He answered Job: inviting me to see the world He made that's significantly bigger than my situation, or my inconvenience.

 

Living With the Stink

So what do we do, practically, with the skunks in our lives?

I'm not going to say tomato paste and vinegar. But that's a part of it, too. I'm glad God made those things, too. If for no other reason, than to help me deal with the skunk.

First, though, and more significantly than the "deodorizer," resist the urge to divide creation into things you approve of and things you do not. Today, more than ever, I'm tempted to do that. But it's above my pay grade. The Gardener knows what He is doing.

Second, when something stinks, be honest about it. Do not pretend it is a rose. Not everything can be a rose. The garden wouldn't be so beautiful it were adorned with a single color. Job did not pretend all was well. The Psalms do not pretend everything's peachy. It's not pious to imagine that the entire world is full of unicorns and rainbows. In one instance, it's just imaginary. In the other, well, rainbows wouldn't come if it didn't also rain. You don't get a rainbows in creation without the storms. So, without pretending all things are pleasing or pleasant, recognize that pleasantry isn't the telos of creation. Name everything as a part of a larger world that is, on the whole, very good.

Third, wash. There are God-given remedies. Even for skunks. But there are also God-given remedies for the soul that is exposed to the stench. And while sin is not "good," it's an aberration in creation, God went above and beyond what we see in Genesis 1-2 to give us a remedy for that, too. Pray. Worship. Cling to Christ and meditation on His passion, death, and resurrection. Receive His grace in the sacraments.

There's also something spiritual, something holy even, about taking a walk. Enjoying a cup of coffee in the day following a night interrupted by an encounter between dogs and a skunk. The stench does fade (right now I'm accepting that by faith).

Often, though, the stench fades more quickly than our bad attitude about it.

And fourth, when you find yourself awake at three-thirty in the morning, add a verse to the hymn. All creatures of our God and King, even the ones that kind of stink! Even the ones I would not have made! Alleluia! (resist the urge to add a "or whatever" after Alleluia).