Fatalism, and subsequent despair, are never distant temptations.
The way in which Steinbeck ends his "Grapes of Wrath" is so unsettlingly inconclusive; there is no tidy resolution or victory in sight. The central characters begin with the suffering and displacement of the Oklahoma "dust bowl", and end in the midst of the suffering and displacement of California floods. Along the way, the old die, the young suffer, the family unit erodes, babies are stillborn; poverty, uncertainty and hunger define each passing day. The only enduring lesson, it seems, is that those who survive and remain simply continue in their resolution to do what must be done, in the struggle of the present.
The unsettling greatness of this novel lies in this unblinking testimony to the truth of the human condition: there is no great victory to be expected, no final hill to be climbed and conquered; the life we are given to live in this present age consists of travail in perpetuity, from generation to generation. Those few who do achieve "success" and security in their lifetimes, as the world conceives of such things (conspicuous wealth, fame, etc.) more often than not seem doomed to Solomon's despair; the loss of purpose to one's life and days.
While most, given the choice, would choose death by ennui before starvation, it remains clear that humankind is born for a fight and suffers in the absence of one. Of course, we suffer in the MIDST of one, too! It would seem that the Dread Pirate Roberts tapped into something enduringly true when he said, famously, "Life IS pain, princess..."
Ann Voskamp puts it this way: "This is the deal we all get: guaranteed suffering. We all get it. It is coming, unstoppable, like time."
There is no victory in this life that is not, ultimately, fleeting. We are foot soldiers in battles too close to the ground for us to truly know - personally and experientially - the true scope and trajectory of the war. A battle won, a battle lost; there will always be another, just ahead. The great lie of the Enlightenment and its myth of "progress" is that we would one day, inevitably, progressively, find ourselves in a place where this would no longer be true. Hence, the great, existential disappointment of post-modernity. The toys may be better, but the suffering remains.
Of course, faith is the belief and trust that there IS an ultimate victory at work in the world: the victory of Christ over death, darkness and suffering. This victory which offers to claim us and one day to lay all battles to rest; swords, beaten into plowshares. But I have to wonder, can this tormented paradox which is humanity - born for a fight, while hating it all the while - ever content itself to breathe the air of eternal peace, SHALOM, again? Can it be true that there is an ultimate victory that truly, eternally, satisfies?
Perhaps that is why Hell must be real; there must exist a realm where those who cannot abide to breathe the atmosphere of shalom and eternal satisfaction might find refuge from that light. It seems to me that many might choose tears and pain and suffering, given the option. The alternative simply seems so inconceivably foreign, it's hard to know how the heart might respond.
Lord, help my unbelief!