This post is actually part of a class assignment, and I've been putting it off for a while because I can't quite get things nailed down in my head.
The problem is that truth is like Jello.
Yes, Jello. This is an awesome metaphor that we talked about during our last class meeting. Truth is, in general, pretty solid. When you poke it hard enough, though, it wobbles and falls apart and makes a mess.
While I was in college I went through a really hard time of trying to figure out what I actually believed about God and my relationship to God as a human being and a Christian. I basically stripped everything I believed growing up and started over, carrying over some things, adapting others, and rejecting a few things completely. One of the things I have loved about seminary is having the opportunity to spend a lot of time thinking about my faith and organizing what I believe into some sort of coherence again.
Actually, it doesn't look too terribly coherent because the model I used is a web, but it's honest and I like it. Once I get pictures from my computer to be able to post to the blog again, I might put it up (the jello picture is from the internet so apparently that's ok). So when we come back to truth, the things that I hold as most true are the things at the center of my web, the things that are strongly connected to almost every other part. Those three main things are the existence of God, the person and divinity of Jesus, and love. Love is actually the most central to my faith- it's connected to every other piece of my web. And I like that, too.
The problem is that even that idea gets messy when you poke it too hard. Then you come up against the unfairness and pain of reality. The events this morning at my alma mater are a perfect example: a kid walks onto campus with a gun, fires a few shots, is chased into the library, fires a few more shots and kills himself. How do you explain things like that? Or worse, incidents where even more innocent people die? My devotional time this morning, hours before I heard the news, was actually on suffering and how we fit that into our faith. It was eerie, really. And the answer I came up with this morning is the same answer I have after spending most of the day worried and/or crying from sheer shock: I just don't know.
"I don't know," has become my answer to a lot of things lately. Hopefully I'll get some of those figured out by the time I leave seminary; some maybe I'll figure out before I die; some I'll just let God explain to me when we get there. It's kind of messy. But I think maybe I like that, too.
The problem is that truth is like Jello.
While I was in college I went through a really hard time of trying to figure out what I actually believed about God and my relationship to God as a human being and a Christian. I basically stripped everything I believed growing up and started over, carrying over some things, adapting others, and rejecting a few things completely. One of the things I have loved about seminary is having the opportunity to spend a lot of time thinking about my faith and organizing what I believe into some sort of coherence again.
Actually, it doesn't look too terribly coherent because the model I used is a web, but it's honest and I like it. Once I get pictures from my computer to be able to post to the blog again, I might put it up (the jello picture is from the internet so apparently that's ok). So when we come back to truth, the things that I hold as most true are the things at the center of my web, the things that are strongly connected to almost every other part. Those three main things are the existence of God, the person and divinity of Jesus, and love. Love is actually the most central to my faith- it's connected to every other piece of my web. And I like that, too.
The problem is that even that idea gets messy when you poke it too hard. Then you come up against the unfairness and pain of reality. The events this morning at my alma mater are a perfect example: a kid walks onto campus with a gun, fires a few shots, is chased into the library, fires a few more shots and kills himself. How do you explain things like that? Or worse, incidents where even more innocent people die? My devotional time this morning, hours before I heard the news, was actually on suffering and how we fit that into our faith. It was eerie, really. And the answer I came up with this morning is the same answer I have after spending most of the day worried and/or crying from sheer shock: I just don't know.
"I don't know," has become my answer to a lot of things lately. Hopefully I'll get some of those figured out by the time I leave seminary; some maybe I'll figure out before I die; some I'll just let God explain to me when we get there. It's kind of messy. But I think maybe I like that, too.
Amen. Someone once said, "suffering is a powerful hermeneutic" and i couldn't agree more.
ReplyDeleteGood job.
J