It's beyond warm today and I wonder how any of us will make it through another long summer. There is nothing redeeming about this season in the desert... and from this day forward, everyone I run into will helplessly talk about how unbearable the weather is and I will of course agree. Here in the valley, with regards to small talk, climate tops the list of most common topics, that and how bad the Cardinals are playing this year. But, everybody really does talk about weather, all the time, everywhere... and now that I pointed it out to you (you fellow Phoenicians), it's likely that you will begin to notice it even more, funny things our brains...
Speaking of brains, I've had a great deal to think about lately. I suppose that was implied in my previous entry...
I am starting to wonder if doubt is so much more than I initially thought it was and what I mean by that is I wonder just how broadly sweeping the consequences of doubt may be. As I wrote in my last entry, I am wrestling with real questions, fundamental ones. And what I'm finding is just how much it changes my interaction with reality. Life just feels so entirely different now, my interactions with other people, the sunset, music, the bible... and I wonder if doubt might actually be a state of being...not simply an emotional or cognitive response... although one might argue that our emotional and cognitive responses do alter our states of being... well, so much for that.
In many ways, I feel as though I am in a surrealist state...everything is dream-like. Not necessarily in that things don't seem real...but rather that nothing seems to make much sense anymore.
I haven't wanted to be alone much and so I've found myself consistently with company since the difficult incident last monday. And I've been with kind hearted believers who have tried to encourage me and be there for me... naturally we talk about God and Christ and attempt to piece things together through a Christian perspective... Very naturally do the ideas and words flow through me...because it has been my life for so many years now...I have been engulfed in this culture with it's theological terms, memory scriptures, and C.S. Lewis quotes. Truthfully though, at the end of a conversation, I feel to a certain extent, insincere...because these days, I'm wondering if God is real...if there ever was a man named Jesus who was crucified... and if it means anything to us.
I visited the Christian bookstore yesterday with my friend Ludlum. We had been there some time browsing the shelves when my companion came across a devotional book for Nascar Dads. No joke. We didn't have time to open it, but I'd be quite suprised if there weren't at least one chapter dedicated to "Pit Stop Prayers." Then we ventured to the clothing section and found an entire line of Christian shirts, belts, jewelry, even shoes...
As I was checking out, the girl at the counter tried to sell me on a presale Third Day cd which included a discounted price and a t-shirt. Ludlum came over to me with a sheepish grin handing me an energy bar labeled "Noah's Nuggets." And I started to think that Christians have this entire subculture, this bubble of sorts... now I'm not knocking Nascar dad's doing quiet time to racing metaphors, or shoes featuring Jesus fish on them or even Noah's delectable nuggets... I just started wondering how much of my Christian faith was real and sincere and how much of it I might hold onto because of it's implications to my identity...
Last night, I attended a group bible study and at the conclusion of the message, we broke into smaller sections of 3 or 4. Within these intimate meetings, we shared personal struggles of forgiveness and then offered up prayers for one another... and I did it, and I think I meant what I said...but I just wasn't sure if it was heard by anyone, or worth any more than the change of sound pressure resulting from my larynx... I started thinking that when we pray aloud for others it often sounds like we are actually talking to the people around us, just with our eyes closed and with a more official voice and again I wanted to know what of my faith was real...
Maybe my faith is being "tried by fire," as Peter wrote in his first epistle.
Fire has long been the object of great wonder and beauty; one of the four elements that puzzled the ancient world, a mysterious chemical reaction of energy that provides warmth and light. On a recent camping trip, the guys in my small group filled their cameras with pictures of the camp fire... and though we had all seen dozens of them before, we often found ourselves huddled around the warmth, enamored by the colors and fluid shapes, the crackling of fuel and nostalgic smell of wood burning.
But fire is dichotomous...
The Ancient Greeks defined the element by opposing categories. Fire was creative and associated with many of the gods and goddesses, but it was also destructive like that of Hades. I recall some years ago watching in wonder at the subdued glow of a mountain side that was burning...It was an amazing sight... and the deep orange embers pulsated against the dark of night took my breathe away...but it was also quite devastating.
This fire that Peter alludes to is fierce, wild, searing...and perhaps even all consuming.
And I wonder in this life, if we must all walk through a furnace, if even my severe doubts are a part of something true, but simply beyond my comprehension... and I wonder if I will endure to the end to find that the flames have produced something meaningful and of great worth. I wonder when the heat has settled and the dense pile of cinders washed away, if there will be nothing left or if I will find a tiny grain of gold so pure that it no longer resists the light...
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