Honest Doubt

Honest doubt is different from an ironclad commitment to doubt itself. Honest doubt is painful, but its pain is active rather than passive, purifying rather than stultifying. Far beneath it, no matter how severe its drought, how thoroughly your skepticism seems to have salted the ground of your soul, faith, durable faith, is steadily taking root.

-- Christian Wiman, Harvard Divinity Bulletin

Country Road, Take Me Home...West Virgina

For more scenic views, click here....

Predictably Unpredictable

I must say that at the very least life is unpredictable. …so much so that I find myself wondering why I try to predict it. I think I really do spend more time and energy trying to anticipate life than I realize. I’m not even ready to say this is a bad habit, or even unhelpful. But I do think it is conspicuous that I work pretty hard at wondering about the future and its impact on me. The thought crossed my mind recently, ‘isn’t it obvious that no one knows the future?’ No one. So…why? Why do I live out of an anticipated future? I suppose I’m going to have to do the honest work of figuring what I mean by this question. For example, I think I often catch myself thinking thoughts like, ‘if I knew what was going to happen, I would…’. If I knew what was going to happen with the economy, I would spend my money differently. If we are headed towards some crisis, where the whole game is changed and money becomes only a commodity of the rich, I would…learn more about gardening, learn a more practical skill that I could use in trade for the things I need in life.

Another one, if I knew more about what was going on for my wife at any given moment, I would be more able to identify how I should ‘be’ towards her going forward. Or, if I knew what was lacking or what was growing in the person of my son, I would be more able to speak into certain things with some certainty. If I knew how long I was going to live, I would know how much money I need and I could think more effectively about the work I am doing, the way I spend my time. If I knew if my parents were going to live a long and healthy productive life, I would know more about how to orient myself towards them. If I knew that they would have an extended battle with mind-altering diseases, I would know more how to prepare. And on and on it goes, limited only by the hours of the day I am awake…and even then my ‘night mind’ seems to continue this effort.

But the obvious thing is, that despite all of the effort to anticipate things that feel important, I have really never known what was coming my way. And, I think in fairness to the whole dynamic of using the experience of my past to predict the future, I have never really seen clearly (if at all) what the past has taught be about what is coming. Even if there are some identifiable patterns them, each day and season, to one extent or another is (relatively speaking) a surprise. What are the implications of this? I suspect there are many, but I only now seem to be getting a glimpse of them.

In yesterday’s entry for example I awoke a mess, emotionally. Tossed around the room of my mind by the strangest of dreams, I yanked myself out of one only to discover how exhausted I had become supposedly ‘sleeping’. It was an undesired start to another day, weary of something before I even started it. ‘How will I make it through this one?’ was the unspoken question before me. But, all I could do was simply to roll out of bed and do the next obvious thing. In this case, brush my teeth.

I had wanted to buy donuts for my department at work, so I did that. I ate a couple myself. I had lots of meetings throughout the day. The weather was truly awesome. I went running, learned of the potential absence of all my children that evening, wondered out loud about a ‘date’ with my wife, learned that one child would be home after all, reached the pre-conclusion that the date I was now looking forward probably wouldn’t happen, discovered that my child’s plans reversed again, went to dinner with my wife, enjoyed great conversation and food, watched the movie ‘Fireproof’, and fell asleep again in the arms of a wife who really loves me. Who knew that all of this would happen with a thousand more details in between…when I awoke that way I did that very morning before?

As I started above, life is at the very least unpredictable. And this description of my experience of just this one day seems to be fairly reflective of many days in my life and of many seasons of my life. I don’t know what is coming in the future.

I also know that the goodness I often am ‘planning’ for myself (anticipating future) is replaced by a goodness of wholly another kind…on-going experience with God. This is slowing changing me from being a planner, a predictor, a self-providing goodness-giver, to being a responder, an acceptor, a willingness-to-wait-for-goodness-receiver. And as I observe just the tips of this ice-berg and relax from the figure-out-the-future-coming approach and to the future-being-given-to-me-one-day-at-a-time approach, something releases within me to do and be the same for others. I can now feel their tensions over the very same kinds of things, in large part, because my own tensions over them are less pre-occupying. This is a wonder to me. The future-anticipating approach is self-fulfillingly self-absorbed. The future-receiving approach is self-givingly other-focused.

It was raining today when I awoke (I nice, soothing rain I must add) and many of my thoughts drained towards what adjustments I would have to make today because of the rain. In the few minutes of this written reflection, the rain has subsided and the sun is poking its face through the clouds. What will this day bring anyway? I just don’t know, but I have a feeling it will be good.

3 Handsome Guys

...well, the 2 on the right anyway...after a recent 5k together in Winona Lake, IN.

Choosing and Chosen

There is a certain similarity between marriage and the Christian religion, which is suggested by the text in our gospel reading: “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.” The dominant note at the beginning of marriage is the joy of mutual possessing, of a ‘choosing’ triumphantly accomplished. And this is as it should be. 

So in religion there is at the beginning often a searching and a choosing, an affirming of that good which one may serve with conviction. And this too is as it should be. But in time we see more. We become aware that our seeking and our choosing is not so self-determined as we had thought, but our response to a Seeker who had already found us. We are come to understand that text: "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you." 

So with marriage we understand more in time. Deeper than the joy of a ‘choosing’ triumphantly fulfilled is the awareness of a need to be met, of a claim acknowledged. Few things are as potent to give meaning to life as the sense of answering a need and fulfilling a responsibility which no one else can meet. 

It is wonderful indeed that we can choose and achieve our choice, but still more wonderful that we are chosen. 

-- Sue Miller, The Story of My Father, homily by my father for my brother’s wedding

Poems

Poems are not words, after all,
but fires for the cold,
ropes let down to the lost,
something as necessary as bread
in the pockets of the hungry.

-- Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook

Pictured Rocks 2009

...of course (!), more pics here.

Many eyes go through the meadow, not many see the flowers in it.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson


What am I looking at today?