Jarod,
These issues are close to my heart. And I understand what you are saying about balance, lifestyle, and contemplation. Perhaps I consider myself as a person not naturally drawn to discipline. In fact, I almost always favor passion over discipline.
Also, I don't think that my struggle deals nearly so much with the abstract truths of Christianity as it does with being accepted into the larger church body. My experience in Azerbaijan, and my experience here in Columbus has been similar. The people who are taking action, the people who are visibly doing helpful things in needy areas, are the people who 'know what they' know. In other words, their certainty allows them to take the next step into courses of action.
I believe in the unity of believers. However, I am paranoid of being constantly perceived as only partial believer. I am not fully welcomed into the fellowship, and conversely, I don't actually want to be fully part of the fellowship, because I still have issues with being associated entirely with this group of people.
When it comes down to it, my communal reality is much more difficult for me to deal with than the abstract, but similarly difficult philosophical and scientific objections to faith. It is also more heartbreaking.
And my conversations with God are awkward, often very distant pledges of allegiance. Which God am I talking to again? Were You upset with me for being interested in the Tao, or were You encouraging that? I don't know, I'm not sure that I ever did know. Is this the God who condemns people on a higher or lower standard? I can choose this based on the community I choose to join. In fact, I'm so moldable, I sometimes can't resist the influence that a certain group may have on me.
I also can't help but believe that the path I'm walking is a good one for me in this place in my life. I feel the need to defend my steps, even though now...they seem foolish to believers and non-believers alike. I'm a fool to everyone, save a few to whom I've been able to defend myself. However, in my own way, I actually have been trying very hard to obey Christ. By looking for opportunities to reach out to the poor or lesser priveliged in appropriate ways, this was a moral principle I was wary to abandon. By living among them, I was hoping to somehow take part in their communal redemption. A redemption that can only come through the Holy Spirit.
And I, in a mixture of self-consciousness and self-righteousness, have secretly viewed my own version of how to live this life as the finest way, not wanting to condemn others, but doing so anyway. The strange mixture of self-love and self-abandon can conjure up an odd concoction indeed. But it is there that I will end this ramble.
Cheers,
Dave
Note: this is Jarod's reply to a personal conversation I had with him last weekend...
I understand (I think) about how hard it is for you to connect with God, and how to know what to believe. Epistemology is tough as crotch. I've been renewed lately by the way other cultures (and religions) look at life... as if simplicity, contemplation, intuition, measured study, balanced living, and the heart- these are all ways of walking the path of truth. Not like ours, which says MORE reading, MORE eating, MORE schooling, MORE networking, MORE experiences, MORE growth, MORE proofs and theorems. It's kind of maddening. I think it's one of the most harmful religions, our scientific mindset... while it may erase some age-old prejudices, eventually it leaves you emptier than Buddhism.
Trusting God has been a delightful thing for me this week. I know it's really not all that provable in the evidence sense. It states a claim to a radically different system than what most people live by, which is survival. Believing it and choosing to live it is a self-fulfilling prophesy. By saying it's right and doing it, it proves itself true. By saying it's bogus(the christian message) and ignoring it, i'ts easily justified away.
Faith is a choice.
I want you to know that I have great chasms in my mind right now between science, evidence, and the Bible (and church). I can't reconcile so much,and it leaves me feeling uneasy and disingenuine at times.
Yet, I've called upon an old philosophical term as my trump card, and I'm using it as I go along in life... it's called "epistemic deferral". It basically means that I know I believe something,and I'm certain of it, but I cannot tell you why yet. I haven't gotten all the facts, haven't understood all the issues, haven't figured it all out. But yet I stand on that ground.
I hope you find your ground. I know you are. I know that God is finding you too. I guess just don't resist his love. As hard as it is for me to believe, I think that behind the "wizard of oz curtain" of the universe, is a place where we meet god face to face and laugh really really hard. Maybe for a millenium.
