Flow, Thought, Reason, Question, Know

There is a thing called flow in the world, and when people these days use it they generally mean to say that you are so wrapped up into something...a landscape in front of you, the dishes, your life work...that you don't have room for anything else and the time flies by and you are unaware of most everything. I think you know what I mean.

It's so good to be totally absorbed in things you love or that grow something in you. And sometimes in this busy modern time, I find that often, I forget. I have a distinct impression this morning that I don't want to forget the simplicity of feeling caught up in a singular task, even with a mountain of little moments that will be quick and inevitable this week. And these days, thinking about it is an important part of getting there. At least for me.

Over the weekend, I read. A lot. This has always been something that can completely catch me. I went to the library last week and discovered that it had been MONTHS since I had last been there. Lame and sad. I've been pushing myself in good ways, especially as a teacher, but I have not been doing the things I really love. At least things that take me away from people and recharge the batteries. January has been so filled with people.

So I holed up and forgot about everything and read what I wanted to....National Geographic, TIME, a new magazine subscription, books on my own shelf. And it was beautiful. I forgot about time, I was learning what I wanted to learn, and the day breathed in and out with me.

Planning lessons and learning is not always synonymous...which is a very shocking thing to have just typed....Anyway, I read. And it was wonderful.

I recently found a modern apologetics book on a shelf at HalfPrice Books that seemed as if it was waiting for me. Add this to the list above. I read it.

It blended a direct look at certain questions about faith with the richness of knowing God: logic and reason, faith and how it grows, history (muddled and otherwise), current society, and the timelessness of being human. And it explained view points to me in a way that other books have not. Better yet, it was conversational, which is always a good find in a writer who can honestly achieve that tone. It was sort of like C.S. Lewis, minus the casual self-deprecating approach woven through such a brilliant use of words. Only C.S. Lewis can be C.S. Lewis. To each his own...(writing style).

I digress.

This book’s core identified with the current mode of pluralism and tolerance without deterring from the point. The point was to honestly seek God and mine through things and piece it together using not only mystery but intellect. In college, books and profs helped me navigate these conversations in beautiful ways, but since then, I’ve come up with many more questions about how this looks. Specifically in studying history. There is so much in the world to uncover. And lately (aka 'life since college') I find that I am talking about huge things in the world with students all of the time.

I have questions. About knowing God and articulating my faith, and making sense of gray areas. What honest, seeking person does not in their lifetime? I decided to write about this.

I do not think that there is shame in questions or doubts, however, there is probably a good time and place to share it. A blog is, for me, rarely the place. I have a quality community of people in my life who receive these things, and this blends well with what I found in my upbringing: being honest about what you are in front of people and also having respect for the privacy of a faith that is your own. There’s a fine tension I feel in this, but that is not my major concern.

Add to this that I now know that there are large mysteries in the world…many more than I first thought. Therefore there is reckoning. In reckoning with mystery, I’d say I am a person who is comfortable with a fair amount of it in life. More so than another, I guess. But some questions have been following me through the days I’ve lived for the past few years, and this book landed on it. Finally, I saw my questions on the page. And read answers that I was wondering about.

What is the relationship between faith and knowledge?

Is 'I don't know' enough to know?

If there is one God, why are there so many religions?

What do you do when half of the people in your life refer to God as He and the rest refer to God as She?

Is there a quality response, beyond semantics, to answer the above question?

What is an articulate response when discussing other monotheistic faiths?

Some parts of this book discussed elements of faith, and defined for the reader a look at how people view God in the world. I remember this stuff from an earlier time, and could breeze past some parts of it. I know I'm not a pantheist, and I know why. BUT. Gosh, such a help to see some other aspects of faith uncovered. There have been times in my life as a teacher when I read about something in a general 7th grade textbook about the history of the world, and it makes me sick. I don't know how to teach it well. The Crusades? It was really horrible actually. Or discussing 'the New World'. I've read books beyond 7th grade that are filled with firsthand accounts and they are horrendous. And much of what we know of history in the last 1,000 years (that's generally my focus these days) is done in the name of God. As a Christian, I feel the import of what the world sees, and sometimes I don't know how to deal with it. You can still see this attitude in current society today...I'm talking about the intensity of judgment that comes from certain pockets of Christian people. If we really thought about what Jesus actually did in a crowd of people who were vastly unlike him, it would not match what we often see today.

More digression.

There were two giant things I learned from this book. One, from a section that discussed pluralism in light of current culture. What do you do with that when you don't want to seem like you have the thick opinion that will not budge, but you want to make sense of what doesn't make sense? Two, in a look at the relativity we feel in such a global society. A Philistine woman in earlier times would have had none of this. I'm copying the Philistine woman's possible perspective here.

"A NEW SITUATION

At the beginning of the 21st century, the search of faith is in one way different from the search at any other time in history. Imagine a young Philistine woman about three thousand years ago. Her search for faith was in many ways easier than ours. (Actually, she may not have had to search for it at all.) She had just one option: to be a Philistine. Sure, she was aware of many other nations - the Jews, the Hittites, the Amalekites, the Hivites. She was aware that they had other gods and religions. She knew that her religion was not the only religion in the world. But all the other nations were enemies of the Philistine, and so their gods were enemy gods - not an appealing option to her, since worshipping an enemy's god was a betrayal of her own people.

Further, in n those polytheistic times, people believed that gods were parochial, territorial. One god might be the god for this geographical region, another for that. Choosing 'the right god' was as simple as knowing where you were. When in Philistia...

Our hypothetical Philistine had another advantage: she didn't have much history behind her. The history of her religion consisted of stories told by her mother and grandmother. There was little or no record of the scandals of her religious hierarchy centuries ago, or of its negative effects on the socioeconomic order of the previous century, or of its harmful psychological effects on the development of children over the years. Her faith could present itself as something pure, even perfect- impossibility for us these days.

Furthermore, there was little or no science three thousand years ago. Claims made by her religion were pretty well undisputed. There was certainly no respected scientific establishment with a built-in skepticism for supernatural claims, constantly posing challenges to the claims of her religion.

Finally, all her associates shared her belief. She didn't buy milk from the local convenience store owned by a member of one religion, study chemistry from a professor of another, jog after work with three members of different religions, and come home to a spouse of yet another. Her entire social milieu reinforced her unique faith....that 'we' are 'right'. That 'our' truth is the only true version for us.

The context in which our Philistine's faith flourished could not be more different from the content in which you and I seek faith today. In many, many ways, our Philistine's religious identification seemed natural - she didn't 'choose' to worship the Philistine deity any more than she chose to speak the Philistine language.

Our young Philistine friend didn't have the 'trilemma' faced by nearly every spiritual seeker today:

1. Some forces pull him to a particular commitment to a particular faith.

2. Some forces pull him to an equal tolerance for all faiths.

3. Some forces pull him away from any faith commitment at all.

Can you identify with this trilemma?"

I don't necessarily agree with everything this author said in his work, but I do appreciate the construction of ideas based on honest questions. And this guy knows a lot more about the history of the Christian faith than I do. What got me was that he could explain the thoughts you have when the nausea of bad history into he Christian faith becomes guttural. I find this most heart wrenching when teaching middle school students. They ask the questions that the rest of the world thinks. Why would anyone every do something like that? Why does evil exist? Are those people evil? Are we right or wrong? And that's just the surface. Kids are smart and they pay attention, and often I have to say, "I just don't know the answer to that question."

End comments...

I am more of a sociologist than I first realized. This has been the astonishing surprise of my adult life. I did not see it coming. But I love cultural analysts, the realities of applied sociology and social psychology showing up in a conversation, and what outcomes elements of culture have in peoples’ lives. It’s what makes history interesting. In light of the other social sciences? It's everywhere. I see it in History with the ebb and flow of storytelling. Geography, a launch pad for cultural investigation; Psychology, a process; Economics, a pattern; Politics, a compelling experiment; and Anthropology, a continual look at a big picture.

And one of the nicest realizations is that God meets the sociologist. (Hello connection to the hypothetical Philistine.) He meets the scientist, He meets the artist, the mother, the crossing guard, the manager, etc. He artfully meets us where we are, and challenges us to go further.

That's what I saw in the breathing room and flow of this weekend.