Reminder to myself

At some point in the near future, I will need to start exploring my doubts and concerns regarding Christianity. They've been bubbling up rather strongly ever since I began this Eschatology course and I have been mostly trying to brush them aside because I really have no practical time in which to address them. This has led to an increasing feeling of uncertainty and listlessness which has continued to keep up into the long hours of the night. I have yet to put my finger on the major problems, but to be quite honest, I'm having a great deal of trouble buying into this whole Christianity thing right now. It's not for lack of trying, but I just can't get the energy up to take it as seriously as I have in the past. I'm not sure what all that means or where I ought to go with that, but I will have to go somewhere soon.

Jonah and the Shades of Nineveh

There is an old story about Jonah and the Ninevehites that we hardly ever hear.

Jonah came from Gath-Hepher, a little town just north of Nazareth. In Gath-Hepher, sunflowers grew so thickly and so abundantly,that the whole land was painted a bright yellow, so much so that the faces, hands, and clothes of the people shown like the very sun itself. When the Lord called Jonah to preach to the Ninevehites, Jonah ran away from the Lord, straight out to the sea. See Jonah knew something that we don't. In the land of Nineveh, lavender grew so thickly and abundantly, that the whole land was painted a dark blue, so much so that the faces, hands, and clothes of the Ninevehites shown like sapphires. Jonah knew that if he went to Nineveh, his brilliant yellow robes would be so coated with lavender that he would turn from his sunshine yellow to a sort of putrid green.

So Jonah went kicking and screaming to Nineveh and his face, hands, and clothes became sickly, and Jonah huffed and puffed and pouted when the Lord would not even destroy the Ninevhites for all Jonah's efforts.

I think sometimes that I am a bit like Jonah, frustrated and childish in my cares for my own greenness. I have traveled from the yellow lands of irreligion to the strange blue lands of faith and I am now no longer home in either. I don't fit in with either place and this seems a problem worth huffing, puffing, and pouting over. But the Lord is not concerned for our silly games of colors or beliefs. He doesn't much seem to mind my irreverent concern for my faith's shade, the flora that the defines my home, or the blossoms of the land that I am called to. He is especially unconcerned with how each people will perceive me and my strange new colors. I am beginning to see the abundant silliness of my self-consciousness over my skin's new hue. Am I really so concerned about my wardrobe when I have been so clearly called by the Lord?

In the years to come, Jonah found, much to his chagrin, that instead of becoming a bluer, and bluer green, his clothes, hands, and face became more deeply and richly green. I hope only that I may meet my increasing greenness with more pleasure and delight than Jonah managed.

By all means, rid yourself of an impoverished faith

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

I ought to be writing my honors project, digging in to the dense theology of the Fathers, busting down silly arguments about priests as Icons of Christ. I really ought to be writing and analyzing and reading, reading, reading.

But I have trouble reaching into those beautiful images of Orthodoxy, have trouble grappling with Thomas Hopko and John Zizioulas when my faith is falling apart.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

I am taking a class on Eschatology right now that is shaking and crumbling the foundations of my Christianity. The problem is basically this: I cannot hold beliefs that I do not recognize as true and Christian eschatology requires me to believe that all will be made well in the world. I'm not sure this is true. I'm not at all sure that we Christians are not deluding ourselves into thinking that justice will come and good will triumph over evil. If anything, the history of the world has indicated time and time again that evil persists despite all attempts to eradicate it.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

I am concerned that Christianity is merely a structure that we map our needs onto, that all religions are like this. My concern is that religions function well for us but do not represent truth. Take Jurgen Moltmann for example. It's easy when you are a German who lived through World War II and all its atrocities to believe that hope and liberation are the essential elements of the world to come. This is precisely what you want to believe will occur. This theology of hope may represent the wishful thinking for how Moltmann would hope the world to be.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

We have this image of Christianity as something the Apostles passed down, that there is a line tracing back to the earliest Christians to today, no matter how twisted and bent that line may be. But this is not true, it's not true that there was one Christianity at any time. The Church has constantly fought against other churches within the midst. They have called these others heretics, but how do we know that they are? We have no reference to give that does not already presuppose our rightness in our biblical interpretation.

It matters to me what is true, whether I have good reason to believe it is a fact. This is not modernistic. I'm not searching for the monolithic answer, the one way of being. I'm just searching for something I can trust in.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

I have never encountered God. I did not have a conversion experience. I have not met Jesus. I have not seen lives changed that would not be changed by interacting with the practices of other moral systems of living, including my own.

So my faith is aching, groaning for answers. I'm trapped between historical and sociological problems and a Christianity that begs me to have hope that seems magical and wishful. I'm still praying, still pursuing a life of unceasing prayer, but I do not know how to persist in this faith, do not know what more to do than say my prayers and wrestle with these problems.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy on me, a sinner. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God...

The Sea and the Sadness of Things

I woke this morning to crashing waves and gulls cawing overhead. My first thoughts were "Where are you? Will you join me by the sea?"

There are times, dear love, that I wish I could reach down through your pores, past muscles tight from strain, between aching joints and heavy bones. I wish that my fingers could peel back layer upon layer of you until I set hands upon the snarled corners of your spirit. These edges of you have been clutched by other forces, then twisted, like little Indian burns. I wish that I could squeeze into these knots and ease them apart, set right the furrows of your brow, and relax the muscles near your eyes.

Not everything in this life is beautiful. Always knocking at our door is the mono no aware, the sadness of things, the slow and bitter death of cherry blossoms and ourselves. Yet, I would not ask for less than this, would not ask the leaves to stop falling, or our own ailments to stop crashing into us like so many waves.

My love, the sea is calling. Come let the waves tickle your toes and ease your troubled bones.