Rainy days & Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, etc. get me down

What a dreary day outside. It has been raining since some time last night. It was much needed as our year-to-date totals are way behind and we have been in an official drought since last summer. But isn't there some other way to relieve the drought without the gloomy sky and having to be shut in with 120+ screaming kids?

A woman was in my office today who just recently and unexpectedly lost her mother. The last couple of days have been hard for her. She had been doing fine until she turned the corner at the grocery store and came across a display for Mother's Day cards. I sat and listened so she could process. Just talking helped her bring about her own "relief".

As I drove through the rain a little while ago, my mind ran through its own set of overwhelming thoughts. I too have many things, TOO many things, happening in my life. The very thoughts I wanted to share with the woman above kept coming back to me. If I was not able to handle this time, I would not be going through it. I firmly believe that. I do not think that our circumstances are random nor beyond the governance of any outside force.

I know that three months from now when 95% of the issues and deadlines I know face have passed that I will be stronger and wiser. I know that during this "storm" of activity I will be okay and will get through it. However, just because I know the boat will get to the shore safely does not mean I have to necessarily enjoy the ride. Riding across stormy seas in a little boat is not fun. I've done it enough - both literally and figuratively. Do the journeys that always teach us the most always have to be so trying?

Amazingly, I don't mind. If I could choose, I would turn the wave generator off in this great big pool. But because I know a shore awaits and that I will somehow be better, I'm okay with it. Perhaps it is in the listening to the Navigator that makes the journey bearable and enjoyable. Rainy days and Thursdays don't have to get me down.

Going home

Saturday was a weird day for me. That feeling that hits me every time I go home struck again. We took a few vacation days to spend at my mom's down on the coast. She sold the ol' homestead where we grew up last fall, so things are a lot different now when we visit. At least they were until Saturday.

We drove over to the beach. We didn't do the sand, sun, and surf thing like we usually do. We did the tourist thing and checked out a local historical site, Ft. Macon. The fort is located on the end of the beach and you can see, hear, and smell the surf as it breaks. To get there, I had to drive past all the familiar surf breaks. As we left the fort and drove over the bridge back to the mainland, I looked at my wife and said, "Coming home is always hard. I wish we could live here."

It's odd how that works. There is nothing particularly attractive about the area that draws my soul here. Except for family or access to the ocean and a slower pace of life for people looking to retire or vacation, the usual relocation factors just don't exist here. I was fine until I got a good whiff of that salt air and heard the surf crashing. Like my profile says, my soul yearns for the salt water. I was born and raised in it. It's a huge part of who I am.

My wife knows how big a deal this is for me. We're getting ready to move to a new town and a new church. She saw the struggle on my face as we left the beach Saturday and asked in a very serious tone, "Do you think you've settled for something less?" referring to the move. My reply was no. I know we are heading exactly where we are supposed to be. The physical aspects of my faith journey are leading me to this new town and there are no doubts about it. But I do wonder why my heart aches as it does. It's interesting how the soil (or surf) your roots were originally anchored in still affects you, even if you have planted them elsewhere.

I think our faith journeys operate that way. I am convinced that we embark on faith journeys because there is some sort of homesickness that draws us to our roots. Our faith journeys are really journeys back to our spiritual roots. Like the salmon who instinctively swims back upstream to spawn, we go looking for our spiritual origins. And that leads us to our Creator. I have said it here before and will continue to say that there is something in us that draws us to God.

Not everyone will agree with me. Some would say it is a search for meaning. An atheist would certainly describe his life that way since faith is not a concern for him. While visiting the fort on Saturday, I saw a guy wearing a shirt that said, "May the god of your choosing bless you". That's how some people look at it. Others will say that there is only one god and that any religion you choose will eventually lead you to him. I think we are all on a faith journey, even those who deny the existence of anything beyond this life. I think the search for meaning or even the emptiness that makes you search for something to fill it with is homesickness. It is a beacon calling you home.

Sometimes I dread going home because I know I will want to stay. I like my faith journey most of the time, but I'm looking forward to my end desitination. Just a thought.

Starting Points - The End?

The DaVinci Code (again), the Gospel of Judas, and a bunch of other things have been hitting the headlines lately. For many people, especially those who have grown up in the church, these things have made them a little uneasy. Others who are searching for everything they can learn about matters of faith are fascinated by them. Some of these same folks are resentful that the church has "tried to hide them" from the rest of world because they might cast doubt on the established system of beliefs. One of the blogs I regularly read addresses these issues far more eloquently and completely than I. You can find a link to that post at the end of this one.

I'm not going to try and regurgitate anything in the post mentioned above. I'd like to address what the whole issue has to do with starting points and reaching an end. For Christians, the Bible is supposed to be the starting point of all things faith related. At some point, interpretation is necessary. There are some issues that the Bible does not explicitly address. In order to reach an end, you have to bring in other resources to reach your decision. And voila, you naturally end up with 3,453,618,912 different interpretations, opinions, churches, and denominations.

As people begin to sort out their faith journeys and come across the noncanonical gospels (the ones not included in the Bible), how you interpret those other sources depends upon your starting point. If you are naturally skeptical, you may come to the conclusion that it is a conspiracy to protect a system of power already in place. Or you may see it as another point in the "this is all make-believe" column. Some react to this additional information in another way. They start out with confidence in the system. They believe that these books were excluded for a good reason. These folks may even read the writings themselves. They consult scholars and historians. In the end, they do not change their faith position.

There are a few important streams that should always feed into our faith journeys. You can call them all starting points if you like. Starting out in multiple places at once fits nicely into the way we view the world nowadays anyway. In matters of faith, I think you have to start with the Bible. Along the journey, tradition needs to have some influence. What has been the historical perspective? Not just anecdotal events or blips on the radar, but the general accepted perspective over the course of time. Your personal experience will certainly shape the course of your journey. Along the way, it's not a bad idea to get some help from others. Getting perspectives from the experiences of other people is a good thing. It's always good to walk with others. Tradition, personal experience, and community are the streams that I use to help my journey with the Bible being my starting point.

Regardless of how long you have been journeying, don't get sidetracked by the circus that often surrounds new or different info. Take a good thoughtful look at it. Honestly, the starting point is not as important as the ending point. That's where the prize is. Just a thought.

Here's that link I told you about. It also has a multitude of links that will give you the texts of many of the noncanonical gospels. There's a bunch of other stuff for people who have either already made their mind up or are on the pastoral end of things.

Starting Points - part 3 Miracles

Are miracles for real? It all depends on your starting point. Last week a study by a University of Florida professor states that Jesus walked on ice, not water. His research has not been favorably received by all. I read somewhere that he receives hate email on average every three minutes. Some people of faith applaud studies like this because they say it shows the realistic possibilities of the miracles in the Bible. Others say that such work takes faith out of the equation; you just need to believe. If you could prove it scientifically then it has no faith value.

A former professor of mine explained miracles in this manner one morning. He was referring to the Ten Plagues the Egyptians suffered when Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites go. There have been numerous natural explanations of how that whole sequence of events could have, and probably did, happen. He said there is a difference between a natural event and a miracle. If suddenly, the ground split open and lava and ashes spewed out, covering a set of administrative buildings for some organization, it would be called a natural disaster. However, if the week before, someone publicly stated that these buildings would be destroyed the following week if the administration of that organization did not change some aspect of their behavior, it would be a miracle. That may not be helpful in looking at events from 4000 years ago because we cannot say positively the order of those events. Which came first, the natural disaster or the public condemnation?

Advances in medical science make it hard to believe in miracles. I know of several incidents from Peru that I would constitute as miracles. These involve people with whom I have close personal connections. Some could argue misdiagnosis or equipment failure. The medical personnel involved argue otherwise. What about calling down judgement on some organization? With today's technology, we can come close to predicting such volcanic events like the one above. Remember the Mount St. Helens Watch last year?

I was asked one time to prove to someone that God existed. She said she really wanted to believe in God, but just couldn't. She was brought up in a home where God was vehemently denied. Her starting point of assumptions just would not let her believe, no matter how hard she said she wanted to. We could never get past the starting point. If you want proof of a supernatural being who can do unexplainable things (which she did), at some point you have to accept the inability to explain some of those things. Otherwise you set up a self-contradicting proposition that is impossible to resolve.

So, back to miracles. Are they real or aren't they? What are the starting points that allow us to believe they are? Are they miracles only if we believe them to be or does our belief even matter?

Starting Points - part 2 Matters of Faith

Where you end up many times depends on where you start. You can change directions, turn around, start over, etc., along the way, but that starting point always has an impact. Last week we looked at hot topics of debate and "proofs" that all depended on starting points. At some point in any debate, we are almost always forced to choose between what may be two diametrically opposed outcomes. Of course, whether the two options are really so opposite is another matter of debate for some.

For example, a two of the hot button issues in the world of faith are creationism vs. evolution and anti-abortion vs. pro abortion. I have close friends, distant acquaintances, and just people I know who fall on both sides of each debate. I'm not talking about people that are considered to be from very different theological camps either. I'm talking about people who are very much alike theologically. My wife and I sometimes end up on opposite sides of the table. Even though their theological perspectives may be the same, some folks are anti-abortion and some are pro-abortion. Some believe in a literal six days of creation and others in a billions of years scientific explanation.

How can this be? If all these people start out at the same place, at least theologically, how do they end up at different endpoionts? At some point along the debate, they had to make a decision. To which particular subset of beliefs that was pertinent to the debate would they give more weight? Even though all people involved may believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, when faced with conflicting arguments they had to choose which way to go. Is it or isn't it literal? Are the scientists mistaken or wrong? The Bible does not explicitly say, "Thou shall not perform abortions," so how do we decide and interpret what it does say that can be applied to this debate?

These are just two of many divisive issues. I'm not trying to argue one over the other. Something that might be worthy of thought is which ones of these are crucial to our faith journeys and which ones are fringe issues.

I'm just trying to state the process by which both sides come to their conclusions. Sometimes the stated starting point doesn't matter. It's the unstated starting point that does. We all have a set of subconscious assumptions about how the world works that gives meaning to how we interpret the events in our lives. Next week I'll introduce miracles into the melee. For now, what are your thoughts? What subconscious assumptions are you aware of? Have any of these ever changed? How important is it to know what they are?