Foto o' the Week

Foto o' the Week
U2

Thursday, October 14, 2004

And life goes on....

Well, life goes on. For those of you who are reading this out of interest, thanks for checking up on me. For those of you who are merely compulsive AIM away message checkers (I have been suffering a minor case), then, welcome. The news here at the moment is not much news. Life does indeed go on. I have been engaged in the past 10 months on a journey that has brought down walls and torn out foundations, yet slowly, rebuilding is taking place. Many of you, (when I say many I mean as many people as read this... i dont know), have talked to me in short or at length about where I am in life at the moment. It is a very good question--where am I in life right now? The answer to which, I really do not know. In this search for "Truth", capital "T" or otherwise, I have essentially abandoned most of what I have ever believed in the past, all for the sake of "Truth". When setting out, I began with a lofty goal of seeing, comprehending and believing what the "Truth" about the universe was, in relation to God, me, Jesus, etc. As a Christian, I figured that if Christianity was true, then no search for truth could ever do any harm. Looking back, I realize that my goal was quite lofty, and now I even might say impossible. It was truly me trying to search out tangible, objective "T"ruth, arrived at with no biases. I have slowly and painfully become aware of the shortcomings of my attempt. "As one of my profs put it, "objectivity is a pipe dream". Interestingly, he did not say this to discourage objectivity, but rather to encourage it. I now see the wisdom in this. I have to realize that I am, as a human being, more than just Reason. I am not a search engine. There is more to me than my intellect. I am human. I am beginning to ask what it means to fully be human. I am starting to think that even if I was capable of complete objectivity (existentialists call this "dispassionate learning" for a reason), I would not be functioning at my full capacity. I increasingly am thinking that, as a human, I was intended for, or at least I am capable of more. Love. Is this an intellectual copout for being wrong? It might be, I dont know. I need to look into it further. In any case, where am I in life? I really don't know. It may be that my feet find solid ground tomorrow, or it could be the end of my life, or after. Reading Augustine's Confessions, I resonated with his plea, "Let it be now, let it be now." I see the truth in C.S. Lewis' understanding of faith. "That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods 'where they get off', you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion. Consequently one must train the habit of Faith." My life has been characterized with exactly this "dithering" for quite some time. I am beginning to develop this "faith", as Lewis understands it, though I am taking baby steps--if that. Where is it that I should put my faith? Again, I dont know. I feel as if I am coming closer, but I have not arrived at the place of peace in my head and heart. In any case, in this reality of which I am a part, I am not privileged to see the future. So, tomorrow awaits.