4 Restore our fortunes, Lord,
as streams renew the desert.
5 Those who plant in tears
will harvest with shouts of joy.
6 They weep as they go to plant their seed,
but they sing as they return with the harvest.

I recently watched a Nat Geo special on the world’s toughest prisons.  One of the prisons that was covered was Lurigancho Prison in Peru.  10,000 prisoners with only 100 guards.  This incredible disparity leaves no choice to the prison officials but to put some governing responsibilities of the prison populace into the hands of the prisoners themselves. (continue reading…)

 

During my schooling, easily my least favorite subject was math. My grades were pretty good across the board but in math sometimes I downright struggled.

 

In fact, to this day (confession time) when reading I often just skip right over numbers in my head…it’s not like they are words and are they really that important? Of course, this has its downside. Like if someone were to ask you a specific historical date. I could tell you it contained some numbers but probably couldn’t get more specific than that. As I come across numbers in the text I’m reading I don’t hear numbers….I hear something like “blah, blah, blah”. Being a carpenter I do understand the importance of accurate numbers but I don’t think I will ever love them.

 

That all being said let me get to my point. My hardest year in math was algebra. Not only were there numbers but there was considerable thinking about numbers. Not a good combo for someone inflicted with numerical indifference. After struggling (aka – failing) certain lessons several times I hit on the answer to success. You see, I tried to memorize the answers to the test (since I had to take it several times – 4x to be exact) but after the third failing I realized this method wouldn’t work. You see algebraic answers aren’t easy to memorize. They aren’t like “2″ or “7″. They were usually numbers on top of numbers to the left of little numbers that were floating a bit higher and sometimes you would have to mix in a letter or two. Well enough of my struggle. Here is what helped me through that particular section. I actually had to learn to do the math. Guessing had miserably failed me. I had to learn how to understand and figure algebraic equations. I didn’t like it but I did it and the fourth time I passed that test. Try as I might in my effort to skip truly understanding algebra I was actually hurting myself and limiting my understanding of the subject. Now I understand why teachers want you to “show your work”. They want to see how you got from point A to point B. They don’t want the answer that was whispered to you across the aisle. They want your answer that you’ve worked out because you did the math.

 

By the way, this isn’t turning into a math blog (God forbid!). My math lessons have reminded me of other lessons that I am going through right now. Lessons about my faith. More than ever before in my life I have been plagued with doubt. I’m not talking about small questions here. I am talking about doubt in foundational truths. This is the scary kind of doubt I’ve found. The answers to the questions I’ve been asking have real and lasting meaning. Honestly, most of the answers I’ve begun to toy with have been dark, brooding, and not too pleasant.

 

Many of the responses I get to these doubts and questions are of shock and dismay. “How dare you ask questions like that!” “How could you ever doubt?” These responses have caused me to keep my doubts to myself like a pariah afraid to be seen in public. People really want to see the old me. Never questioning, always trusting, refusing to entertain doubts regarding the core of my faith. Strong, resolute, committed. I can’t really say I’m that anymore but I don’t advertise it. Nobody wants to hear that I’ve changed. Neither do I but I have changed.

 

I used to think it was a change for the worse. I don’t think that anymore. I would never volunteer to walk these paths again, never, but I have come to see some of the value of the questions I have been asking. You see, before the change I had the answers (I’m not saying those answers are wrong) and I never questioned them. I trusted. It’s what was expected. Yes, you are allowed to pay lip service to questioning your core beliefs of faith and God but you aren’t allowed to really question. It was never said like that though.

 

But as I have learned to live with these doubting questions I’ve come to realize that I (and many others) had skipped the math. At some point I had been handed the answers. The answers that were true. The answers we don’t doubt. The answers that we will always believe. The answers that we will never question. The sacred answers. The answers.

 

I had the answers. Did I really have to do the math? If we have the answers we can just skip the work right? I mean, we’ll come to the same conclusion eventually. Of course, when we write all the correct answers in their proper places after having skipped all the figuring maybe we’ve actually gained nothing. Maybe we just cheated. Maybe we cheated ourselves. Maybe it is a lesser thing to have all the answers correct and a greater thing to be able to do the math that will eventually arrive at the same answers.

 

If the church doesn’t allow doubt or questions or struggles maybe we are creating spiritual dunces. Low IQ disciples that have a list of the right answers but don’t know why they are right and true and unchanging.

 

The only way to avoid this, the better way, is to do the math yourself. Maybe those answers begin with doubt. Maybe they begin with dark questions about the core of your faith. Maybe those are questions that we’ve been told “…we just don’t ask.”

 

I learned the hard way that knowing the answers to algebraic equations and knowing algebra are two vastly different things although at certain times they may look alike. I’m learning the hard way that knowing spiritual answers and knowing the spiritual are even more vastly different. In some cases I’m finding my answers remain the same, in some they are the opposite and some I may never know. But I am going to learn to do the math. My answers will be the answers I’ve worked out to the best of my ability with God’s help no matter how many spoon-fed solutions are shoved my way.

 

Yes it is tempting to take the offered answers as my own and pin them on my chest and proclaim “There, all better!” But I won’t shortcut the discussion, the argument, the banter, the tension, the relationship that God and I share right now for the sake of being accepted into the “I’ve got it all figured out club”. I’m still learning this stuff and class is still in session.

 

And you know what? God is big enough for my questions. No matter how dark, how hurt, how skeptical, how wounded, how meaningful. He can handle them. Trust me. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He’s heard them and He’s answered them.

 

Take the answers from someone else at face value and never question them or do the math yourself as the teacher instructs you and really learn the truth of the answers.

 

I’m doing the math.

 

Answer to the problem above is… E, but you probably already figured that out.

 

dale

Professor Mike Disney, an astronomer from Cardiff University has articulated for me a journey I have been on spiritually. In reference to the search for dark matter and dark energy (don’t worry too much about these terms…they don’t matter to the story really…though they are intriguing) he gave his opinion about the commonly held belief of scientist at large. A commonly held belief he disagrees with.

Prof Disney said
“The greatest obstacle to progress in science is the illusion of knowledge and the illusion that we know already what’s going on when we don’t.”

He is speaking to the scientific community about scientific matters but he could just as easily be speaking to each and every one of us about spiritual matters.

For years one of my favorite quotes has been from the Talmud “Teach thy tongue to say, ‘I do not know’.”

We operate, mostly, on the assumption that the ‘now’ is the most important and the most real. But actually, I believe, that even though I fall into the same myopic mindset as the rest of the world, someday I will realize what tiny vision I had. What incomplete knowledge I had. How small the box was I tried to force God into. And even though now my ignorance stifles my progress with him because I think I know what’s going on when I don’t and I suffer the pain and sorrow that comes with this stifling…..someday, him and I will sit and talk and even laugh at what now seems to be a mountain insurmountable.

So from now til then I will remind myself (like the band Atomic Opera wrote) “sometimes I think I know, but I know better.”

What’s going on? I have no idea…but he does.

dale

you are a missile
missional not misspent
launched to not return
death is an act of change

mjs

(Michael J Shive)

I’ve lived in Baltimore for about 3 months now….I’ve seen a lot.

…I’ve seen a man thrown into the path of my van by a police officer trying to apprehend him.

…I’ve seen fear.

…I’ve seen the emotion in my son’s face when his bike was stolen from under him by three other kids.

…I’ve seen hate for me in the face of another.

…I’ve seen drug deals made at speeds of over 25 mph.

…I’ve seen a small girl urinating in an alley.

…I’ve seen anger.

…I’ve seen a man lie to my face about stealing from my son.

…I’ve seen sorrow in full measure.

…I’ve seen trash.

…I’ve seen children playing at the feet of poverty and crime.

…I’ve seen grown men lose control for fear of losing security.

…I’ve seen blood.

Let all the colors above remain a mystery….below they will not.

…I’ve just seen a brown car roll over in front of white me and my white son.

…I’ve just seen an Asian man desperately trying to escape from his overturned vehicle.

…I’ve just seen a black woman frantically calling 911 as I ran by.

…I’ve just seen a white man smashing at a window to save an Asian man until his hand was bleeding bright red.

…I’ve just seen a black woman put her blue sneaker through the driver’s window.

…I’ve just seen an Asian woman helped out of her window by a white woman.

…I’ve just seen an Indian man and a white man pull an Asian man out of his battered vehicle to safety.

…I’ve just seen a black man guiding the congested, confusing traffic around the dark tragedy.

…I’ve just seen the inside of a very dark vehicle all except for the white airbags all over the place as I crawled to turn off the engine.

…I’ve just seen a white man try his best to assure a badly injured Asian man that all would be alright with him and his wife.

…I’ve just seen a black man and a white woman cross chaotic traffic to offer medical assistance to an Asian couple in the middle of a very bad day.

…I’ve just seen a green seat cushion slid under the head of an Asian man to keep his head off of the black asphalt and blue-green glass.

…I’ve just seen my son as white as a ghost.

The colors of the city can be terrible and frightening.

The colors of the city can be beautiful and inspiring.

I’ve seen colors.

I love my family. There isn’t much I wouldn’t go through for them. I’ve definitely learned that over the last year. In simple and in complex terms. A simple thing is the difficulty of returning to carpentry after the injury to my left hand…while still having only 60% mobility in my 2 most important fingers. The needs of my family supercede the discomfort and relearning process I am going through on a daily basis. If I had to blame one emotion, feeling, belief that motivates that I would have to blame love.

But I say I love other things too. I love the winter. I love the woods. I love silence and very loud music. I love playing soccer. But somehow, when in close comparison, this last list rings hollow. I wouldn’t give up, suffer, or exert for that list like I would for my family. So why do I use the word love then? I don’t know. Why haven’t we come up with a word that means we really, really like something but not quite love? Or maybe we have but just don’t use it when we really should.

You see, it is dangerous to use the wrong words. Out of all the people that speak in this world I sometimes think we believe nobody as strongly as we do ourselves. So when we say we love our job, even though we don’t mean in the same way that we love our spouses or our children or possibly our God, we start believing that we really do love our job…or soccer….or our favorite chair…or the world.
We are very convincing speakers when we are the audience as well. Very rarely do we judge the words and delivery as they should be judged. We are full of agreement and praise….worshipers at our own throne.
So since we are so used to using the word love to describe our relationship to things we don’t really love we swing the pendulum the other way….misuse breeds misuse. We start saying we love things, things we really should love….things like the poor, world peace (please don’t laugh, I’m serious), our neighborhood, hurting people….but in truth we don’t love them at all.

The only benefit to us is…because we are such suckers for our own propaganda…we actually believe that we do love those things….but absolutely nothing else in our lives gives evidence that we do. I mean, we love the poor? Honestly answer, when was the last time we gave to the poor? When was the last time we rented a video? The truth is we “go through” things for the people and the things we love. We suffer for them. We sacrifice for them. Just like when we really want to see that new movie…even if we are tired we will drag ourselves to the video store to get it.

I’m not aiming for a guilt trip here…I can try to prove it.

I am writing to me….’cuz (like I said above) we tend to listen to ourselves. I was sitting at my desk and as I sat I watched my neighbors going for a walk. It was a nice scene. I thought to myself…”I love my neighborhood.” But here I am …. sitting at my desk…writing…having nothing to do with my neighborhood.

Do I love my neighborhood? Maybe I don’t but just say I do so that I can trick myself into believing it is true and that will make me feel really good about myself. Maybe I do but am afraid to show it….

…but you will have to argue the question out amongst yourselves because I can’t write anymore. The sun is going down and I want to take a walk before it does.

dale