A Return

I have heard that not all who wander are lost, but I would add that not all who are lost really mind being lost.

I spent the morning in Rocky River Reservation. I never found my way to where I'd planned to go, and where I was expected to be, because it wasn't where I expected it to be; the road doesn't always turn the way you want it to, and I spent three hours following what might be called the "wrong" one.

I have long been of two minds, one which trusts and one which doubts. While I walked that path, not knowing whether the next turn would lead me to my destination or just to more trees and plants and flashes of river, each step was an expression of my trust that I wasn't wasting my time. I filled my senses with the place, and my camara with the things I saw. Still, I always worried that I would never get there, that I would let people down and exhaust myself trying to navigate this winding valley. That doubting mind was right. Do I regret it?

Of course not.

Even after I spent half an hour climbing a hill which peaked at the top of the valley itself, only to turn around and walk back down, no closer to my original goal but closer, perhaps, to the acceptance that there really was no hope.I have not acted responsibly. I have made many mistakes, and made the same ones many times. I have kept following paths that lead me farther from home and offer little in return for tired feet and lost hours. I have broken promises and left people waiting while I lost myself in moments for which I have nothing to account. Why? My good sense has never stood firm in the face of my foolish trust that it will all turn out okay somehow.

It's not the same road going the other way. Everything has two sides; sometimes the sides look similar, but they are never identical. Even having travelled the road once before, it was still as new to me retracing my steps back to where I had come from. I couldn't get lost going home, though, because my good sense - the same that told me not to trust the road before - knew that it would lead me exactly where I wanted to go. In going home, I was at last of one mind. Hope was long gone, but trust had never been stronger.
My rational mind has never been able to shake the idea that nothing is certain, that everything is subject to doubt and change. It takes that as an excuse to follow any damn lead it comes across, because if we're not sure what's true, we can never be sure what's false either. It thinks it can find a way to believe in everything and nothing at the same time, and for all I know, it's on the right track.

All I have known is the road. I have never reached my destination, and I don't think I ever will. But see how far I've gotten by going nowhere.

Faith, Reason, and Scripture

There's a thing called Christian Apologetics which I've regarded with a crooked, curious smile, not sure whether to dismiss it entirely, attack it directly, or consider that maybe I don't know enough to understand it. I've actually read enough to address many of the common arguments – the ones brought up by Thomas Aquinas, for instance – but it's not on the top of my list of things to know, and I really don't see why it's necessary for such an argument to exist on either side.

I've also seen quite a bit of talk that looks and smells an awful lot like Christian Apologetics coming from the mouths of many an amateur theologian who has studied their scripture with considerable care and scholarship in an effort to better understand the mind of God. I admire these people for their dedication, and I have no qualms about their faith; I'm as dedicated to my own brand of theological study, and I know the Bible is full of wisdom and poetry that shouldn't be ignored. (Parts of the book of Proverbs, for instance, have both made me critically examine my own actions and made me laugh my ass off.) It's just my assertion that to apply something as sharp and hard as logic to something as soft and intangible as spirituality is rather foolish.

The issue that I have been mulling over the most lately is what many call the infallibility of the Bible, to the exclusion of all other sources. I've found that most of my discussions with Christians revolve around citations of the Bible, which is trusted as an authority on all subjects and not to be questioned directly. If anyone questions something the Bible says, it is indirectly, saying that it has been poorly translated or poorly interpreted; nobody considers that it might be poorly written or poorly conceived. The infallibility of the Bible is widely accepted as the basis for spiritual discussion, much as Descartes' "I think, therefore I am" is in secular philosophy.

However, readers of Nietzsche will know to question even the sacred "I think, therefore I am", and those who examine Christian rhetoric closely will observe a fundamental logical flaw. A Baptist friend of mine who directs Bible Studies once cited this passage, from 2 Timothy 3:16-17: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” He presented this quote as proof that the Bible – all of it, and only it – can be trusted to contain the whole of God's truth. This is known in logic as a circular argument: in order to accept the evidence (2 Timothy 3:16-17), you must already have accepted the conclusion (that the Bible is infallible). Without the conclusion, there is no reason to trust the evidence.

Another reasoning for the infallibility of the Bible is that it was divinely inspired, that it came from an infallible God. This is a leap of faith: that the authors of the Bible were the mouthpieces of a divine truth which speaks to us all. My Baptist friend spoke of how each of the Bible writers spoke a part of the truth, and that all their writings together present a complete picture of God. He also urged me to not fully trust any mortal claiming to own the truth, but to trust only God, and I heartily agreed with this approach. What he did not acknowledge was that the Bible was written and compiled by men. Fallible men. If we accept that it is possible for men to tell the truth about God, as the authors of the Bible did, then we must accept that the truth can present itself in other forms, from other sources. If we accept that men can make mistakes, and present a false image of God, then we must accept that anything in the Bible is possibly one of those false images.

The truth, in the spiritual sense, is evasive. It is hard to find, and easy to lose track of in the mundanity of daily living. If you try to grasp it in your hand, it slips away like a wet bar of soap. And if you try to apply logic to it, as so many theologians do, either the logic will crumble or the truth will die. I understand the motivation to trap the truth in a cage of reason, to show it to others so that they might be enlightened and saved, but there is no way to pass such enlightenment directly from person to person – only from God downward.

By no means do I advise an end to all theological discussion. After all, just as God can speak to us through an ancient scripture, he may also show his face briefly in an honest debate between seekers of truth. All that I would like to see is a little less rigidity: the Bible isn't necessarily right, and other sources are not to be entirely dismissed. Of course, I also know that the trustworthiness of the Bible is a deeply held belief for many people, and they won't find it very easy to set aside. Uncertainty is scary. All I can really hope for is that we all might find our way through the dark, hopefully with a little help from each other, for as unreliable as our various sources are, they're the only ones we have.

Life is a waterfall; we're one in the river and one again after the fall.
-Aerials, System of a Down

Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day might bring forth.
-Proverbs 27:1

Like cold water to a weary soul is good news from a distant land.
-Proberbs 24:25

An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips.
-Proverbs 24:26

Better is open rebuke than hidden love.
-Proverbs 27:5

inability

I've spent the last few hours trying to maneuver around the buggy system of Blackboard, which is the site where I must take my online English course this summer. I hate it. More often than not when I open a thread in the discussion board, the text doesn't show up at all. Every time I open a link, a dialogue box tells me the page contains "unsecure items", and asks me if I'm sure I want to open it. It never goes away the first time I click "okay". All the while, deadlines get closer with alarming speed.

To make matters worse, I'm denied the satisfaction of physical violence. As much as I feel like firmly grabbing my laptop and smashing it against the wall, I must refrain even from pushing a single button as it makes its glacial way through the sludge of information. More than once today it has reduced me to screams of frustration. The sense of futility and weakness is overwhelming.

Appropriately, one of the readings I've been required to write about for this course is a narrative by a woman with MS about her attitude toward her disability. As a physically able but frequently mentally incapacitated person, I could relate to a lot of the sentiments described in the essay. My response to it had a very personal flavor, citing my own personal experiences, and I hope that doesn't negatively impact my grade. Actually, I'm counting on it giving me an advantage. What good is hardship if you can't milk it for attention?

eight things

Perhaps more regular entries here. No idea what they'll be about, but they'll keep me busy. Eight things about me.

1. I'm currently reading the archives of a webcomic called "Wigu", which is by the same creator as "Overcompensating" which I've been reading ever since it mentioned the creator of "Goats", which is my favorite webcomic. I really like this guy's style; somehow he creates a sense of motion, action, and sound through a very static medium, and the characters are very real. Plus I like how in "Wigu" a year and a half was necessary to describe four days of action.

2. To be honest, I'm a little tired of introspection, which is why I've taken a few hours just thinking about things to put here. I'm seeing less and less point to just sitting around thinking about myself. Maybe I'm just getting old.

3. I like riding the bus. I realized that today when I got on a bus and the atomosphere and familiarity of it made me relax significantly. It's gotten to have a lot of positive associations; it means I'm on my way, that I'm getting somewhere. I haven't yet gotten to the point where I just get on a bus to chill out, but I could see myself doing that.

4. I sometimes don't trust my opinions because I'm biased toward them. Kind of a weird reason, isn't it? It keeps me from speaking my mind sometimes.

5. Sometimes I really want a boyfriend. Other times, I really want a girlfriend. I never really want to be single.

6. I am a very heartless and selfish person sometimes. I acknowledge the inherent worth and dignity of every person, but I also aknowledge that most people aren't worth that much to ME. There are very few people whom I really care about, and I've very little interest in increasing their numbers.

7. I liked this sandwich:Too bad it was so long ago.

8. I'm really glad this is over. I used to be much better at this stuff, and I'm not so sorry that changed.

I tag whoever actually reads this.