I do not like to write, because I do not like to be held accountable.
I do not write. Writing is an act of catharsis; who wants their catharsis to be plastered all over the virtual marketplace of ideas? Or worse, published so that, like Augustine, we must write a new preface full of retractions.
I do not write. I do not write because the thought of being judged is horrifying. I don't want my conservative friends to know that I'm liberal. I don't want my liberal friends to know that I'm conservative. I don't want my metaphysical friends to know that I'm a non-realist, or a hyper-realist, or a deconstructionist. I don't want my post-metaphysical friends to know that I hope to God that the Trinity reflects ontology in some real way and that the analogia entis is true and salutary. I don't want my friends who are well read to know that I don't understand metaphysics or post-metaphysics as well as I would like, or as well as they do.
I don't want to be written off. So I don't write.
But I think that the reason I don't write is the reason that I remain a Christian. Because I have hope that there is someone, something, some being, some force, who (that) understands me; who will let me be, even if I'm not sure I can understand being. Because I have hope that there is an event, a future where words won't matter at all, where words will matter so much that humanity will not waste a single word writing me off.
I am put off by those with a faith that has no room for faith, but I understand it. I want so badly to be right. Not to have to second guess everything. Not to have to guess about anything. But I know too much to know that I know anything. And I don't know enough to know whether or not knowing anything is knowable. And I don't know what I love when I love my God. But I love God. And I hope (and pray without ceasing) that God loves me (more than mind can measure or time contain).
So I don't write, but I am a Christian. But not that kind of Christian. But not a new kind of Christian. I would like to think that I am the kind of Christian who followed Jesus without knowing where he was going; Who didn't have a succinct creed to sum up every metaphysical reality or to tell about the light from lightness of Christ; Who didn't yet have hope in the resurrection or the life of the world to come; Who simply left what he was doing and followed an unknown.
I would like to think that I am the kind of Christian who left her convent to live among the poor; Who knew (or thought she knew) that deep down there is nothing but emptiness and darkness; who didn't know whether God existed (who can know such a thing?), but existed as god's hands to those whom god's hands had forsaken.
I don't write, but I have friends who do. And I have friends who are Christians. So I will let them write.
And I hope that all of their stories are true.
Not to give you a big head, but honestly this is one of the best posts of any blog I have read this year. It inspires me to consider writing again and to understand that the doubts we have are not meant to be denied but they can be the fuel to make us more Christian. That our doubt is not in God, but in how we are reflecting His love to the world. In the end it is about hope.
ReplyDeleteI wish you would write more.