the question

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Who stands before a 20-year old man, looks him in the eye, fires off the question at point blank range? 

"Do you believe in God?"

With no warning. No caution. No pretense. My curious, mostly innocent 5-year old son can pull that off.

It was just two days ago that Owen and I talked about how not everybody goes to church. Or even believes in God. We talked about how they're not all bad people either, or at least no worse than us. Like some of our family and friends. Whom we love.

I obliged his wide eyed need for names, answering with a string of"yes, no, I don't know." Which apparently did not rest well with the boy. And now he waits. Just stands there. Expecting nothing more or less than an answer. The young man replies.

"I'm really not sure...."

Owen flashes his shy smile, pauses to take in. He sees that this question of his is something important, wants to say more. But he turns away, head stand flops into the couch.

I stand to the side, surprised by it all. Owen stating a sincere question. Cory answering him gently and honestly instead of brushing him off or saying what he thought was right. I tell you that I have greater respect for both of those boys.

It turns out that Cory and I both have a hard time reconciling a God of love, purpose, and design with cold brutality and random suffering. Design? What of suicide and whirlwinds, terrorists and earthquakes? What of the creepy things of the natural world that were apparently designed specifically to inflict pain and death?

The truth is that sometimes, I'm really not sure. I want to avoid the whole issue. But head stand flops onto the couch don't cut it when you're a big boy.

I try to remember that living faithfully and consistently is a more meaningful and difficult thing than making claims about faith. I wait out the skepticism. Cozy up to uncertainty. The truth of the matter simply cannot hinge upon transient feelings and emotions that often seem to appeal to whatever side of the fence we're not on.

And in the mean time I choose to live faithfully.

It may be a glimpse of beauty in a smile, a scenic view, or a song that dislodges the doubt. It may be an obligation or a cry. Sometimes a hunch is all it takes.

I may catch wind from the scientists. They say that our universe had a beginning, a fact which seems to beg for a cause. I just don't have enough faith in nothing to believe that all this something came from nothing. With new understanding of the quantum world, the scientists and philosophers agree that freedom reigns throughout nature, from our collective conscious down through the smallest units of matter. And with true freedom comes the potential for pain and consequences, along with meaning, joy, and love.

Love, serving and unconditional? Where on earth did that come from? What is the agnostics answer to the problem of all - this - beauty? Our ideas of courage, truth, justice, and mercy? Why do we have some transcendent appeal for the way things are supposed to be, and cry tears or "no fair" when they are not so?

This lack of reasonable explanation for so many things, it pushes me back to faith. And I know, without a doubt, how this faith pushes me away from my tendency of a fearful, vanilla, self concerned suckah.

I was nearly moved to tears before going to bed, when Owen asked me to pray for Cory, our not really sure, honest friend. I wasn't exactly certain..., but we did thank God for the chance to experience this life with Cory. We prayed that we would be good friends to Cory, that all of us would have our eyes open to see.

And I can't shake it. Can't contain the meaning of a child's simple faith and care with an appeal to science or reason. Can you see how God is with Owen on this? Jesus did say that his kingdom, the very place where God dwells, belongs to such as these.

 

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