Thoughts from Culhwch

I’ve been reading over the informational packet for Park Slope Presbyterian Church. And I’m stopped in my tracks. Overcome with memories of how God has used me, and of the importance I place on those events when I have felt God most at work through me.

I want that again.

I want to see people set free. I want to see them come together in a community. A couple of years ago I shared the poem I wrote while I was recovering from a very traumatic robbery. Those of you who know me will know what I’m talking about. And those of you who are just getting to know me will probably learn soon enough. You can read the poem here. At a spiritual retreat I shared this poem. I read it. I channeled what I felt at the time and maybe more. I read it out with all the raw emotion. And God used it. I saw people set free from burdens that they had carried. I saw people share the struggles that they had felt, and I knew God was using me to transform every one of us. At this moment I am overcome by something else. I am the quiet type of person in many social settings, I feel often disconnected from large groups of people. I only feel comfortable around small groups of friends, and I’m probably notoriously hard to get to know. But that night, when I shared that poem, God was creating the community that on my own, I could barely have even joined, let alone be a part of the founding of that communal moment.

For some time I have felt a calling to encourage others.  It grows from this and other experiences of feeling God’s presence. I love to write, I love to write when I’m on fire with a passion for everything that God has put before me, for all the burdens I feel.

I’m not exactly sure how to explain it. But I know God has put it there within me. God has put this need within me to encourage others.

I’m still searching for what this ministry entails, but I know I have to do it.

~David

I was reading psalm 74 this evening and was struck by the similarity of verse 10, with the opening lines of psalm 13. Both begin (I’m not looking at the Hebrew here), with the question “how long.” (a quick search points to several other reprisals of the question in the psalms, but these two came to mind). In 74:10 the psalmist asks “How long, O God, will the adversary revile, and the enemy spurn your name forever,” in psalm 13 the psalmist asks “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever.” I guess the “forever” also catches my eye. The NASB puts it at the end of the phrase in both passages.

The two passages are quite different. In 74 the psalmist asks how long the enemy will triumph, but it is not till verse 11 that we understand that the psalmist is asking God to do something about it. Psalm 13 seems more direct, as if the psalmist is about to accuse God. The difference lies in the phrasing itself. 74 asks how long a third person actor will continue. But 13 asks how long God, second person, will forget.

But enough with the differences. The commonalities between the passages are far more interesting. Both wonder whether or not God will do something. Both evoke desperation in a way that cannot be overlooked. It is the kind of despair that a person feels when he reaches the very ends of himself, or his ability to understand his world. Is God still real? Will God meet the need I have? Can God?

I think it’s way too easy for Christians to overlook this question, to feel too uncomfortable with it, or to assume that it’s wrong to ask. I submit that we need to ask it more. We need to admit when we don’t feel God, when we don’t know if we can still continue to believe what we believe. I think those are the moments of the profoundest spiritual growth.

Second, I think Christians are afraid to ask this question because they are afraid they might accidentally become atheists, that anybody who asks this will become an atheist, will suddenly have a total crisis in their ability to believe that God really is there. I submit that failing to be upfront about the times when we doubt God’s presence actually hurts other’s faith, and I suspect it hurts our own too.

I remember the first time I was confronted with the possibility that the opening verses of Genesis might not be original to Hebrew literature. That the first and second passages might come from different authors, that they were passages that had “merely” been collected together. At some point I was mortified. Somehow, I had based my faith in God, and in the Bible on them being true in some strange way that could not admit their being true if they came from disparate sources. Thinking back on it now, I don’t see how their disparateness can make them untrue. But the first night I had that doubt, it spread over me, I felt paralyzed, like I could not overcome it. If this passage is out, what about the others?

The doubt had me, and at some point, I even considered that my entire faith might be wrong. But then suddenly I understood something else. I was not in a different place in terms of faith, it was just that God had allowed me to look “down,” to see how far “up” He was holding me.

When I finally got around to taking OT, several other things had changed. I began to understand that passages collected even from modified mythologies could still be entirely true. As I think on the opening verses now, I find I have a slightly different view on them. I’ve learned to make no judgements on whether or not a passage is figurative or literal. I find myself incapable of discerning that.

But as a bit of background, for me the figurative and literal have ceased to be mutually exclusive categories.  Perhaps, I came to this place because the medievals didn’t think they were so exclusive either. I’m also not sure that the kinds of truth claims that the categories of “figurative” and “literal” would have made are the same today as when these texts were written.

Today the figurative seems to us as an untruth that metaphorizes the truth. It is one layer which is untrue, that sits atop and hides a layer which is true. But why must this be the only way we can understand the figure? Why can’t both layers be absolutely true? I think a medieval theologian would likely laugh at the supposition that the figurative would always entail an untruth.

Anyway, what I’m trying to get at here is not so much how my understanding of scripture changed, but the fact that even before my views were able to change to catch up with the dramatic shifts in my understanding (if indeed I have any – still in doubt on that one), the point of asking the question, “Is God real?”, did not leave me in doubt, but rather led me on to a greater understanding of how powerful faith really was.  I came to realize that faith often means choosing to put our doubts aside for long enough for our understanding to catch up to our beliefs. But it does not mean choosing to ignore our doubts, or choosing not to ask the deep questions that the psalmist(s) do. It often means coming to grips with the extent of our doubts. Finally, and this is the most important, the questions we have also serve to show us where we have placed our faith. For me, it showed me that I had placed my faith in a particular interpretation just slightly more than in the God who inspired the Bible to begin with. When that interpretation began to disappear, I began to see how high faith in God was holding me above my severely limited understanding.

In psalm 13 the psalmist realizes where his trust is, and is encouraged, “But I have trusted in Your lovingkindness; My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation…” Psalm 74:12 states “Yet God is my king from of old, Who works deeds of deliverance in the midst of the earth” … Perhaps I’m thinking too much of Heidegger when I see “earth,” but I wonder if the psalmist isn’t saying something like “from a place which seems hidden God works wonders of deliverance” … but maybe instead of the hidden Heideggerian earth, we might also see “earth”  as the place where miracles are unexpected, the chaotic seas of the next verse, or the stones split open for water in the verse following that one. Whatever it is, the psalmist realizes that God can do amazing things when situations are desperate. But psalm 74 doesn’t leave us with total overwhelming answers to the question of whether or not God will or can help. Instead the psalmist continues to plead with God. Perhaps there is a lesson there too. Even when we know God’s power and might, and have re-affirmed it, we should still continue to pray.

~David

Some days at work seem really busy, and yet simultaneously unproductive. Sometimes you get a problem that just stares you back for an hour, and you keep trying to fix it, until you finally try a different approach. You solve the problem, but you feel like you have spent way too long. Have you been productive? Sure, I solved this problem or that problem, but I hate that it took so long. I think it’s my patience to keep trying to solve a problem that my boss really noticed in the first couple of weeks. I keep to it often when others would just walk away. I guess the thing I often question is whether or not it was worth it.

There are some problems I will never solve. And sometimes it takes just as much courage to back off from the problem as to keep staring at it.

When I was a young child I used to be completely unable to walk away from a problem. I think this expressed itself as a kind of perfectionism. My mom used to tell me that I had to make a decision to leave my projects undone, because I would never be able to finish them if I continually searched out new problems to solve. But now, I’m starting to wonder if this was really perfectionism, or just an inability to back away.

It’s hard for someone who simply loves solving problems to get to that point of backing away. For me, every problem I encounter is like a puzzle. It’s a kind of game that I get to play, try to beat or win. My grandfather noticed that side of me, and often gave me brain teaser puzzles to solve. I loved it. A new puzzle made me giddy. But it wasn’t just my love of puzzles that made happy. I really liked having the opportunity to prove myself, to prove that I could solve the most difficult challenges. The same puzzle seeking served me well in Math and Science, but it also drove me to seek problems I found more interesting in Literature and the humanities. And yet, the whole drive to prove myself has often been dangerous. Sometimes I have put proving myself ahead of actually getting work done.

This whole fascination with puzzles is a huge part of who I am, but I think it also makes it difficult to relate to others. It’s not that I try to solve everybody else’s problems (or do I?). It’s more that I cannot keep from talking about the problems I have solved. I must seem incredibly narcissistic.  I hope it’s clear that I often just want to invite others to celebrate. I want others to see the beauty of a solution to a problem.

I guess that’s something to think about.

There is something really amazing about getting out of town on the weekend. After awhile I guess living in New York gets to me a little. It starts feeling like an inescapable monster that keeps me pinned in. Ok… that train of thought is about to turn all emo… Anyway, it was really good to get out for a day, see old friends and remember that life is still just really cool.

I’ve decided, however, that I need to use my time here better. I’ve spent too much time like a vegetable watching too much tv and online tv. I need to be reading, writing, and doing something constructive in my community. I’m tired of being mostly casual about all of that, I need discipline. Speaking of the lack of discipline, I just totally finished off a tub of icing. Then I started feeling guilty for just wanting something sweet.

I’ve also been thinking that maybe I should get out and see some fine arts stuff. You know, that whole opera thing being just a few stops from work.

words. words. words.