sit in THAT!

"…have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." – "Letters to a Young Poet," Rilke. ----------------- Apparently the VMAT2 gene is a genetic explanation for human spirituality: "people are, essentially, hardwired to seek a 'higher power'" (Sojourners, "Genetics, Gender and God"). I wanted just to post this cuz it made me sit and go huh how about that. But in sitting I'm scared people will jump up on it to defend or attack God. But I'd prefer it if instead of saying one person's religion is a crutch or another's a lie, we realized everybody, religious or not, has a pair of glasses they're trying to understand the world through. Some people try to keep them clean, some don't. Some take the easy answers, some don't, whether you're religious or not. But sitting in the question always gets a better answer in the end. ---------------------------- Relient K says the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair. If life were "fair" it'd be black and white and eye for an eye and, thanks Gandhi, we'd all be blind. I love that about grace, that there's mercy instead of judgment and life instead of condemnation. But there's something I still haven't figured out. If God is the lion pursuing us and God always gets what he pursues, then why would he pursue one person who doesn't deserve him, but not the other, if he loves them all? Unless he does, and he always gets what he pursues, and so nobody goes to hell. Which sounds rather nice. Until Hitler's in heaven. And I don't know maybe he is, but that's hard to believe. Or does God simply not always get what he wants? But if he tries sometimes he just might find he gets what he needs? Heh heh. Rolling Stones. Heh. Seriously, though, I could accept that if he wants all to respond to him with love but not all do and he gave us free will. But does an all-powerful God create a world where he can't always get what he wants? I don't know. People make it out that if you think in black and white then you're stupid. But if you mess the two together too much then all you think in is grey gray where you can't even agree on how to spell a word.  And then "fair," "just," and "good" mean whatever you want and Hitler was mature for realizing that all's "fair" in love and war, and that sometimes there are simply costs. And that's not good. But at the same time, it seems like there really are costs. But how much is too much? I don't know. Why did Diedrich Bonhoeffer think God created a world in which man would have to sin personally to do what's right publicly? Why do we accept that division between private righteousness (read: right relationships) and public justice (read: right relationships). People admire Bonhoeffer. I admire Bonhoeffer. He was planning to kill a man. But it was Hitler. And if there's one thing I learned in high school, it's that Hitler was a bad man. A very bad man. We make it black and white. Hitler bad. Bonhoeffer good. And then the cost's okay. But Bonhoeffer had a whole lot of grey gray he was dealing with. ------------------------ I sang Lilyannie to sleep with the same lullabies my mom sung me to sleep, telling her how there's no one else in the world like her who thinks or acts or smiles like her. If I really believe that about every person, then I don't want to use any cheap answers to justify anyone's life or death. My cousin-brother Michael says God is very funny. He says sometimes he doesn't know why God made him. Because Michael's had a tough life. And honestly I don't want to tell his story right now cuz he's Michael my cousin-brother and that's what's most important. But he thinks God is very funny. And I agree. My white Macbook has definitely been to Africa. It made me happy, because a good bit of the dirt came from Lilyannie, and so I thought it'd be a constant reminder of her when I went home. I thought about how just like my muzungu computer's going to take pieces of Africa back with it and be a muzungu+ computer, so would I be a muzungu+. But then today I was able to clean some of the dirt off. It's like when you think you have a tan and then you take a shower. I wonder how much of Africa is going to come off of me when I go home. I wonder who I'll forget. I'm scared. ----------------------- A brother told me I should ask God my questions, and wait for him to answer. So that's what I'm trying to do. I didn't really share these questions for you to give me an answer. I'm just trying to practice transparency.