Kind of Like Syrup

You know what I don't understand (I know...there are so many things: hairless cats, people who have ferrets as pets, 70-year-old people with Bluetooth receivers stuck in their ear, and dogs with silent barks)? I don't understand, truly fail to grasp, how anyone can have a stagnant, unyielding theology. It's as if God has stopped illuminating humanity with new insight into the understanding of the mystery of the gospel. Okay, so I understand that it's just easier to think that you have everything you need to know. And, I suppose, that for some Christians this way works for them.

I can't do it.

My theology--my understanding of the mystery of God, and my relationship to it--is constantly changing, always in a state of perpetual motion. It's viscous, like Log Cabin syrup, slow but always flowing and reforming. This isn't to say that I'm better than someone who prefers a more intransigent, chiseled, rigid theology, but it's what works for me. I always want to know something new, be challenged in some way, have my view stretched. And this certainly doesn't mean I'm wishy-washy, or soft in my faith, easily swayed by new trends and fads. I'm just willing to listen to other ideas in my relentless search for what is true and real. God, through Jeremiah, said, "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart. I will be found by you." That's why I seek. That's why I'm so fluid, because I want to believe that I will find God, or, perhaps to say, I'll find a deeper part of God, if I keep searching.

I believe that God is always at work, leading us to places of truth and understanding--if we are willing to go. But this means we have to open ourselves up to the possibility of having our boxed theologies blown out from underneath us, leaving us laying on the floor massaging our sore butts and wondering what the crap just happened. All the while God sits back with his box-exploding apparatus-thingy (sort of like a cattle prod, but, you know, God-powered) and just laughs at our naivety. Frankly, it's far easier to stay the same in our thinking than to change. Sometimes, honestly, I wish I didn't know some of the things I know. Sometimes I wish I could go back to being content with stagnation. But I've long since passed the point of no return. Ever seen the old Wil E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons, where Wil E. chases the Road Runner around a curve but forgets to turn and ends up hurtling off a cliff? Know what I'm talking about? I'm the Coyote. I've chased God to the abyss--or to change the metaphor on you--to the edge of Alice's rabbit hole and I'm falling, discovering how deep it actually goes. It's exhilarating, frustrating, nerve-wracking, joyful, tedious--and worth every bit of it all.

shalom, matt