Kinda Like A Slinky

My story...
Part 1 Part 2
Part 3 Part 4
Part 5 Part 6
Part 7 Part 8 (Addendum) Part 9 Part 10 Part 11

Phillip Yancy says that faith is built on the skeleton of doubt.

There are so many ways to take that statement and everyone who hears it, reacts differently. I have no idea what it means to Phillip Yancy.

I think there is both a linear and cyclical path to life. I believe we are moving forward - that the climax of this novel is ahead of us. But I also believe that our lives move in circles. That we revisit areas over and over again.

If we're growing and healthy, I suppose our life looks something like a slinky - round and round in an upward motion. If we're really unhealthy, it probably looks like a slinky too, just pointed in the different direction.

For years now, I have cycled back around to doubting.

I learned when I was very young that honesty (with myself and God) was always the best policy. So everytime the slinky hits the doubting part of the cycle, I go at with brutal honesty.

The first time it happened, I told God I wasn't sure she was real.
The second time, I told God I wasn't sure about Jesus.
The third time, I wasn't sure about the Bible.
The fourth time, I wasn't sure about the Church.
The fifth time, I wasn't sure about God's character.
The sixth time, I wasn't sure about myself.
The seventh time, I wasn't sure about nihilism...and found myself back at the beginning.

Little wheels within bigger wheels...

As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the ground...[the wheels] sparkled like chrysolite...each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel...and all four rims were full of eyes all around. When the living creatures moved, the wheels beside them moved...wherever the spirit would go, they would go, and the wheels would rise along with them...when the creatures moved, [the wheels] also moved; when the creatures stood still, they also stood still; and when the creatures rose from the ground, the wheels rose along with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels... -The Sayings of Ezekial

(For those who care to know, I'm using the above passage to suit my story - I do not claim to speak for Ezekial or to know what he meant when he wrote this.)

Everytime I fly, I get off the plane with a sore neck. Everytime I fly, someone has to wipe the greasy nose print off the window pane. I ALWAYS get a window seat and spend the entire time staring out the window at the passing earth. I love the patchwork of farmlands and the squiggles of rivers; the texture and patterns in the clouds and bumpy hills and mountains. I love the colors. I love the perspective.

But for a year or so, I was plagued with doubt over "life after death."

With brutal honesty, I imagined what it would feel like to be falling from the sky, in an airplane gone bad, seconds away from death, with the knowledge that the end was absolute.

Morbid, huh?

But I had to ask! I had to allow for that to be a possibility! We must not run from things because we are scared of them! We must turn and face those shadows that haunt us. We must not let fear rule us.

It's in places like this, that I find faith. But let me be careful to explain what I mean - or what I don't mean.

I don't mean that when I ask God a question - when I'm honest about my doubts - that God answers me with "faith" - the gift of absolute certainty.

I don't mean that when I doubt, I - by sheer force of will - choose to believe anyway as an act of obedience.

What I mean is that everytime I doubt - as I said last time - I am really asking...

WHO ARE YOU, GOD?

And whether the question be life after death or the deity of Jesus or the "whats-the-deal-e-o-with-the-Church?", God's answer is always...

I AM.

And so my faith is not in the assurance of my salvation or the certainty of life after death or the theories of the atonement or the inerrancy of the Bible, my faith rest on only one thing.

I AM

And I hear from the mouth of God, the name of the One, and I can see.

I see bazillion snowflakes pouring forth from the mind of God with uniqueness and beauty in every crystal. I see the lines of the faces of the old people. I see colors - the pink of the cyclamen. I see a universe throbbing with life and light. I see puppy dog eyes.

I see the hairs on the heads of those I love.

I taste the mint and mocha, the caramel and the espresso, strawberries and the nutty taste of wild rice.

I feel the satin of a horse's coat, the tickle of velvet and the coolness of silk.

I hear the silence when the snow falls.

I smell life.

And I know - I am certain - that God is good.

Life...it's kinda like a slinky.

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 3/05/2005 10:02:00 AM | (6) comments