Bigger Things: Epiphany from reading Paul

"Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers..." -- Voltaire


I just finished several chapters from "Blue Like Jazz" and I feel like I have to put the work stuff aside and start writing about what's been percolating in my brain -- if I don't, I know I'll forget what has me so excited so here it is --

The epiphany that's formed over the last few days comes from reading three different sources; "Blue Like Jazz" which, as I said, I'm halfway through; Rob Bell's "Velvet Elvis", amazing book, easy read if you're interested, which I read about 2 years ago; and Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13.

What we need often in our lives, what the Church needs more and more of, is questions, not answers.

And better questions.

And that is of course a great paradox because if we as the Church, and as individual congregations in local churches, and even as individual followers, believers, seekers -- are willing to say we need more questions, it means we have fewer answers.

And we're more vulnerable, more submissive.

Because that admission means the nature of the World and our role in it is being continually discovered and revealed as something more and more and more complex, and paradoxically, I think, more wondrous than we previously knew.

And it means we're continually finding we're wrong, in certain ways, about what we knew before; on the one hand, we're paring down the parts of our understanding that were imperfect, leaving less; we're also adding more material, more knowledge, to sift through.

But isn't this what science continually shows us? Take the recent discovery made in Latin America -- the vertebrae of what is now thought to be the largest snake that ever lived on Earth, something about 43 feet long and as big around as a trash barrel.

The discovery of the snake itself isn't what's most amazing to scientists, though it is astounding (if this thing ate what snakes now eat -- a reasonable assumption -- that would mean it could devour crocodiles whole!) The bigger picture is that having a reptile, a cold-blooded animal, of that size in that region would mean the tropics were most likely much warmer than previously thought; by only a few degrees, but still a big enough difference to pose a significant challenge to the previous understanding scientists had of what the tropics were like millions of years ago...

And this kind of challenge, this change, is what I continually see happening in the lives of individuals and, in some cases, in church congregations.

It isn't that truth has changed; it doesn't mean there isn't absolute truth. Rather, as Paul wrote in Corinthians, our vision is incomplete and being continually revealed: "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully..." (I Cor. 13:12)

The challenge I see in being human, in having rational thought, isn't to realize we'll never really find truth; rather, it's that we're continually discovering truth from different angles, seeing different sides, like we're exploring a mountain that we suddenly find is actually a chain of mountains, which we later discover is on one of many continents. And just when we're really excited about finally 'getting it', someone flies in on a spaceship and says, 'yeah, but wait until you see what's up there!' and points to the sky... it only gets bigger.

Does this mean that what we experienced when we made the first climb up the first wall of the first mountain wasn't true? Of course not -- rather, that the fun, the challenge, and the necessity of knowing God doesn't lie in climbing the first ledge and stopping to look down at what you've achieved, though in some sense, even that step is crucial; instead, we have to find solace in the journey of finding the God who created it all and has more in store for us than we could possibly see at first sight.



All of which I write to say this: I enjoy, I need, I pray for, better questions and fewer answers; fewer because I think I need better answers, not more of them. This reminds me of 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance', another great read, though longer than the others; we often ask each other 'What's new?' What we really need to know is: what's best???