Somewhere in between

I have the feeling that I'm stuck between two places of equal appeal and finding preference for the tension in the middle. We learn to experience the world in absolutes, little black and whites that simplify the mess and help us make sense of what is permissible and what's not. Then we learn that when we take little pieces of each side and mix them together, things don't fall apart but rather more accurately resemble what we see. As we become more sophisticated, better adjusted and more capable, we begin to mix it all up until we acknowledge that those original groups were just placeholders, helping us categorize everything until we were able to work beyond the confines of two exclusive groups.

All that said, as I swim in seas of grey I find  myself inevitably drawn to those clearly defined shorelines. It's like a sort of mental nostalgia that has me picturing the world as it was supposed to be when I first made expectations for where life would take me. This is all really abstract, so let's get to some examples.

I was walking to get a coffee this morning when I had a little mini-liberation moment and forgot how old I was. I had to do the backwards math that brought me to the mundane age of 26 (...or is it 27...?). At first, I felt old. I was like, man, that's old. But then I thought about lifespans, quarter-life crises, and the process of "getting old" and then felt young. Buuuut then I thought about growing up, about going to school and learning who I am, the mistakes that come with first times and the pains that accompany doing things wrong with no sight of whether you'll end up doing them right. So where does that leave me? Young relative to anyone old enough to not like being asked their age, and old relative to anyone who talks loudly in public places because they "deserve" or crave the attention of a crowd of strangers or super old to anyone super tiny who smiles when you make eye contact because joy is all they associate with the held attention of a stranger.

I had a short but poignant conversation the other day that's sort of been swirling around in my head as I mix it with brief little bits of everything else. My brother in law asked me why I became a Christian, with emphasis on the specific religion as opposed to something else. I concluded that it was largely influenced by where I come from, and what I was introduced to as a result of that. It was a conversation filled with the logical, analytical elements of my being. At the same time, in the back of my head is this reassurance that God is bigger than everything I'm capable of understanding, and that His pursuit wouldn't be limited to anything. This tension is so difficult, as doubt is a sort of manifestation of man's inability to comprehend this grey space between the tangible and the miraculous. In any case, this one is messier than the first.

Finally, but in the same vein, this sort of idea of the limitations of a faithfully lived life have me really feeling stuck in the middle. There's this man who has been coming to our church on Sundays sharing his beliefs about God and faith and the world we find ourselves in. At lunch this past week, I talked to some friends about this man and his position, and read over his literature. To simplify, it's a pretty strict adherence to all Jesus says and a condemnation of those who water down his message to accommodate sinfulness. On the other end, I think people can become waaaay to liberal in their interpretation of Christ's commands and allow for sin to rule them because they feel God's grace covers all their poor decisions. This tension is particularly challenging, because this grey space feels arbitrary at times. Am I a sinner for accumulating wealth? How much wealth? Is that an idea coming from our culture, or the God I serve? You get the idea.

I could keep going into more examples, but I guess you get the idea by now of where I'm at. I feel like good fruit comes from the pursuit of understanding in this tension, but also that a shortage of answers produces so much dissatisfaction. How do you come to terms with the struggle to answer the unanswerable? When is the right time to decide that a question is bigger than the shortage of ideas left for you to consider? Hopefully you can leave me with something to consider, as I hope I've done the same for you.