Wait...Another Assignment??

 

Religion helps us ask hard questions, but it does not often offer us easy answers. ~ Rabbi Shai Held.

 

I find this quote very helpful.  This quote reminds me that I don’t have to be a SuperSpiritual Answer person…not that I was very good at the job anyway.  I kept tripping on my cape, and don’t get me started on how I can’t fly, jump over even a regular-size building, or even bend a twist-tie back around the bread wrapper.  Yet, there is disappointment in this quote.  Why go to church if not to receive good advice and moral lessons to apply to your life?  Thank you for that hard question.  I believe we go to church to live the questions with others.  For me, the most meaningful questions need dialogue partners.  How do I love my enemy?  I can’t solve that Rubik's Cube-like question on my own.  I can’t figure out forgiveness in a vacuum.  While yes, I can love God and myself in isolation, I would be missing that pesky part about loving others/neighbors/family/friends/and that annoying person whose views feel like nails on a chalkboard of my soul.  I think part of the difficulty we face today is the sheer number of people we encounter in life, many of whom we do not know.  We have digital “friends” who we see only in their posts on the social platform of your choice.  And those people get under our skin.  Moreover, because those posts are visual, that activates and animates another part of our brain.  It is one thing to read words about destruction; it is another to see it.  Moreover, the amount of news that comes to us daily is more than I think my brain can process.  The pace of news exhausts and overwhelms us.  No cape can rescue everyone; we live with the hard, unanswerable, sometimes unsolvable questions.  We do so faithfully.  That is foundational and formational to the idea of “Love Makes a Family”.  Love is an active verb in that sentence/sentiment.  Love is changing and challenging.  Love involves more than just yourself.  Your love longs for expression in the world.  If you sat down with Love for a meal, what questions would you ask?  I mean that.  Write down the questions you have for Love.  I hear you thinking, “Great, another homework assignment this week?!  What is it with this guy?”  Imagine Love is sitting across from you at the table.  Talk to Love.  May this invitation awaken your imagination and creativity.  May your conversation engage your mind, heart, soul, and life this day.