Why

Donald Miller is probably my favourite author of all time, aside from Erwin McManus. There is just something about his writing and the way he sees the world that connects deep with my spirit, probably because I catch myself thinking the exact same things that he has written in his books.

I am reading "Through Pained Deserts" right now and the way he speaks about his relationship with God and what it is like to navigate through the questions in his heart really put me at peace, and resonnate with me because it is like he is taking the thoughts right out of my head and putting them on paper.

"Recently, I have come to believe that there are more important questions then "how" questions: How do I get money? How do I have fun? be happy? On one of our trips to central Texas, I stood at the top of a desert hill and looked up at the endlessness of heavens, deep into the inky blackness of the cosmos, those billion stars seeming to fall through the void from nowhere to nowhere. I stood there for 20 minutes and as it had a few times before that year, my mind fell to the question, why? The question terrified me at first. I had only recently begun questioning my faith in God, a kind of commercial, American version of spirituality. I had questions because of the silliness of its presuppositions. The rising question of why had been manifesting for quite some time , and had previously only been answered by Western Christianity's propositions of behaviour modification. What is beauty? I would ask. Here are the 5 keys to a successful marriage, I would be given an answer. It was as if nobody was listening to the question being groaned by all of creation, groaned through the pining of our sexual tension, our broken biochemistry, the blending of light and smog to make our glorious sunsets. I began to believe the Christian faith was a religious system invented within the human story rather then a series of true ideas that explained the story. Christianity was a pawn for polititians, a moral system to control our broken natures. The religion did seem to stem from something beautiful, for sure, but it had been dumbed down and Westernized. If it was a religious system that explained the human story, the adherents had lost the grandness of its explanation in exchange for its validation of their "how" lifestyles, to such a degree that the why questions seemed to be drowning in the drool of Pavlov's dogs. And it wasn't just the church that was drowning; it was all of humanity, or at least all of the West. Our sky scrapers and sports teams, our malls and our master-planned neighborhoods, our idiot politics, our sultry media promising ecstasy with every use of a specific dishwashing detergent. What does all of this mean? Are we animals nesting? Are we rats in one giant cage? And does my faith live within these instincts, always getting me to my happiness, or is it larger, explaining the why of life, the how a shallow afterthought?

It wasn't just my faith that was being shaken. I began to wonder what personal ideas I believed weren't true. I believed I was not athletic enough; too stupid, I believed I had to go to college; I believed that jeans that cost 50 dollars were better then jeans that cost 30; I believed that living in a certain part of town made you more imporant than living in another. I looked up at the cosmos and it had no scientific proof that any of this was true. The cosmos wasn't telling me I was stupid or that certain jeans were better. They were just spinning around up there, as if to create beauty for beauty's sake, paying no attension to the frivolity of mankind. And so in exchange for the how question, I picked up the why question. Far from depressing, this lead to something quite beautiful...... I needed to believe that beauty meant something.... I needed God to be larger then our free market economy, larger then our two-for-one coupons, larger then our religious ideas."

I feel better knowing I am not alone in thinking these thoughts. My conclusion, God is larger, mighier, more loving, more wise, more powerful, and more beautiful then the box we put Him in.

Happy Tears

I cried when I got told I was not "university material"
I cried when I first started University and my advisor told me that I would not make it as a Social Worker
I cried when I walked away from that dream and found a new one in Ireland
I cried when that country broke my heart so much that it lead me back to my original dream of being a Social Worker
I cried when God told me to leave the place I had fallen in love with to go back to school
I cried when my best friend believed in me and told me that it was OK to want to go to school even though people said I would not make it,
I cried when my parents and friends all supported me and rallied around me to cheer me on as I began qualifying and attempting to make my goal a reality,
I cried when yesterday everything I have been working towards and dreamt of was handed to me on a piece of paper.
I am going to be a Social Worker, and by the grace and love of God and the love and support of my friends and family my dream is finally coming true.