Last night my wife and I watched Lady In A Van, a mostly true story about an odd woman and an author – an indecisive man who has conversations with himself. These conversations were the genesis of his writing. Writing is how the author untangled the inner contradictions which kept him in perpetual neutral. His neighbors saw his introspection as his own crippling oddity. The film resonated with me.

This past week a caring friend told me (once again) that I was very hard on myself. I was puzzled by this comment since much of MwM is about how I have been becoming much less hard on myself. After further review of this conversation I have come to think that being-hard-on-myself was actually a comparative statement – code, in fact, for you are being-very-hard-on-me. (When will I ever learn to keep my inner contradictions to myself.) The last thing I want to do is be hard on others. I had thought I was making headway in this department as well.

What I would like to say to my caring friend is that there is no need to compare how you process truth with how I go about it. God simply made us differently. There are those who, by nature, have conversations with themselves. They see the gray and must ponder both the black and the white that comprise it. And there are those who do not. For them, all this supposed deeper thought is a colossal waste of time. While I get it, I can’t change it.

I recall the deep sigh of relief I had after finishing The Myth of Certainty by Daniel Taylor. This book is a lifeline to reflective Christians – those believers who cannot help but see the absurdity and the glory in both the black and the white. They cannot avoid the inner contradictions so they must meditate and write (if it comes to that) to disentangle fact from fiction. Truth, as they understand it, insists on this inner dialogue.

Taylor’s book allowed that there was even a place for the reflective Christian within the Body of Christ. He suggested their role may be more indirect as they try and attract others out of their black and white dogma into the more mysterious gray tones, where they have personally been driven (or led) and have discovered the most truth.

My friend’s faith is untethered from complexity, eloquent in its simplicity and effectual in its application. I honor him in this and by no means wish to impose my introspections upon him as some standard of spirituality. I am simply doing the best I know how to pursue truth as an older (and slightly odd) man with many questions who is fortunately (or unfortunately) still on speaking terms with himself. While my process may look like a burden to others, it has been a path of life for me.

Father, I pray that we might learn to trust in You and do good; to dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Teach our hearts to delight in You. Teach us to commit our way to You and to trust that You will bring forth Your righteousness and judgment as the noonday light of our lives. Show us how to rest in You and wait patiently for You. Please give us this desire in our hearts. Amen. (a prayer born of Psalm 37:1-7)

 

 

 

 

 

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