My Fight

For some reason my whole College experience has been one fight against belief in God. Or more specifically belief in religion. Yet that fight. The one against religion has lead to a serious questioning of the existence of a higher power, a divine being, Elyon. I have accepted things that make traditional christian belief absolutely impossible. Ideas such as evolution, natural selection, and modern genetics. All these point more and more towards a random and chaotic existence. Humans being but a blip on the radar of the natural universe...

But then something brings me back.

I can't explain what it is. Mere words can not begin to capture the essence that brings me back. Concepts such as love, forgiveness, caring, community and more all begin to form a rough puzzle of what I feel grabs at me every time I try to rid myself of my fundamental belief in what God has done. But story seems to capture it best. Something as fundamental as memories creates a picture out of the jigsaw pieces in my mind...

Light comes in through the window of the bridge between the Emergency Room and the main hospital one morning while I am moving patients from one point to another. The halls are lined with detailed paintings of the American West. In one a group of Native Americans walk through a snow covered alpine forest. Green from the trees just barely poking through the layers of snow. But this painting isn't one of hope. Behind the Natives follow a pack of wolves. With a closer look one might even be able to see the desperation painted on the faces of each character. One, in fact, is carrying a friend with him on the back of his horse. Some unknown malady has hit the man and he is dead but for his friends...

But none of this catches my attention. I've been down this hall hundreds of times. I'm bored with the repetition. Then I see something that causes me to come back down to earth out of my daydreaming. A girl with her mother. The light catches them both just right so their skin seems to glow. The white walls of the hallway only accentuate this feeling. But it wasn't the light that first caught my attention, it was the pink surgical mask over the girl. Her hair had fallen out as well. She had cancer. One of her chemotherapy treatments had just occurred and her immune system wasn't up to the challenge of walking around the hospital unprotected. So the nurses gave her a pink surgical mask to match her pink pajamas.

Then her eyes met mine. And she smiled through the mask.

Her life will affect more than most. Her death maybe even a greater number. I don't know. But she smiled. She has hope.

There a thousand more stories like this. Ones that seem to be hopeless but on closer inspection there is always a glimmer, a pinprick of light. Like the smile of a girl. Or the gentleness of a family in the slums of Kolkuta. Maybe even the generosity of a Moroccan man who sees five Americans in a part of the city which is known for violence and leads them to a safer spot, shows them a place to eat, and then disappears. Even in the difficultly of adjusting and living in two different cultures within the span of one year. Or even in human existence. Research it sometime, human existance is a statistical anamoly.

These stories point to something more. Something that compells people to pass on hope to others. To give others a reason to fight, to move forward, and to love.

I think its some mystical being. An ineffable essence which permiates all aspects of this world; God.

Me+God

I was reading a friends post and I came across something; a sentence that started Me+God. The phrase got me thinking. I just returned from a trip to Wyoming. It was filled with hiking, kayaking, and some quality family time (along with a rodeo). But while I could say it was an experience of Me+God+Hiking+Mountains etc. it feels better to me to say God+Me. That simple change in order speaks volumes about what I feel when I'm out there. I see God. And that's why I say God+Me. I'm in his territory. Area that God entrusted to us to take care of.

Oh and PS this is also from a friends site (sorry im stealing it Katrina). It gives a bit of insight into what the God I'm talking about above actually is:

"I feel, however, how resistance is growing within me against everything "religious" - almost to an istinctive abhorrence - which is certainly not good, either. I am not of a religious nature. But I must continue to think of God and Christ. I place a lot of value on genuineness, on life, on freedom, and on mercy. It's just that I find the religious clothing so uncomfortable".

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (from 'I want to live these days with You')