Conrad pointed out to me it's been just over six months since my last post so I figured, "What the hell." I think a quick update on my last post is only fair.
I'm currently reading (see: Slowly) a book called Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry, which, merely 60-something pages in anyway, seems to be one of those slow-burning books of sneakily genius insight. Early in his life as a young man, the main character, Jayber, finds himself in school studying to be a priest when his faith is shaken by paradigm-shifting questions about God. He goes to his adviser and shares all his questions, hoping to get answers that will put his religious life back on track. Jayber asks him, how can he ever stand in front of people and give a sermon to people on God when these questions are a thorn in his mind. As it turns out, this last question is the only one of Jayber's the adviser answers. He says simply, "You can't." And with that, of course, Jayber promptly drops out of college and begins to explore whatever will become of him next.
To some degree, that's how I feel about what the questions I was wrestling with in my last post. Six months later, I can't answer a single one of my questions any better than when I asked them. However, I feel much better about life than I did then because I feel less compelled to ask those questions at all. I don't think they are any less valid in being asked, but they just don't occur to me anymore. Okay, they do, but not nearly as much.
When I ask myself why that is, why I've been able to just sort of move on from this dilemma that only six months ago had me paralyzed, I think it's that I no longer think it matters much. I can give up or not give up, die trying to do this or resign myself to do that, but whatever is going to be is going to be. It's not up to me. Who or what it is up to is another discussion I don't really want to blog about, but it certainly isn't me. I'm essentially powerless. I find a lot of relief and freedom in that idea. My life is a ride and I am in a passenger seat. Sometimes I will like the ride and sometimes I won't, but there's no point in me trying to steer a wheel that isn't there.
Not that I'm wandering aimlessly about, untethered from responsibility or choice, waiting to see whether the wind blows me onto the sidewalk or into the street. I can see how my tone here might seem like I've simply lost all hope and dealing with it accordingly. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm doing great. Life is good. Some things are presently working out and others aren't. I'm just doing a better job, I think, of letting go and appreciating the beauty of the whole thing.
