Groping as in a Mirror... for Something that is not that Far Away

Go read Acts 17.


In my Bible, my cursive scrawl in the top margin over Acts 17 reads "I love this story for some reason..." And I do. There are so many things about it that strike me.


The basic gist, for those who haven't read the whole chapter, is that Paul is waiting around in Athens after some run-ins in Thessalonica, and his spirit "provokes" him because of all the idol worship he sees in Athens. So, he spends a  lot of time "reasoning in the synagogue" with all kinds of people-- Jews, "God-fearing Gentiles," and Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. Paul ends up speaking to the Areopagus, a religious and educational council, and what he presents to them is the gospel but said in a way I've never ever heard a Southern preacher tell it:

For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.' Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are His children.'

Paul goes on for only a few verses to talk about repentance, judgment, and Jesus's resurrection. At this point, some people begin to, as the New American Standard translation reads, "sneer." Some of Paul's listeners are skeptical of the resurrection stuff, as many of my contemporaries would be, and I'll admit I too have a tendency to turn up my nose when the gospel story is told laid on thick with lots of references to righteous judgment and eternity and rewards and other unfortunate evangelical buzz words.


Not all of Paul's listeners are completely put off, though. Some people say instead, "We shall hear you again concerning this," and that's one of the things I love about this passage. Some people want to hear again. They're intrigued. Something in it, crazy though it may be, easy as it would be for the academic mind to dismiss, seems true.  Somehow there's something true... maybe... about these ideas.


And how did Paul get their attention? Anyone who knows me knows why I love this part. He quotes their poets! Not Scripture, not Jewish law, not what he thinks or what Jesus said to him on the road to Damascus-- their poets. He points to their religion, to their shrines, to their obvious, obsessive desire to honor whatever god that might be out there to worship and shows them what they're lacking, gives them a name for the God that is unknown to them, the one true God. I love that on so many levels. I love it so much it makes me not want to try to explain  myself but just keep saying  how much I love it. I love it. I love how Paul talks to them from their culture's perspective, I love that he quotes poetry, and I love how the whole thing points, as Romans 1:19-20 does, to the fact that something in humanity knows God even when He is unknown to them.


I love that verses 24-28 are all one sentence, like Paul has to connect all the ideas together in one tumbling string of related ideas to get them all together like they can't be separated, even by a breath. They're that closely connected, flowing from each other. They're that urgent to say.


Perhaps best of all, though, I love this part, so I'll type it yet again--

He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they might seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist.

Reasons abound for loving this... I identify with it so much, the feeling of seeking, groping reaching out to Him, stretching for Him as if He is so far away and so hard to grasp. It reminds me of one of the parts I love from Ecclesiastes--

He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their hearts, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end. Ecclesiastes 3:11  

Both are comforting in some ways-- God is in control, God has determined all the appointed and appropriate times just as they should be, eternity is set in our hearts, and, according to Paul, finding Him is a possibility. He made us and appointed our times so that perhaps we might find  Him. Both are perhaps even more frustrating. Paul qualifies finding God with "if," "perhaps," and "might." These are big ifs here. Solomon throws in a "yet" and says that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end. That kills me. Can I find what I'm looking for or not? What is the point? Then, though, even in that frustration, that despair at never knowing and finding fully, the end of Acts 17:27 envelopes and embraces in hope-- He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist.


This whole life is groping and grasping, struggling for the point and more often than not coming up one-sided or broken and then just digging in and sharpening some more. Yet the elusive point is out there. God is the point, and He is not that far away.


The best part of 1 Corinthians 13 to me is verse 12-- 

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.

Amen. The reaching and the grasping-- or trying to-- are not in vain. He is not far from each of us, and one day we're actually, finally, fully going to be able to understand that. Until that day, I just have to keep reminding myself that God is not as far off as He seems, that life can never be completely in vain while that is true, and that life is in the seeking. Seeking, seeking, until one day we know, until one day we fully live and move and exist in Him and understand it as we do.

Genesis = the origin, the formation

The Sunday school class Jason and I are becoming a part of at Parkway is studying the book of Genesis; from the look of it we will be studying it for a while, and I'm finding myself almost surprisingly fascinated. What is the origin of the world? Of life? Love? Beauty? Art? Humanity? I reflected earlier this summer that I simply have to believe in God, that for me there can be no other option. I cannot believe that something as complex and driven by emotion and a sense of the possibility of perfect good and beauty can exist without a source of perfection, good, emotion. 


As expanses-of-the-sky wide open as I am about the specifics of the book of Genesis, its history, and how it is to be understood and interpreted, I do not doubt that the origin is God. In six days, six seconds, or the entire Darwinian process of centuries and centuries, everything came to be, I truly believe, at the word of God. At His breath. At His command.


A study I found online has directed me to several places in Scripture aside from Genesis that refer to the formation of the world and our Creator's foreknowledge and authority in the process. I don't know why. I want to be so logical, have such proof and rationale... yet all I have to say is this feels right. Something about the story of God as our Creator (and as our Redeemer I must equally emphasize) just fills all the gaps for me somehow... I will think about how I might express that more articulately and informatively.


All I really know to say is that I want the one in whom "all things hold together." How can I not yearn for that? I have to have hope in one who made this world, one who has the power to continue to form it, to transform it into what it should have been...

If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth; knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. 1 Peter 1:17-21

By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible. Hebrews 11:3 

He [Christ] is before all things and in Him all things hold together. Colossians 1:17

[...] that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that the are without excuse. Romans 1:19-20 

Better not to want the world too much

Who could envy Cain his hunger? Better to be circumspect and silent. Better not to want the world too much. Left alone with the body of his brother, Cain began to assemble the words about what Abel had done and what he had been forced to do in return. It was a long story. It took his entire lifeto tell it. And even then it wasn’t finished.How great language had to become to encompass its deft evasions and sly contradictions, its preenings and self-satisfied gloatings.Each generation makes a contribution, hoping to have got it right at last. The sun rises and sets. The leaves flutter like a million frightened hands. Confidently, we step forward and tack a few meager phrases onto the end.

Each generation makes a contribution, hoping to have got it right at last.


Hoping to have got it right at last.


I love the book of Ecclesiastes, and  I am constantly reminded that Solomon has it right when he says there is nothing new under the sun. Generation after generation, we're following the same patterns with different specifics. Struggling and striving as those before us, trying to add meaning that hasn't been added before... just to "tack a few meager phrases onto the end."


And as I speed re-read Ecclesiastes this morning, noting all the portions I have circled and identified with in the past in the exact same way I identify with them this morning, I am not apathetic or pessimistic or down-trodden or hopeless as it might sound.


How is it possible that I don't really find the refrain of Ecclesiastes "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!" hopeless? Somehow, this morning, it is not hopeless, but hope in something that is not vain, a reminder of the proper perspective of humanity, which is to remember that our lives are brief, a repetition of lives before us and without control over the lives that come after, lives that are filled with vanities, futilities, inconsistencies, and injustices. We struggle to make meaning of every aspect of our corporal lives, and, in trying to get it right, we all follow different paths, some wisdom, some riches, some work, some religion, and  in the end it is all the same. As Hamlet reflected over the skull of Yorrick, Solomon said it centuries before: "One fate befalls them both."


There is nothing new under the sun. Why then, do I search for the point as if it is something that can be discovered that hasn't been discovered before?


I think if I could just study enough... if I could just be wise enough... but the problem with the whole thing is that my perspective is rooted in the idea that I, a human, can grasp it and can get it right, and that perspective is foolishness. There is only one point: God. It's a point I can't ever understand, but that's the point. And this morning, I am rejoicing in that.

But beyond this, my son, be warned: the writing of many books is endless, and the excessive devotion to books is wearing to the body. The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgement, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil. Ecclesiastes 12:12-14

And I  saw every work of God, I concluded that man cannot discover the work which has been done under the sun. Even though man should seek laboriously, he will not discover; and though the wise man should say, "I know," he cannot discover. Ecclesiastes 8:17

He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their hearts, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end. Ecclesiastes 3:11 

The Point and Grasping for It

I had no intention of opening this with any sort of metaphor, but as I typed the title and thought about the point, I was reminded of my pencil sharpener at school. It's one of the old-fashioned wall mounted kind, but I've loved it because it has worked better, longer, and more quietly than any of the multiple electrical sharpeners I've purchased since being a teacher. Lately, though, something in it has gotten jammed or dull, and it now frequently sharpens pencils only on one side, leaving wood covering the graphite completely on one side of the point. Because of this, kids stand in lines half-a-dozen children long sharpening their pencils until they break and trying again and again and again, only to produce pencils that have sharp points but are unusable because of the side still enveloped in wood.


The whole process is frustrating, and at some point, I always have to intervene and force the pencil to sharpen or trade the students' unusable pencils for ones I have sharpened before class in an attempt to eliminate the lost time of endless pencil sharpening.


Sometimes, on mornings like this one, I feel like I'm one of the kids standing at the pencil sharpener, sharpening and sharpening and sharpening. Pencil dust is flying everywhere, and I'm turning the handle as carefully as I can, trying not to break the graphite as I sharpen, but each time I pull out my pencil, praying that it has a usable point, it is either one-sided or broken. Again and again. One sided or broken. Unusable. And I'm starting to get impatient and there are other kids waiting on me to finish, relying on my success for their chance at the pencil sharpener, but still, despite my urgency and desire for success, I keep wearing down my pencil, smaller and smaller and one sided or broken.




Today, I could be in Sunday school. I was running late this morning, but I could have made it. But I didn't leave. I decided to stay here and do this instead because I simply don't know what the point would be in going. What's the point? What's the purpose?


I want a community, true. I want to learn more about God and this Christian life that I'm trying to live, true. Both of those would be stated purposes for attending Sunday school, for attending church, and I want them. But is that what I'm getting by making sure I attend like I'm supposed to? Is that what I'm getting by reading my Bible and Sunday school lessons? Is that what I'm getting by reading more books and spending time in my blog? Am I really getting closer to anything? Is there really a point? Or is the pencil just emerging, lesson after lesson, book after book, as either one sided or broken?