"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?"

The Christian faith at it’s core offers the most ridiculous propositions: the Creator of the universe, being both separate from it and actively sustaining everything within it each moment, has somehow become a creature, and offers to live within each person who receives him. This is all logical impossibility. If this first and central idea (Trinity) is paradox … if the ball gets rolling on the acceptance of “truths” that betray my very understanding of what can be true, then it seems probable that this would lurk elsewhere. If I decide to pitch camp in this faith, I need to stop insisting that things always make sense.

The irony is, the older I get, the more things seem to make sense. The problem of evil is a necessary result of freewill. Legitimate tensions of ideology: liberal/conservative, Catholic/Protestant, rational/intuitive, change/permanence, etc. seem to serve as discouragement to make an idol of my own convictions.

My own inclination to regard the world with a fundamentalist mindset is a good example of this temptation toward idolatry. I use that term to describe my strong impulse to draw black-and-white conclusions about things. The difficult and fearful concerns of the world need to be placed in tight, convenient containers that allow me to secure explanation and then move about my business with smug confidence.

I am not master. I have not called everything into existence. I find purpose and freedom in submission and dependence.