Evolving Thoughts

I feel like I am searching for something. And I hope that the something I am searching for is truth. It is tempting sometimes (even though we would never say it this way) to search for confirmation of ideas we already have rather than search for truth. It is easier and less scary to look for back up to our preconceived notions than it is to consider that we might actually have to alter our ideas a bit. But, when we talk about what we are looking for, I think that most people would say they want to find truth. This is a good goal. It is a good thing to look for what is true, to look for fact. If we aren't looking for that, we are attempting to trick ourselves into believing something that isn't real. But, since we generally don't actually think about what we are REALLY looking for, and rather just start the looking, we may well be telling ourselves it is truth when it might be something quite different.

The specific situation that brought this thought to mind was a biology class I was in the other day. Here in university biology, evolution is an assumed fact. There is no talk of alternatives. The prof started off the class by telling us that although evolution is called a "theory," that word means something different in science than it does in everyday English. He went on to say that the theory of evolution has more evidence to back it up than does the subatomic theory of matter, which everyone accepts as absolute fact. I didn't think this was going to bother me. I have always thought that whatever the science is telling us happened, I can reconcile that with my beliefs. I feel that I don't need to run away from what science is telling me, that I can embrace it, and at the same time embrace my faith. I still think this is true, BUT, I got an uneasy feeling in my stomach about halfway through the lecture. Something occurred to me that I hadn't thought much about before.

Okay, I have way too many thoughts bouncing around my head that are related to this to ever get them organized, so I am just going to start typing them out, and hopefully they will make some amount of sense to the people who bother to read them.

I started feeling a little angry at my prof. I was thinking, "What does he know, anyway?" And, the fact is, he knows a lot of things. He is a very intelligent, learned man who has way more education than I do. That is why he is a prof at the university. That is why students believe the words he says. And I am very confident that he believes he is telling them the truth. Maybe he is. The reality is that one of the best places to go to find out more information about a subject are the people who have spent their lives researching it. Obviously it would be best if we could go look at the hard evidence ourselves, but that is usually not an option. This applies to learning all sorts of things. When we are young, we believe our parents when they say that the letters g-o-o-d spell good. When we are in school, we believe our teachers when they say that the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids. Some things I can learn by myself, like the fact that I will burn myself if I put my hand on the stove, but for a lot of things, I just need to take someone's word for it. It is the same way with my teachers. Most of the things they teach me they have learned through the words of someone who knew more than them. And up and up the chain it goes, with each person accepting the words of the person above them. I read an article that talked about how any evidence that may have arisen that doesn't support the theory of evolution is suppressed from the public eye. This can happen because the people who are at the top of the chain of knowledge are the ones who tell everyone below them what to believe. It is a little frightening to think that a lot of the things we "know" are simply just things we have heard someone respectable say at some point. This isn't just about biology and evolution. This is about Christianity and faith as well. How many of the things that I "know" about God are things I have actually studied in the Bible and concluded for myself, and how many of them are things I heard a pastor or prof say at some point and accepted it blindly? But then, what basis to I have to really challenge somebody who has put their life's work into studying the very thing I am questioning? Scary stuff, I think.

Another thing that I started to feel as I sat in biology class and as I read a few articles was that everyone is a little bit off. I don't necessarily mean that they are factually wrong in the things they say (although sometimes that is true too) but more that the whole mindset - the whole reason we are actually looking, and the thing we are looking for - is wrong. I don't feel that this only applies to the scientists looking for answers either. I think this goes for Christians trying to interpret Scripture as well. As I read and listened and thought, it seemed to me that everyone is fighting to get everyone else to believe them, and to adopt the same view of life as they have. Everyone is trying to convince everyone else that they are right. This is natural for us humans of course, but I think that we should be putting our effort into something else. Instead of taking our opinion and trying to convince as many people as possible to think similarly, we should be looking at how we can come more closely in our ideas and beliefs to what is actually truth. Of course, there comes a time when we should be helping others towards a more right view, but I think it is much more common that people are trying to bring others towards their view rather than the truth.

Okay, next thought. I started feeling like we are all missing something really big. Like we think we know what the whole argument is about, but really we are way off base. I feel like not only do people (including Christians) not agree on this subject (and many others), but we don't even understand what the argument is really about in the first place. I feel like we have all grown up with a certain idea of what the world is, who God is, and how the physical and spiritual worlds are connected, and although we may realize that our ideas can't be perfectly right, we can't take ourselves outside of them and look at what is really going on here. Last year in sociology, we talked about different cultures, and how some cultures do things that another culture would see as wrong, but it is wrong because of cultural norms, not because of actual virtue. Although someone may realize that they have the tendency to evaluate things from their cultural bias and try to remove themselves from it, that cannot fully be done. We may want to look at a situation objectively - outside of the biases of our culture - but the fact is we are in our culture, and we can never completely remove ourselves from it. We are so enculturated that even the way we think is affected. We can never judge a situation completely objectively - our culture and resulting biases inevitably come through. I feel like a similar thing goes on when we think about evolution, faith, and God in general. We try to look at it all for what it is. We want to find out what really happened, and what is really happening. But the problem is that we are stuck in a mindset. Each one of us has our own biases that play into the way we think about these things. On a larger scale, though, I feel like the whole world collectively has a sort of "global enculturation": that people in general have a way of thinking about things, and we are a little off. The thing is that even if we realize we are thinking about things in the wrong way, we can't escape it. Bias isn't the right term for this, I don't think. It is more of a worldwide understanding of how we talk and think about the basics in life. I feel like the scientists who are researching evolution are stuck in this skewed mindset, and I feel like the theologians discussing spiritual matters are victims to it as well. We are all stuck.

So my thoughts have lead me in what has at times been a depressing journey of thought. Where are we ever going to find truth? Not what our friends, teachers and pastors say is truth, but what really IS truth? We are subjected so easily (and so necessarily) to our biases, to the opinions of those who are above us, and to our desire and belief that we are in the right, is there any hope that we can ever really find truth? Well, I suppose not really. Not in this life, anyways. We will never have things totally figured out. We will always be biased, we will never quite see the grand scheme of things the way they actually are. We are stuck in a mindset that is too small to see the big picture. BUT, this doesn't mean that we just sit here and accept that. Knowing that we can never fully understand the truth, we still push forward with the wisdom given us, and chase after truth. We realize we won't ever quite get there. We certainly aren't there yet, but progress is still to be made. It is similar to our feeble Christian attempts to be godly. We know that we will slip up, and we can't be perfect in our bodies as they now are. But none of that is to say we should sit in our sin and accept it. We need to push on and strive for perfection, even though we know it isn't quite within our grasp. Truth may be eluding us, but may we never give up on pursuing it.

Someone Searching

Face lost in the crowd
Feet wandering empty streets
Voice crying out loud
Heart aching with every beat

Someone searching
Searching for someone
Everywhere and endlessly
Wishing, waiting
Could there be someone?
Searching for
Someone searching

Soul battered and bruised
Pride wounded and left for dead
Ears deaf to good news
Eyes tear-drenched and sleepless red

Someone searching
Searching for someone
Everywhere and endlessly
Wishing, waiting
Could there be someone?
Searching for
Someone searching

Oh I hear the cry
And I know the pain
Can it be denied?
That everyone has been and will be
Someone searching

Love standing alone
Hands scarred by the nails of hate
Hope suffering long
Faith urging that it's not too late

Someone searching
Searching for someone
Everywhere and endlessly
Loving, longing
Always there's someone
Searching for
Someone searching

-Ginny Owens

"The center of me is always and eternally a terrible pain - a curious wild pain - a searching for something beyond what the world contains."
-Bertrand Russell

I just finished reading "Disappointment with God," by Philip Yancey, and in the last couple of pages I found this quote. I definitely have thoughts on it, that I will maybe write about sometime, but they are not formed enough at this point. So I will leave it at that for now.

Me vs. Myself

There is a fight going on inside my head between two different voices. Now before you go diagnosing me with multiple personality disorder or schizophrenia, please realize that i am being a little bit figurative. I know that these two voices are both me, but they are not agreeing. They are sending me very mixed messages, or I suppose, I am sending myself very mixed messages.

The first voice keeps saying, "Hang on, Janna. Don't give up." And the other voice is saying, "Let go! It's not worth it. There is more out there than this. More out there than you can even imagine." I have a hard time with this argument because I can see so much logic behind both of the arguments. I suppose it makes sense that in an argument I'm having with myself, both of the participants would be quite logical, like I coincidentally am also.

The first voice appeals to my sense of commitment, and also to my idealism. Although I have quit at a few things in my life (working at a call center, an English class in high school...), I would hate to think of myself as a quitter. Quitting is something I have been taught not to do. When I start something, I need to work at it. When it gets hard, I need to work at it harder. If someone would tell me I should quit something just because it was hard, I would tell them they should learn how to stick to something even when it is hard. I have learned in my life that often the best experiences are only discovered when I push through a hard time, trusting that it will be worth it.

And that's where the appeal to my idealism from the first voice comes in. Along with my value of commitment comes a belief deep down inside that I can find the good - in a situation, in a relationship, in the world - if I just work hard enough. I have this hope that what convinced me in the first place to commit to something will prove true. That it will be worth it in the end.

And then there is the second voice telling me to let go. Although this voice is telling me to move in the opposite direction, I see logic in this argument as well. As much as I may be in the habit of hanging on and seeing things through, I also know that life is bigger than what I can see. I know that there are some things that you can only experience if you let go of other things. I know that some experiences are mutually exclusive, and that by choosing one, I may be closing the door on another, potentially better one. I suppose the second voice is telling me not to settle. Not to let what comes easiest be the automatic decision.

When I first realized that this argument was going on in my head, I felt like the first voice was telling me to hope, and the second voice was telling me to give up. And so I was resistant to the second voice. But I think that both these voices are telling me to hope. They are both rooted in a deep hope that I can find what is best in life. The first hopes that I already have found what is best, and with enough work it will become that. The second hopes that although I haven't yet, I can still find what I am looking for.

And so I think there is a third voice inside. A third voice that is telling me not to hope. A voice that says I should give up and stop searching for what I'm looking for (I don't necessarily know what this is yet). This voice has some truth in it too. This voice says, "Look at how much it hurts when you hope and get disappointed. Look at how much it hurts. Is it worth it? This can happen again. This will happen again. Is it really worth it?" And part of me says, "No, it's not worth it. Why do I torment myself with this hope? I just keep getting myself hurt." And another part of me - the part that the first two voices come from - says, "It is worth it! It may hurt to hope and get disappointed, but it will hurt more to never hope at all." And this is the strange thing. Hope hurts. Hoping is setting yourself up for disappointment. But without risking disappointment, you will never experience what life can really be. You will never experience the joy of hope.

And so, the battle between the voices in my head continues on. Voice One is ahead one day, Voice Two wins out the next. And to be honest, there are times when Voice Three seems to be the only voice I can hear. But Voice Three - although it musters up its strength and swings with all its might (and sometimes it can be pretty strong) - can't win in the end, because it is outnumbered. Voice Three will always lose, because more than anything else I know, I know with all that is in me that there is hope. There has to be.

Some Things I Know (...and a few that I don't)

Today I am confused about how God leads us. I am convinced that he does lead us. I know that God can guide us through life in a way that is really quite incredible, and that looking back at my own life, I can see places where he has been at work. My problem isn't with how God has worked in my past, but today I don't know what to think of how he will work in the future. I want to just sit back and say, "God's got it all under control, Janna. Don't worry about a thing." And part of that is true. I don't need to worry. God is sovereign. Things will be okay. But I know another truth. I know that I have free will. I know that God lets me make mistakes. And today I am scared that my mistakes will stop God from guiding me where he wants me to go.
I think that there is a difficult balance that needs to be met here. On the one hand, I need to be active in seeking out God's will and using my head to make wise decisions. On the other hand, I need to learn how to rest in God's ability to work, even through my foolishness, even through my panic and worry. This is really hard. I think I have a slight addiction to impatience. I want God to show me where he's taking me, and I want him to show me NOW. I feel like a little girl who whines to Daddy to give me what I want. I feel restless and unsure and scared.
Sometimes these thoughts and feelings spiral downward until I don't feel like I can take it anymore. But the thing is, I don't really have a choice. At some point, after all of my struggling and worrying and effort, I need to come to a place where I decide that I've done all that I can, and I need to trust God to take care of the rest. And with that trusting that God has it under control comes trusting that he can even work through my mistakes. That he will work through my mistakes. That doesn't mean that it will all be perfect. It doesn't mean that no matter what I do, God will cause it to come to the same conclusion. I do have free will, and I can change the path that my life will take. My actions do have consequences. What it does mean, is that though I will make mistakes, God will not let that stop him from leading me. It means that he will be with me, guiding me every step of the way, through the joys and hurts and the mess ups. It means that I can have hope for the future, even as I have no doubt I will get some things wrong. And I will cling to that, even when I don't feel it, because truth doesn't change with the whims of my feelings. Thank goodness... No, thank God.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."
Romans 8:28