Two simpletons and a murdered child

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: : : It means nothing to me in the sacred place. : : I was thinking a certain thing when I wrote the last post that I couldn't get into the flow of thought so i just dropped it, but you have brought it up again in your post. We keep referring to cycles and spinning, and this reminds me of a line I once heard: that the only place to stand on a spinning wheel without loosing your balance is the dead center. The hub! The point around which everything rotates. So the trick of faith in the whirlwind of controversy and distraction is to constantly return to the center...as you have indicated. : : This is a Buddhist idea (at least that's where I learned it) that really holds some wisdom. : : : In the sacred place, all the noise drops out and the still truth remains. : : And it is much easier to follow the sounds than pursue the silence. This takes some special grace. The times I entered, I never felt like I accomplished it; it always felt like a gift, a miracle. (This would be where I depart from the Buddhist idea completely.) : : : : I like your conclusion: "It is the simplicity on the far side of complexity." Yeah, that's it. : : I like it too, but I can't claim credit. I heard it somewhere...I think it was a professor in college, and I think he was quoting someone...I want to say CS Lewis, but I wouldn't lay any weight on that. : : There is a distinct difference in the simplicity of ignorance which characterizes the faith of those who want to be told, and the simplicity of those who have carefully questioned and investigated, and still returned to the simple truth. Of course if you suddenly whacked either of them with a stick both people still get caned, but the latter saw it coming and decided not to move. : : ...or perhaps didn't see it coming but knew repeated blows were inevitable and were not greatly disillusioned to have received another. Either way, you're right. As the psalmist said, "I shall not be greatly moved." : I would make a further distinction between the two hypothetical simpletons you have constructed. ;-) The simplicity of the former is not a solid foundation and does not impart real peace; it is a fragile and often fearful rest at best. Any challenge to the base of belief (plausability structure) threatens to throw their whole world construction into disarray. The quest is to avoid the challenge (the attack on sacred reality), to find a safe place in the narrow thought of the separated community under the strong and fearless leader. Here we will be protected. Here we will be saved. (I must note that as much as I may seem to be deriding them, I do not depise the willful ignorance of the masses as I once did; I see it more as fragility now and tend to want to protect them. Go figure.) : The latter persons you described have not answered most of their questions; for every one answered they have ten new ones that are more disturbing. They have multiplied doubts and embraced dialectical tension until it has grown into a storm that should have ripped them apart. And yet they stand; they really do not know why, not after all they have seen and all the innocence that has been stolen from them. Rather than make an effort to figure it all out, they can only ask themselves, "What do I know that is still true?" What is left that is real that could not be completely torn from the fabric of my tattered faith? This is where I hear the children singing "Jesus Loves Me." : I know He is real because I still believe. Because I had nothing to do with it. Because I challenged my faith and destroyed it. And yet I still believe. I guess that wasn't really faith that I destroyed after all. I now know I have no clue what faith is. But I have it; it is who I am. : I know I am His because the child lives. I murdered that innocent little child and buried him. And here he is, alive and well, still obstinately singing "Jesus Loves Me" or crying "Abba, Father." How annoying. How wonderfully and miraculously annoying.

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