The wild onions inhabiting a corner of our rhubarb patch do not lend themselves well to sayings equating life and peeling back layers. Pulling apart the layers isn’t exactly easy when stalks and pods go every which direction. Curves, loops, and odd angles of all kinds contribute to the beauty of its complex bio architecture. It shouldn’t be surprising to discover that life is also not simple and that complex explanations require time and contemplation.
Decoding divine inspiration takes a generous amount of mindfulness and awareness, perhaps a lifetime’s worth. It comes through actively living ones faith, a faith that is beyond simple statements and Sunday school coloring books. It is faith that is tested by everyday living that isn’t always what we desire it to be. It is observing God at work in people, including ways that might be challenging to what we think we know.
Paths to understanding nearly always constitute multiple layers that are seldom discovered all at once in a single plane. Unadorned straightforward answers are what the majority of us prefer. The reality is that the direction one grows toward might only be one of many that bring us to a common place. Before anyone gets indignant, consider John 3:16 suggesting that limited atonement exists when there is only one way to God, through Christ.
Read in context with its accompanying scripture, however, universal atonement is implied. God loved the world so much that he sent his son on behalf of all. These scriptural conundrums are antinomic in nature, well-considered arguments offering paradoxical results though the reasoning for each is sound. What view wins out in such instances? It is what feels most comfortable to our senses and what is most often stated from our religious teachers and churches. If we need to hear that we are a select few who are eligible for God’s attentions, that is what we will be most open to embrace. Limited or universal atonement? There is an argument for either one.
Meanwhile, the process of faith building takes us on down the road having added new perspectives and directions to the mix. For many, that is uncomfortable. It feels safer to stay in one place that to press forward in any fashion. And yet we are born with divine presence as our guide and companion, imploring us to ponder and consider and look beyond ourselves. The intellect we have been given by God is part of our life’s calling, even when the path becomes less straight and more demanding than what we’ve been taught to expect.
The anxieties of life present several new realities that will take the very best of who we are in order to resolve. We cannot afford to ‘let go and let God’ as many intone. We must use the gifts each have been given to address the fracturing of social strata and the health of a planet, including the specter of biological and oceanic collapse. It’s a grim reality that now confronts, and yet there is Light to be found within each of us. Solutions cannot be accomplished apart from one another. Diversities of faith, religion, and belief can merge in support of the other.
Our path might be layered with unexplored twists and turns, but with grace as our guide, we might discover a new community of caring just around the bend. (kf)
Haxtun Church Of The Brethren 