Rubble

I'm expected to have anwswers. I'm expected to know exactly what theologies I beleive or what my stance is on religious issues. I'm expected to understand and explain the God I worship or the religion I associate myself with. But I can't. Now, more than ever, I don't have answers. I have more and more questions. I have a foggier view of God, and religion, and the world. I can't tell you "in a nutshell" what I beleive anymore. I used to be able to. Back when my thoughts mirrored those of my teachers and my God was simplistic, characterised by a list of human actions or emotions. But I was a Pharisee, clinging to the answers, proud of myself when I made revelations about the nature of God. I thought I was reaching a place of true understanding. I was building my tower of Babel, so to speak. And now, here I lay, in a crumbled, broken pile of rubble. I feel collapsed. As I think to myself that it's going to be too hard to try to build back up, a voice reminds me "It's not about rebuilding." If I rebuild the same tower, then I'm no better off. But then what in the heck am I supposed to do? Sit here in a pile of rubble? I don't know. I'm reading M. Scott Peck's A Road Less Traveled, and he says that only when someone stops 'falling in love,' can they begin to truly love. The love that requires a lot of hard work and courage. So, I guess spiritually, the honey moon's over. It's been over for a while, but I'm like the couple that keeps trying to schedule dates on Friday nights in hopes that the good feelings will come back. Plus, I'm a person who likes the results, not the process. I love ideas and finished projects, but not the inbetween. Spiritually, there is no finished project. It's all process. I can't win. I can't lose either. That's really hard for me to get excited about, to throw myself into a journey with no end in sight. It reminds me that I am nothing on my own. But it's like running your whole life. Eighty plus years. And this analogy is used in the Bible. Running the race. But I don't like running. I like the feeling when I'm done, but the running itself totally sucks. It doesn't seem worth it sometimes, you know? And I can't answer the question, "What makes it worth it?" I don't know right now. And it's frustrating, because I'm usually the one with the answers. People expected me to have answers. But in my helplessness of not knowing, I'm realizing that "I don't know" is probably the only truthful and reasonable answer for most questions, espcially spiritual ones. I attended a Jewish sabbath service Friday night with a group of students from school, and afterwards we talked to an older lady and asked her, "What do you beleive happens to you after you die?" She paused and said, "Well, I think any good Jew would tell you that we don't know. We don't know." I remember thinking, "Wow. That's a good answer." Because we don't know. Do we go straight to heaven? Is there a time inbetween? What about the resurrection of the saints? Does any of this really matter? Will any of it change my view of God? ...I don't know. And although that answer is frustrating and it, in a sense, scares the crap out of me, it's liberating, in a way. I don't have to have the answers. Heck, I shouldn't have the answers. Not to say that I shouldn't seek Truth, but I just shouldn't expect Truth to be so neatly folded or simple. So, here I sit in a pile of rubble, borderline between abandonment and apathy. Maybe I'm finally in the right condition that God will be able to reveal himself to me in his true light.