The way of Ignorance

You must go by the way which is the way of ignorance.

As we grow older the world becomes stranger,

the pattern more complicated

                                           TS Eliot

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I get more ignorant as I go alone

I used to know everything

(or so I thought)

I understood God

And people

Life made sense

I had a handle on Heidegger and Schopenhauer

Kant and Hegel (Major #1 Philosophy)

Shakespeare and Proust were a snap (Double Major, #2 was English)

Later Luther, and Calvin

Barth, Brunner and Bultmann

Koyama, Merton and the Niebuhrs

Were a snap   (M.Div)

Don’t forget Kierkegaard  (D.Min)

But now I no longer am so sure

I understand

God

Or people

Or life

It seems the more I know, the less I know

The more certain I was

The less certain I have become

God is still there

And still God

(although I find anthropomorphizing a problem.  People get all dualistic when God is “God” not something like “the Sacred”.  And they want to own God, define God according to their whim)

And it is only a short distance, from my head

To the Sacred Presence in my soul

But sometimes I just don’t get how God works

(which is a good thing, by the way)

People?

Forget it!

Honestly I don’t think I have ever “gotten” people

Or trusted them for that matter

Nor have I been able to be open,

Or real

Or vulnerable…

And so few get behind my shell

And far too little of “me” gets out

As to life?

Trump!

Guns

Children dying

Economic inequity (and injustice)

Racism

I just don’t get it

And I have no idea, how to make a difference

(once I thought I could be a super star pastor and change the world)

So I walk down the path of ignorance

Knowing I don’t know

Taking the gifts as they come

Hoping for a little bit of luck

Hoping that maybe I’ll find a friend (totally by accident)

And that somehow

The world will magically sort itself out

Silly me

Nothing like a little wishful thinking J

Otherwise known

As

faith