Christmas
There is a rusty and bent bedrail hammered into the ground to mark the northeast corner of my parents' property. Sometimes I stand on a little pile of dirt beside it and listen to the night silence when I get home late. Tonight, as I stood there I thought about what the world would be like if the sun went out - poof. I could survive in my house with the propane in our tank for a week, and eat some of the food we have. But it would be only a little while before the planet was a ball of ice. I was also thinking about the sun, and whether or not it really exists, or if God puts it in the sky every day, along with the stars, nebulae, and other things we humans have seen out there. All we can do to prove their existence is see them with our eyes - and what if our eyes lie? What if it's all a cosmic trick? A sense-experience Imax film played in our brains?
All this existential wandering happened on Christmas Night, which I think is cool, because part of the mystery of Christmas is faith. Are we really supposed to believe that Jesus Christ lived, died, rose, and mattered? On what evidence? The Word of God? It can be shredded by all kinds of criticism. Our own experience? My short 19 years have taught me that my senses are far less reliable than I give them credit for. So what am I doing? Am I a Christian or a fideist?
A Christian. I can't prove it to you, but this Christian story - it's true. God give me strength to live it.
May you meet the living Word this Christmas.
Love, Ben
I removed this from my blog because posting it on Christmas felt so unholy.
1 comment:
Wow. I'm amazed at this piece because I actually had the same thought(s) while working one of these past Saturdays. After a Friday with an awful lot of snow, some of my neighbours were left in the dark when a power line was toppled. What if the whole world was left in the dark, who would provide the light? It got me thinking that we should create a biosphere that can sustain life for our children if this ever happens when the sun turns from a red dwarf into a black hole. But it is not really a good way to trust that God holds the world in the hollow of his palm. Existential wondering elicits some funny notions in us finite beings.
Post a Comment