When We Try to Comprehend

For a number of years, my national denomination ran an online bulletin board called Wondercafe. It was open to church members and non-members alike, so its postings ranged from those of die-hard atheists to Bible-punching evangelicals. The evangelicals insinuated that everyone not subscribing to their point of view was damned (and that the United Church was at best, heretical) and atheists would pronounce that everyone of faith was crazy (or at least delusional). Somewhere in the middle were the United Church types trying to make sense of it all. The idea for this song sprang from those debates. It’s clear that this “faith” thing is seen from as many perspectives as there are people on the planet. How are we to make sense of a spiritual record that dates back 3000 years and to a society that was quite different from ours? Do the ancients have nothing in common with us simply because we use cellphones? Or is there some room for faith and belief to develop and adapt as we encounter the new challenges of the modern world, yet keeping in mind that our emotions – jealousy, greed, anger, love, happiness, etc. – haven’t really changed. We can debate doctrinal trivia but in the end what matters is how we treat others and whether our lives and those of others are changed for the better. And our foundation for doing so rests on a belief in a God who is love.