Just Thinking
“It may be difficult to convey to others what we think, but it is not difficult to convey to others what we live.” Abraham Heschel, Man’s Search for God, p. 86.
Pause – Today is “pause day.” That’s the day we gather our thoughts about all those things we haven’t resolved. Maybe we include some things that we think are resolved but there’s still a bit of uncomfortable nagging in the depths. Each of us has a personal list. If I share mine, maybe you will share yours. Perhaps we’ll discover it’s okay to have questions, even questions about very serious matters. As Heschel reminds us, “God is not in the answer but in the question.”[1]
- I’m no longer sure about the connection between the death of Yeshua and the idea of forgiveness. I’m pretty sure that the cross is not a substitute for the altar and that the crucifixion is about overcoming death, but I’m still bothered by something about the connection with “the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world,” as John puts it. Maybe I need to rewrite some chapters in a book. Does forgiveness on the cross depend on the Roman idea of atonement, some sort reward and punishment legal settlement? Does that make YHVH the Judge rather than the Father? If forgiveness was always part of the covenant, then why is there so much emphasis on the role of forgiveness in the life of the Messiah? Or maybe there isn’t, and I’m just reading my own paradigm theology into the text?
- Enough – am I enough? Really enough? I struggle with a sense of unworthiness. Brené Brown helps, but there’s a lot of my childhood that seems immune to reconstruction. How do I get at this? I wonder why God seems so absent in this process. I wonder if I will ever really be good enough for me? Or is that just an ego mistake?
- “Is there anything worth dying for? We can only live the truth if we have the power to die for it.”[2] Heschel’s question bothers me.
- What would it mean to be pure yetzer ha’tov? Can I be a human being and have no sense of personal desire? Wouldn’t that be an escape to Nirvana? If being human is being able to choose, then what role will the yetzer ha’ra play in the ‘olam ha’ba? Can I really imagine myself without personal agendas? I know I can’t now. What makes me think I can then?
- I’m pretty sure that the biblical text is saturated with Semitic culture—ancient Semitic culture. I’m also pretty sure I don’t really understand (or feel) that culture. I wonder if I can ever read the Bible according to the way it was heard by the original audience. Are we left with nothing but stabs in the dark and contemporary applications through paradigms that don’t really fit? Is the Bible today only just application of what was once an urgent, culturally-related message? How much of what we read is really cultural modifications rather than God’s word communicated to an ancient people?
- I’m concerned that investigation has damaged my ability to believe. I don’t want to stop looking, but I don’t want looking to inoculate me from experiencing God. Where’s the balance here? Heschel helps a bit: “Faith is not something that we acquire once and for all. Faith is an insight that must be acquired at every single moment.”[3] But today we live in a world so filled with information access that it overwhelms us. There just isn’t enough cognitive space to sort it all out, to understand all that’s available. We slice and dice, and it’s still too much. Sometimes I feel like just giving up and going back to “only believe.” But, of course, that’s not possible any more either. All this encourages my temptation to noetic anesthetizing.
- Do Heschel’s remarks apply to me? “ . . . the power of darkness that draws its vital energy from good deeds performed with ulterior motives.”[4]
“Love and Truth are the two ways that lead the soul out of the inner jungle. Love offers an answer to the question of how to live. In Truth we find an answer to the question of how to think. This division, however, is dangerous and arbitrary. There is love at the heart of Truth. But is there Truth in our heart, in our love? Significantly, ‘love’ is both a noun and a verb. Yet ‘truth’ is never a verb . . . It is impossible to find Truth without being in love, and it is impossible to experience love without being truthful, without living Truth.”[5]
This insight penetrates.
- “The vast majority of people are satisfied with compromises, or they remain unaware that they are worshipping a multitude of gods, that their actions constitute a maze of contradictions.”[6] I don’t want to be like the vast majority, but I don’t know if I am up to the challenge of change. “Tension and conflict can no more be eliminated from thought than from life.”[7] Do I find that consoling?
Topical Index: questions, Abraham Heschel, journey
[1] Jonathan Sacks, Radical Then, Radical Now, p. 99.
[2] Abraham Heschel, I Asked for Wonder, p. 69.
[3] Abraham Heschel, Man’s Search for God, p. 89.
[4] Abraham Heschel, A Passion for Truth, p. 43.
[5] Abraham Heschel, A Passion for Truth, p. 45.
[6] Abraham Heschel, A Passion for Truth, p. 91.
[7] Abraham Heschel, A Passion for Truth, p. 129.
When my brain hurts…I think it is a good thing. Not an easy thing.. Being hit between the eyes with these questions often proves not to be a death blow at all, but the way light gets in….painful this healing from malformation. Especially when God co-opts us to start swinging the hammer.
#7 has been hitting me hard for an answer ….that question seems to be in my carry on luggage for the flight. I need it with me and other questions can go in the hold. Blessings to all. FJ
One additional question.
What actually happens at death? Yes, the Scriptures and Yeshua mention sleep
and the resurrections of the dead. But what about “being present with the Lord”?
Time and eternity enter into the equation, but do we all “sleep” for eons waiting for
our resurrection? Or do we all experience the awareness of God Himself?
One additional answer, I think.
Faith is that marvelous and comforting soul gift that allows us to know forgiveness
is ours if our repentance is true, thus allowing us to live out His qualities of living,
while we question and probe as deeply as possible since faith in His kingdom is
dynamically alive and as broad and wide as east is from west.
Good question. And this will likely not answer it, but it seems to me that for those who die and are asleep until the fullness of time, they (we) will not know any difference from those who are awake when that time comes. Once they (we) were alive, and then the likely unconscious sleep state leads to being alive again, with apparently no knowledge of being asleep in between. So it will likely be as though there was no apparent lack of awareness of God Himself throughout. But actually, I would say we all “sleep” for “eons waiting for our resurrection”, safely in His keeping.
Are there REAL answers or just “our” answers from our mind-set, culture, environment etc? Will any of us really EVER discover “truth”? We all claim and reaffirm what part of the “elephant” we are looking at and describing- but are any of us right or is this the horrible groping around in the dark? It’s as if I’m chasing my tail. Where do we begin to look or where do we give up and call it “end”? I’m grateful that you wrote such an openly raw and authentic post. It makes what is spinning around in my heart and head feel more normal but the Greek in me begs to ask “what is normal?”….. and the circle continues…… it’s heavy and scary.
First thought. Yes–No; Second thought–No-Yes
Skip, the biggest gift I think you have given me is the answer to why we need ‘evidence’ to base faith on; why we insist on creedal certainty; why we worship knowledge – in our religious institutions most of all – as the ‘true’ basis for belief, and why we are fractured from ourselves in the most vicious ways of all when it comes to those beliefs. You gave me the key to unlock my own paradigm, and you enlightened me as to why religion hurt me so badly, too. I wanted to thank you for a HUGE jumpstart on a fresh and fruitful take on my own faith. I could spend the rest of my life trying to repay you (I am trying!).
I wonder if perhaps all of us suffer from incomplete thinking; if all of us need to hear ourselves through the ears of the others we share with. I have wondered if we were not, after all, designed that way: perhaps the heavenly banquet comes complete with three foot forks AND vicarious ears. Perhaps the world cannot hear itself or others because it is confined to the flesh; to the death that is a self that does not have enough trust to be able to hear itself through others. Perhaps we are all shouting into the emptiness of space with faith that that shout can transform that space into the solidness of connection. Trust is the foundation, after all. I suspect trust BUILDS a foundation – actually creates the connections we need so desperately.
I hope and pray that, because you have trusted us enough to share your heart, you will be blessed with being able to actually hear your real questions, for when we get the questions framed correctly, we will know it by the answers those questions frame. Heschel is so right about the questions, for the only reason we lack the answers is because we were not honest and humble enough and brave enough to ask the questions that actually describe the problem. We are blind because we cannot see the problem; not because we lack any of the knowledge of the truth, but because we are so afraid of the truth that all our sins consist of attempts to avoid it. The courage to face the questions is the courage to face the ‘answers’ that we are already running from.
Thank you for your courage. I pray that it will continue to inspire my courage, as well as the courage of all of the rest of us, too.
I always appreciate your comments, none more so than this one.
Laurita, well said! And I second it! At first I would get mad at Skip’s probing questions that I could not get out of my mind, until I realized that it was ok to have questions…ok to ask questions and even better when I was able to openly and honestly ask those questions to myself! It helped to unlock a door of freedom that I had not felt my whole “religious” life. I began to understand that searching for Truth is not an easy one, but there is no other either. The search for Truth became easier in a sense when I learned to Trust the One I was searching for Truth.
Hi Laurita. Really deep response to a really deep, raw post. Makes a person stop and think for sure.
I think that most of the world that I know is so caught up hustle and bustle, technology, information and hedonistic things that quiet solitude is a foreign concept. No one goes to the “desert” anymore.
Question #5 is one that I feel deeply. I am surrounded by folks who believe modern translations and if you don’t go to church somewhere then you are just not right. Challenging circumstance to be in.
We moved away from congested, stressful, physical and mental chaos several years ago to a rather remote area of the US. Absolutely LOVE the peace and quiet of our home. No neighbors. A change of location was badly needed.
I never want to get so immersed in investigating that I forget to take time to live and enjoy the life God has granted me here in the 21st century. That’s kinda hard to explain because it is important that I do investigate. There is more to the journey though.
Thank you Skip for sharing some tough stuff.
Thank you Laurita for putting into words that which I cannot!
Skip, thank you for the “pause day.” We need more of them to stop and reflect and take a moment to think about all that we are constantly taking in. Take a moment to sort through things and as you have done, take a moment to see what questions our hearts really have.
#6 resonates with me so much. It’s almost what made me stop reading your Today’s Word. Sometimes I could not handle the questions that it would raise in my mind and heart. At times I felt like I didn’t know what to believe or even how to believe (if that makes sense). But what helps me is to go ahead and just BELIEVE, believe in the moment with what I have and what I know. And then I don’t stop looking and don’t stop searching. I’m not searching for a different answer, I just keep searching because I’m hungry and I watch for the “dots” of information to be connected and verify/validate something as true that I see in my own life. Because that’s all I really have to go on. In one of the lessons that you taught when you and Rabbi Gorelik were in Israel that forever changed me and helped shift my paradigm was when you were teaching about paradigms and worldviews and you laid rocks on the ground in neat rows and showed how westerners think (linear and putting information in boxes) and then you scrambled the rocks and they were in no particular order and you explained the Jewish worldview and how they connected information (all related to the scriptures). That forever changed how I view information. So as I was saying, i keep searching and taking in what I can and then I look for the dots that connect.
“It may be difficult to convey to others what we think, but it is not difficult to convey to others what we live” Heschel
I certainly relate to this statement, as well as to this list of Skip’s ongoing questions. Thank you, brother, for the tenacity to go at this journey consistently and daily. Your faithfulness in doing so has helped and encouraged me tremendously, without a doubt. It has taken pretty much the entire years of walking with your searchings to become comfortable enough without black and white answers. Learning how to form, accumulate and ravage many connected questions has virtually transformed my thoughts, outlooks, beliefs, and, of course, my faith. What a feat!
I also concur with the sentiments expressed by Dawn and Charlene. It is rather difficult now to converse with former acquaintances I associated with during my ‘church’ years. It’s like dinner is served, however, nothing is on the plate. Usually a very disappointing endeavor. On the other hand, conversations with those that understand the “question” approach typically results in much more insight, challenge and learning. It drives me to actually think rather than simply file another dogmatic stance away awaiting a future need to throw it down as a gauntlet of sorts. As a result, I have learned to step back from the digging and looks at the trees, the sky, and all the other marvels of YHVH’s making to bask in his awe and wonder, still with all the ongoing questions in my mind, but positioned enough not to interfere as much with the real living parts. A welcome relief from the early attempts to juggle all the challenges and getting all bogged down with attempted intellectual pursuits of the truth.
This single TW will provide enough impetus for many days, weeks, months and years of study, thought and pondering. Much thanks for sharing these. And as someone else said, this is a good exercise for periodic repetition. Solidifying the progress of the pursuit. It brings it in to a better picture for me to ‘see.’
When questions seem to bring so much discomfort, gratitude will see you through. That’s why Laurita’s response was so welcomed. She was thankful! In everything, give thanks. Thanksgiving brings clarity.
Is there never angst in trust?
Your insight into “Love & Truth” reminds me of a comment by Carl Jung that an American Indian made, “You white men think in the head, we think in the heart” and another wise man said to me, “There is no dominion without love and no love without dominion”. I am indebted to those Hebrew scholars like Skip that reveal the OT from an Hebraic perspective. Those words ring much truer that the NT is concealed in the OT and the OT is revealed in the NT. How I deal with the challenge of tension & conflict arising from unanswered questions in my heart & mind is to remember that Yeshua will only reveal to me what I can bear in the moment. As I mature in my relationship to Him, he does answer all my questions that are relevant for living in the present and I can trust His timing in answering all my questions.
Question 6 and comments ring my bell in particular “Faith is an insight that must be acquired at every single moment”, Heschel.
Hebrews think like eastern cultures, more like a three dimensional matrix of experiences rather than a straight Roman road vector with milestones (events). Maybe they learned this in Egypt building pyramids instead of roads or canals.
I walked away from Rome (RCC) some 10 years ago. I am now somewhere east of Istanbul walking slowly towards Zion. I first met Skip 6 years ago, appropriately on the western shore of Italy near Rome, and we parted ways on the eastern shore at Venice with biblical Malta, Ephesus and Athens etc. along the way. Between the start and finish I learned that I needed to keep walking east in order to find what I was looking for. Skip knew, I didn’t. I had no idea.
So here I am still walking east each and every day, getting closer and closer to the end. Someday I will finish the journey, hopefully having left my logical Greek left brain behind and still walking towards my new eastern (right) brain in sight (insight?) on the horizon.
May I actually arrive there with it and give thanks accordingly. Thanks Laurita and Robert for the reminders.
It’s so obvious that many people have under questioned what they believe .It’s much easier to have people think for you, than you can blame them if that system gets shattered. On the other extreme you begin to question everything which can lead to unbelief, mistrust, over analyzing and that can be a stumbling block for for you and others. I can remember the countless times he has given me an answer God loves building trust with us. I have many unanswered questions as we all have but I am confident that if I need to know he will tell me in due time and sometimes he just doesn’t ,and that’s okay too. I must admit I am not as introspective as others .To dwell to much on what I think or feel at any given moment can be very fickle. I do ask God to search the dark corners of my heart he knows me better than anyone and helps me bring it to the light. I never fear when he does it I truly trust him plain and simple. Can we ever question too much that we miss the answer when he gives It? Does he not give answers to those who who constantly question,because we will question his answers? I think so. Are all questions good just because someone asks them? Should I think something is wrong with me if i dont even question what they do . Is my thinking too simple that I feel maybe I need to complicate it more like others and that will somehow make knowing God easier. Questions are good but answers are good too.
Perhaps I’m the odd one out here, or, maybe it’s just how I’m built but, I really don’t have these kind of questions that envelope me. It doesn’t mean that they aren’t important or that I’ve never asked them, it just means that they are a far second to what I understand as an active faith. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that when I pursue God (and I’m only able to do so because He’s pursued me) the questions that I have hanging on a hook in the back of my mind get answered in relevance to living the life I’m granted. More often than not, I find that although it’s a “partial” answer, it’s given in that part because it’s neccesary for that part of my living. I suspect that simply because our lives are only partly lived, partly answers are what’s necessary, one day we will be eternal(whatever that means) and we’ll get the rest of the story. Meanwhile, I’m not really sure what God is doing and I’m certainly not sure what that is going to look like when it’s accomplished but, if He chooses for me to live in abundance or suffer, what’s that to me? I’m not in control and don’t want to be anyway, but I’ve seen what God can do and that’s the One I desire to know (not know the answers too) everything else will be shown in its proper time. I just need to learn to thank Him, even when it hurts to actually do it.
You hit the nail right on the head, Robert. I feel the same way. Maybe age has something to do with it? I’m old enough now that priorities start to sort themselves out pretty readily. That term, “full of days” gives a person a clearer perspective.
Robert, you articulated so clearly what I wanted to express as well. I am very cerebral but at the same a deep thinker who throughout life has ALWAYS had deep questions but after gradually getting to know God and King David through his psalms, I’ve always highlighted this one — “ADONAI, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes lofty, nor do I go after things too great or too difficult for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul — like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, put your hope in ADONAI from this time forth and forever.” ~ Psalm 131. And like you stated, “…if He chooses for me to live in abundance or suffer, what’s that to me?” As I’ve gotten older, I’ve seen so much pain and angst in the world and what I’ve seen is that the people who are closest to the Kingdom are those who are the most grateful, despite what circumstances they are in (which is what you concluded with and where I said, “Amen” again.) And in this regard, the Apostle Paul’s admonition to the Thessalonians to “Thank God in everything, no matter what the circumstances…be thankful and give thanks; for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus” -(I Thess.5:18, Amplified) is sage counsel and advice from someone who had an amazing mind and passion to share and live out God’s Word in a very challenging Age.
And a few last words. I don’t comment much on TW but like everyone else, I really enjoy the journey we’re all on because we all learn so much from one another and we all have our own stories but in the 60 years I’ve been around, the people who have had the most impact on me are the ones who have had the most simple, lived-out faith. They’re just grateful in whatever state they’re in despite their past, present and unknown future but they have a child-like faith that just believes that whatever God has in mind for them will be “good.” Like my mom, who grew to having an amazing faith in God despite her growing up in the war, being born 12-years after her next oldest sibling (an “oops baby” but very much desired by God), no money coming over to the U.S.A. but raised a wonderful family with my late dad and despite her having to have her right leg removed a few years ago due to health issues, she presently lies in bed most of the day in a nice Skilled Care Facility with a “glow” whereby everyone who walks in her room literally (I mean literally) states, “I want some of what your mother has.” Nurses, CNAs, the resident Rabbi for the complex, the program director…). She literally blesses all those who walk in and out of her small 10 x 14 room just with her countenance, attitude, words, spirit… In my mind, it’s what she allows the living Presence in her to manifest through her. As she told me, “I’ve released everything to God in loving trust.” I want to be like that but it is going to take a little more time. 🙂
My thoughts too Robert- thank you for writing them for me.
A most excellent series of questions. Insightful, bold, and courageous, indeed. Thank you!
Your first “unresolved thought” is also at the top of my list, lately. I, too, am no longer sure about the connection between the death of Yeshua and the idea of forgiveness, and I am beginning to think it means something quite different than what I once thought. I am also bothered by something about the connection with “the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world,” as John puts it.
But I’m thinking the connection may be this: that when the Spirit of God gives us revelation of, and faith and trust in Yeshua and his supreme example, as the Son of God, and as a life lived in complete obedience to the Father unto the shedding of his blood and death, and that is was confirmed as acceptable to the Father by his resurrection unto life from the dead, and when we are convicted of his righteousness, and our sin, and his judgement of our sin in light of his righteousness, leading us to a godly sorrow, sincere confession of our sin, and teshuvah, and into the beginning of a life of progressive righteousness, that THIS is what the Father considers as a just, acceptable, and pleasing offering, our spiritual service of worship, and that it is THIS which makes us worthy of His forgiveness. In this sense, he is the “lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”, when we receive him by faith and begin to follow after his example, by the Spirit who is freely given to all who ask, then we are forgiven and our sin is taken away.
I could not agree with your synopsis more Jerry and Lisa. This is where I am arriving also.
Romans 2 says that the “doers of Torah are justified/made righteous in the site of YHWH”.
Then I am told in Romans 3 that YHWH is the justifier of the one who has faith of Yeshua. This is the way my mind thinks:
Doers of the Torah=justified
Faith of (in) Yeshua= justified
These are not antagonistic of one another. They are the same thing. Paul is simply addng another layer of understanding to what has already been revealed in Torah. Only now it has been revealed in the faith of Yeshua. And what is that? “Then it will be righteosness for us, If we are careful to observe these commands before YHWH our Elohim, as He has commanded us.” And, “If a wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, keeps my statutes and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live and not die. None of the transgressions which he has committed will be remembered against him because of the righteousness which he has done, he shall live.” (Ezekiel 18:21-22)
I must possees have the faith(fulness) of Yeshua in order to be justified. Isaiah 53 says that “by his knowledge my righteous Servant will justify many.”
Excellent! Your selection of references makes it so clear and sound! Thanks.
Someone apparently asked the famed Apostle Shaul “What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision”? So I feel comfortable asking “what advantage then has those who are grafted into Israel? Or what profit is it to take Torah as our living constitution”? Shaul’s answer in Romans 3:1 and following seems to evade rather than answer the question, and I don’t look for a definitive answer from Skip or anyone else, but my “pause” is directed to this quest(ion), as well as the larger question of many, including Christian fundamentalist, regarding Ultimate Reconciliation (aka: Universalism). I include the fudies, not because their dogma and logic are flawed, but because even they (if they are honest…and human) hope they are wrong in their certainty when it comes to the eternal destiny of their mother, father, son or daughter who died without a “saving confession” in Christ. Is God the Father of All or just a select few? Is His favor so limited so as to appear churlish. What skin off His nose would be removed if He allowed in “heaven” the Buddhist, Muslim, Hindi and even atheists (especially if He could build a wall high enough and long enough to separate the many from the [chosen] few)? Are the ideas of the Rob Bells of this world ringing a bell with anyone else in this community? Or am I “tome” deaf from having had my bell rung once too often?
I apologize for being a day behind on this one..
This also looks like reflection day? Our status thoughts, and our deepest questions what do they reflect? Or who do they reflect? Virtue’s versus vices? My fruit or his . Fruit?