Draft:
September 10, 2001
[Introduction:
I received a long, detailed question-letter in the Fall of 2000, which took me
a year to get to, and a long time to write upùI have attempted to maintain the
flow of the original letter here, although excising the more personal and
confidential elementsùThe parts that I am posting are ones I suspect might be
of wider interest to othersùThis introduction is the post-script that I
appended to the front of my letter to the personùthe actual content of the
letter follows after thisù]
Dear
friend,
I
am more than a little frustrated at the scatter-shot nature of my remarks
below. Most are dealing with methodology, or what I consider 'incomplete
inductions' on some of your positions, but I am not very optimistic about being
any better at communicating clearly or helping you see the quality of my
personal experience than the majority of those people who tried to help you in
your other 'skills training' experiencesùyour comments about practical
wisdom-guides is to the point--the vast majority of my spiritual development
and thinking has been FORCED upon me by my failure to find these guides myself
(of course, I have been deeply impacted by a number of Christian thinkers, but
too often the 'translation task' was missing), but my failure to find them
doesn't mean, of course, that they DIDN'T exist (the reverse of 'wishful
thinking' I suppose)ùI have been personally so often misled by Christian
'slogans' (possibly because I took them as absolutes, and not as 'local' ,
your-mileage-may-vary principlesùand I began later to wonder if most people
KNEW that then, and it was only ME that tried to universalize that which was
not meant to be so).
I
have often felt so helpless to help others in my life--to my kids, to my wife,
to my family, to my friends, and often to sincere hearts who ask questions on
the TankùI tend to throw everything within arm's reach to them, in my almost
desperate desire to be of help, for them to perhaps use in their challenge. I
never seem to know what will help someone, and my temperament creates a strong
presumption of failure and uselessnessùBut sometimes the thing I expected to be
least-helpful, turns out to be thing most useful to some heartùSo, I cannot
pretend to know IF and WHAT of any of this vast amount of rambling, confused,
flailing-about prose will help you, friendù
I
have read and re-read your emails and letters, to try to get some insight into
what might be useful, but I do not seem to have a good track record on that, so
I give upù
As
a consequence, I have tried to respond to just about everything you mention,
without repeating the old standardsùI have no interest in arguments, and I no
longer think that's really your holdup, but my semi-goal was to TRY to get some
halting words and vague outlines of this experience out, for your 'inspection'.
If
you were a servant in a warm castle in dead of winter, and I a freezing
traveler in the snow outside your doorstop, you might invite me in to warm
myself by the fire in an inner room. But I, looking through your open doorway,
would see no fire, but only the fireless outer room, and I would have to trust
your promise that I could get warm 'if I only stepped inside', judging the
legitimacy of that promise on the basis of characteristics about you--the fact
that you were not dressed heavily for the cold, that your hands actually felt
warm, that you SEEMED to radiate honesty, and that you could make descriptive
statements about the fire. If I insisted that I would not take that
first step into the castle until I could actually SEE the fire in the
inner room, I would obviously have to stay in the coldù
Of
course, if your hands were COLD instead of warm, you were shivering, and you
were dressed in heaviest furs, I would suspect duplicity, and be wise to take
my chances with the snow and wolves, than with a fellow human with dishonesty
in his heart, leading me into who-knows-what treacheryù
I
feel a little like the servant in that storyùI am very, very warmed by the Fire
but am limited to sharing with you the warmth of my hands, my 'non-verbal'
expressions, the way I dress, and the grossly insufficient language to describe
such a robust thing as a fireù
You
may decide on the basis of my writings here and on the Tank, that my hands
might not be warm enough to provide evidence for the existence of the Fire, or
that my manner of dealing with 'questions' and/or 'people' might not be honest
or 'objective' (like your opinions of the apologists you mentioned in the last
email), or that my manner of arranging my life reveals that I really DONåT
believe there's a Fire warming me.
But
what else can I do? All I can do is open my heart and my head and my
understanding of my life to you, pour it out before you, and ask you to 'look
at it' and 'judge for yourself'ùIn many ways my life is an abject failure, and
in some ways it is of world-class qualityùI can probably make you feel my
frustration and discouragement about these ramblings of mine being of ANY help
to you, but I cannot show you the tears I have as I write this, nor the fear
that--through some slips of pen, or poor word choices, or insulting images in
my flood of words below-- I might 'drive you even FURTHER away' from
approaching the only truly trustworthy Person I have ever known.
Some
of the things in your letters remind me of myself, but others donåt, so I cannot
assume that we are alike. The first 20 years of my life were spent trying to
protect myself from others emotionally--I believed that no one could be
trusted, I believed that no one really cared about my feelings. In spite of
heroic efforts by my family, no doubt, I somehow came away with the felling of
"no teachers, no one to lean on and learn from, no one to help me get to
the water so I could be healed"ùso I never learned how to trust anyoneùI
looked good and adequately-adjusted and played the role, but it was constant
fear, fatigue, and despair. My best efforts at finding some peace always came
up shortù
And
then, I felt a pair of warm hands--for just one night--and took the step into
the castle. It took probably ten years of the Lord working on my life to thaw
my heart and soften my fears, for me to grow to even trust Him fullyùI began
small, grew slowly, but over time I came to see His real heart--not that taught
by some of the more 'traditionally sterile' groups--and trust/faith became a
doorway to freedom I had never imaginedù
At
50, I am still having to learn to trust othersùthe incredible barriers I had
constructed are only now coming down, brick-by-brick, slowly, with some fearùI
might could accelerate the process with therapy, but cannot afford it right
nowùbut it is happeningùmy hands are warming by the Fireù
I
am rambling and crying and am overwhelmed with god-knows-what emotion right
now, friend, as I write thisù
I
apologize up front for the "slips of pen, and poor word choices, and insulting
images"á that will undoubtedly
occur below, but please know, dear lady, that I have taken your need and quest
with utmost sobriety and utmost concern. I have tried so hard to not pigeonhole
you into various categories of "skeptics", nor to make assumptions of
your goodness, motives, and openness, except in a positive direction. Your
stories about the animals and your learning experiences in that field, and your
reading those books I initially recommended to, lead me to believe your
sincerity and openness.
You
may judge me as ignorant, obscurantist, and misguided as the rest (and in need
of psychoactive medication, perhapsùsmile), but know that my heart in this has
been motivated by a small replica of the same Love that He first showed me, now
30 years ago.
So,
doing the best I can, here we goù
ùùùùùùùùùùùùùùùùùù..