Lookin' for Trouble

Lookin' for Trouble, originally uploaded by Christopher Rauch.

This non-prose world, called unreal by the rulers of this age, but real to people of faith, is the world entered by the mystic, the contemplative, the visionary, the prophet, the poet...For the modern man, truth...is arrived through prose...not intuition, not imagination, not wonder, not awe, not worship, not reverence, not trust, not faith. - Brian D. McLaren.

I tried to read " A Generous Orthodoxy" years ago as a denominational Christian. I've always thought too much, so my days in mainstream Religianity were numbered. I have a reading problem. Books are my crack. I've haven't pawned anything to buy books...yet, but it could happen. In spite of this proclivity, I could not finish Brian's attempt to reconcile ecumenism with doctrine in a major world religion that has fractured into myriad fragments, with much disagreement and (in the past...right?) bitterness. He was just too blasphemous. That much openmindedness was an antidote to faith, seemed to be the underlying sentiment in my little church. Brian wanted me to entertain the notion that my faith might have a few errors in it, and that when I disagreed with your theology, that you might have a point. My tiny Kentuckian congregation had some firm boundaries about stuff like this, even though one of our cliche's was "Don't check your brains at the door". I did like the fact that McLaren wears out parentheses. Perhaps we are distantly related. When I shelved "Orthodoxy" I didn't realize how arid the landscape was becoming...
Now, after a little time in the desert, I find him MUCH easier to swallow. (It's because you have apostasized, Brother! The Corinthians have turned you over to SATAN!). So my inner mystic (we all have one... it's kinda like an inner butthead. I have one of those, too.) tells me "Your pastor just referred to that heretic you're re-reading...and for five or six years you have not lost that book. It must be a sign!"
The question is (After all, Jesus performed a sign or two, and then went on to say wanting a sign wasn't cricket.)," By looking for writing on the interior sky, am I guilty of wanting to be the star of my own story? Or am I disappointed that my life seems to be unimportant in this Grand Epic, and simply hungering for a more significant role?"
I gotta go to work. Unfortunately the mule is in the ditch, and these musing will have to go in my inner "Drafts" folder. Who knows when I'll get around to cleaning that up?