Comfort in the Contradictions

I have a friend who has unwittingly saved me tons of time and has maybe staved off a heart attack or stroke that a few days ago seemed inevitable.

I shared with him the seeming madness of our Christian interpretation of what Karen Armstrong refers to as the ultimate reality (God).

I mean:

People who post a sign on their nativity scene that reads: "Born to die." And the minister I heard on the Day 1 radio program who said that Christianity is based on "just action and not on right belief, that acknowledges that Charles Darwin was correct, that moves away from original sin and blood atonement and back to the just and ethical teachings of Jesus, that regards Jesus' death as a sign of human blindness rather than divine love, that approaches the complex issues of gender and sex with understanding and sophistication, that employs the best of scholarship to read, understand, and apply the truths of Scripture, that gets its head out of the other-worldly sky and turns its hands to the issues that face this world, and that helps move Christianity out of the dark ages and into a place of meaningful participation among the peoples of the world in this post-modern time."

People who say we (Jews, Christians, and Muslims) worship a different god. And the people who say we worship the same God.

People who can explain when something happens to their liking that "it was a God thing". And people who say you can't even call [ ] by name.

The author that writes God wants to help you find your car keys if you lose them, or holds in high regard when and where you take your vacation. And the philosopher who says we can never know God as he is in himself.

The idea that the bottom line is how many souls we save. And the idea that we are flawed embodiments of God's love and the soul saving and the eternal issues are up to God.

Stewardship is about the business of the church. Stewardship is between you and God and is a spiritual issue.

We gotta get God back on the public square. God is everywhere.

We are created in God's image. We're worm dirt.

And then my friend shared with me:

Contradictions don't frustrate him. They validate him. And God. And since I care for him so much and believe in him so much, I felt validated too. By the contradictions. Instead of frustrated.

The lesson is that I thought the goal was to get everybody on the same page and that peace and harmony was the ultimate objective. You would have to get the right people on the bus. And lots of people off the bus. And you have to all come around to some "both and" understanding.

But I think now I can rest in the contradictions. Uncomfortably. (contradiction, huh)

Not in a cynical way of: well that's just the way it is, you can't change it.

But in the way of: if there are contradictions, maybe we are doing our work and living in the tension that is faith.

And God.