Counter-intuition has made me rich

At the beginning of 2008, John 4.13-14 was a passage that I thought would be worth exploring and applying at a deeper level than I had studied it before. It was a trip worth exploring. Several blogs during the year were dedicated to it. I am sure that there are still a couple of rocks left to turn, but the rocks turned over for me gave me a new impetus for exploring the Master's other teachings. As I let this passage go and assume another to study, I have to notice the context for the water that does not leave you to thirst again. Just after the water remarks, Jesus referred to never worshiping God in either the Samaritan mountain of the woman at the well or in Jerusalem. He went on to talk to his 12 closest followers, mentioning that he had noursihment from food they knew nothing about and that they should look to harvest all the time not just in harvesting season. I would love to have seen John when he wrote of these opposites or contrasts to common knowledge. The content was counter-intuitive. It defied wisdom of the day. It gave credence to spiritual applications even though the physical applications did not lead to understanding the spiritual.

Although many Jews understood Jesus as a rabbi with more wisdom than the average bear, Jesus' teachings also entered a realm of their own. They smacked of something other-worldly, not just good, sound, earthly wisdom. Drinking water that would quench one's thirst forever was not good, sound, earthly wisdom. Drinking water that would lead to the next life was not good, sound, earthly wisdom to many of the Jews, especially the Pharisees, although the Sadducees would understand the concept. Water that would quench the search for the eternal was a metaphor and a spiritual insight. It turned the physically bound Jewish beliefs on their head. For that I am thankful as 2008 closes out. I fully participate in the metaphor and fully accept the spiritual insight. It has made me a richer person to be around.

No thirst

The night came and went without notice or event. The main event had already happened in all its austere, harsh cruelty. The night didn't offer relief. It just came. It was symbolic of the main event - the time of day when nothing good happens.

It is at the end of something straining that the body craves water. It needs the liquid of rejuvenation. So does the soul after an event that drains the source of its energy and reason for being. But, after this main event there was no more energy, only a wellspring of reliance that the big picture was in the hands of someone who might know what he is doing. Fireworks didn't go off. Pictures of water on the wall were not there to look at. No arguments happened. No big scene with someone shaking a fist at the sky in rage. There was just that empty pit in the stomach that "knew" no answer on earth would suffice, but that the picture of the main event somehow rested in a bigger picture, the pattern of which I was not privileged to see.

The Master's words about water that is a wellspring from within a person that leads to a life that does not end is true. I'm a little different in the way I want to arrange my values, but the wellspring was there, still is there.

A very familiar path and place

At the beginning of this year, I had determined to explore the meaning of one of the Master's teachings about drinking water from him and never being thirsty again. I found that I understood the teaching better as time went by during the year. There is something about mulling over an idea over time that lends itself to fuller understanding of the idea. I feel that I was much calmer this year. Partly that is due to normal maturation, partly due to just focusing once in a while on going deeper with a concept. But, I think mainly it is due to the understanding that the Master's water is a continuous well spring after all. In every situation the water is there to drink. The drinking is an event that people see. The result of the drinking is that my reactions to the event are consistent with what I think are indicative of the next life.

Shortly after the Master talked with the woman at the well to tell her about drinking water that is inside of her, he tells one of his followers that he knows the path the Master is on and the place to which the Master is headed. To me, the reference is to the well spring within us – we know the path and the place after this life. Those two ideas keep us going.

We do this psychologically in our everyday lives. I have gone to work thinking, after I have reached the work place, that I didn't remember passing any of the lights or making any of the turns to get to the work place. The way is so familiar, I can drive without even noticing it any longer. Having a well spring of the Master's water has the same effect on us. The road home is so familiar that we don't even notice the turns anymore even though we are on the road. We are creatures of habit, thankfully. That keeps us drinking the right water and driving down the familiar road. That's a comfort.

Will away the quirks

One of the nicest people I know tries so hard to walk according to his faith. He comes to see me on a regular basis. We used to work together. He has since retired, but my son's predicament touched his heart. He comes about 3 times a year just to check that I'm all right.

Another of the nicest people I know works in the same building I do, just a few offices away. I don't see her on a daily basis, but she always has a cheerful greeting when we do see each other. She doesn't hesitate to try to encourage me with a story from around the world of some Christian happening or another.

One of my very nice friends calls to eat or visit sporadically through the year. He' always seeking to find God's heart on matters. He's such a philosophical guy. We'll go out to eat, and two hours will have passed without notice. He's just so interesting to talk to.

Another of my very nice friends calls every so often just to say something nice that he remembered from a previous conversation or from a vibe that he had that something might have been tough. He is so grounded in the Christian faith that caring about others is so natural to him.

These are some of the nicest people I know. I could actually have different memories of them. Each one of them has "quirks." That just means they conduct their lives just a little differently than I do. I could focus on the fact that one of them is manic depressive and considers himself to have a drinking problem, or that one of them shuts himself off from the world and has a hard time making himself be around people and takes anti-depression medicine just to get out, or that one of them is oblivious to times and schedules, so shows up to work or comes back from breaks according to when she is ready rather than looking at a clock. Oh, there is a considerable quirk list I could draw up. But, why would I do that? These are the nicest people I know.

When I walk in the park in the silence of the dark, cold mornings sometimes, I think of what others think and say about my life. I wonder if I am one of the nicest people they know or if I am one of the quirkiest people they know. I have plenty of quirks that rub people the wrong way. I only hope that people will remember the part of me that helps them in their faith walk. The rest of it isn't worth anything to them and they need to drop it out of their minds. It only works for me and is not help for them. In fact, I want them to drop any memory of me that does't light up their face or their soul.

I choose to remember the nicest people I know for how they help me stay on the path that leads me home. And, I hope on someone else's list out there, my name is on some kind of similar list for them. I could be a repeater on a number of people's quirk list. I hope they see past that, though.

Science WITH faith

In the early 1500s, Copernicus theorized that the sun was the center of the universe, not the earth. The theory caught the attention of very few and was repressed by the Catholic church at the time. However, other astronomers and mathmeticians did notice. About 80 years later, Galileo assumed the theory as fact and was able to make precise calculations of the universe by making the assumption. Galileo also built on the knowledge by improving the telescope and finding phases of Venus and moons around Jupiter. The Catholic church placed Galileo under house arrest for the last four years of his life and asked him to recant the theory that the sun was the center of the universe, which he did under that pressure.

In a more modern century and in another field, Wegener in 1912, theorized that the continents on the earth drift about on the earth's surface. In 1928, the call was taken up by Holmes with the addition that volacanic activity below the ocean's surface somehow made the drift possible. With the subsurface oceanic studies in the 1960s, the theory was corroborated and strengthened. Now geologists assume plate tectonics as fact. This time the Catholic church could not stand in the way of deterring the progress of scientific findings. It's influence had waned. But churches both protestant and catholic can be found that still oppose "secular" science and feel that the Bible is in opposition to findings from science, any field.

As the scientific revolution marches on, there will be other great discoveries that will advance the knowledge of the human race. And, probably there will still be resistance from religious voices or entities saying that science in some way destroys the faith engendered by the events in the Bible.

I would hope that just the opposite happens. My hope is that people will begin to see the advancement of humanity by the good that science brings us. Stem cell exploration has the potential to help a great number of diseases. Moon exploration has the potential to bring us Helium 3 and other non-earth elements. Space travel in general would do the same. Food from algae and other underwater resources could virtually wipe out hunger, while taming the ocean's movements and desalinizing the ocean could ensure a never-ending supply of comfort and supply of drinkable water.

My hope is that people will begin to see that matters of faith are not found in science but in beliefs about matters not seen, about a person who was raised from the dead. Science can help the physical stay on the earth. Faith can help the spiritual stay on the earth. It takes both. The two are not in opposition. They're complements of each other. When seen as two faces of the same existence, the earth can advance and peace on earth can be achieved.

I need an eraser

Today wasn't so cold – outside. Inside my mind, it was in the 40s – chilly. My mind seemed unsettled. Not about anything in particular, just unsettled.

I had to read a research report by the United States Department of Education. On the surface it seemed that the report was giving contradictory results. That's a little unsettling. The report was saying that there was no impact after three years and 3 billion dollars on reading comprehension in Reading First schools. 3 billion dollars for nothing is a bit unsettling. It wasn't my money, but still. It was just another of those government ideas that something would work – Ha! it didn't.

Also, by virtue of the fact that I was reading the report for a meeting that is not in my area is another reason for the unsettled mind. One of the supervisors for that area could easily think I was putting my mind in her business, a place it didn't belong. She just spent a quarter of a million dollars for a reading academy by the very people who were the subject of the report. Their methods didn't work. She might not be willing to see it that way considering she spent a good bit of time and money in these methods.

And then there is the funeral I went to today. Funerals are usually a bit unsettling. They bring back memories that leave me absolutely speechless, silent because I have still not made 100% sense out of losing my own son to this world.

The list goes on throughout the day of the unsettling events. But I'll sleep tonight. It's usually good to do so because it erases the way the events of the day have arranged themselves and begins a new arrangement on the following day. Tomorrow will bring a new turn of events, and I'm glad for that.