ill with confusion

(wrote this on the airplane ride home from D.C. ... just got around to posting it now)

During the past several years, my awareness of the pains of life (primarily that experienced by others) have sunk so deep in to my heart that they seem to have destroyed any sort of practical or tangible faith in a good and loving God. Gone too is my trust in mankind (myself included).

Read more about my sick mind here.Today I spent nearly three hours exploring the Holocaust Monument in Washington, D.C. It was horribly painful. Some of the things I saw and read made my knees weak. And more than once I felt sick to my stomach. Such terrible and evil things were done to so many people. On the third floor I spent some time in a portion of the Monument dedicated to educating people about the current genocide occurring in Darfur.

As I left the building, I remembered that last night I watched the CNN reports of the young gal who was raped, murdered, and left mummified by tape and plastic. Who could do such a thing?

Then I thought of all the pains of my friends and loved ones. I pondered their deep disappointments and the tragic turns that life forces upon each of us from time to time. I thought of a friend who was molested by her grandfather. Of another who watched her father's mind and body destroyed by a drug addiction.

One cannot ignore the very real and obvious Evil that exists in our world. But what do I make of it? What do I make of Hitler's infamous writings, "My Struggle" ? I heard several times at the conference, "Children must be taught to hate.", which I agree with completely. But Wasn't Hitler an innocent child at one time also? What was it that happened to him that shaped him in to the man he became? How about the rapist and murderers in the world or the drug addicts? Yes, like many, part of me leaps quickly to condemn the actions of these people... but perhaps they too are victims of something far darker than anything we can understand. Or perhaps they are victims of Life. Or perhaps Life, and everything we know about it, is in fact Death... or at least a painful, slow, unavoidable Death march.

I find myself bouncing back and forth between four paradigms that stand in stark contrast to one another (two Christian and two secular).

My Reformed mindset tells me that every man should live according to his heart's convictions and understand that God will sort it all out both in the here and now and in eternity. In some ways its almost a medieval sort of thinking. There is Good. There is Evil. And there is a lot less FreeWill than what we might otherwise think. Knights and Noble Kings are born. So are Drunkards, Rapists and Torturers. I wish I could leave my mind here. I really do. But it is collapsed when I see Jesus command people to repent. What a cruel commandment if it is neither in their power or their destiny. Or perhaps cruel is not the best word. Maybe it is in fact Love. But not the sort of love that I can even remotely relate to. Its the sort of Love that is only called such a thing because, "who are you, O man, to talk back to God?"

My North American Evangelical Christian perspective tells me that all can be saved. "Raise your voice and your hand and come to the front. Believe and you will be saved. God loves YOU." Those that believe and confess... they are in. Those that "harden their hearts" or "reject Christ"... they are out. But what of those that don't hear to begin with? What of those who the Bible tells us had their hearts hardened by God? What to do with the clear teachings regarding predestination? How does one even believe in Christ to begin with? "Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth", right? But the Bible tells us clearly that faith itself is a gift! So in the end, we are judged for all eternity by what God chooses to give us (or not). And all this, we are told, is a love like a father has for his children.
"HUH?" says Miroslav.

And so, I turn to my own understanding. I try to make judgment calls on all the issues of life. I create my own moral compass. I find meaning and purpose where I can. The World According to Miroslav, as it were.

But my post-modern thought eats at me with vicious questions. Questions with disturbing answers. Can I judge Hitler to be any more of a criminal than some of the Jewish leaders of the Old Testament who followed the voice of God? Didn't they too take the battlefield with instructions to annihilate entire people groups? And what about the good old USA? Our country rests on the grave of its original owners. How can I justify a moral code that is based on nothing other than the whims of my own heart and mind? It sounds good until we are on the brink of WWIII and some absolutes must be formed. Its not difficult to live in the good old air-conditioned USA and talk about peace, love, and prosperity for all men. But this sort of approach leaves me feeling very uncomfortable when I consider the complex issues of life like sexuality. How do I train up my children with no standard other than what I feel is acceptable? And there is really no power in my convictions when they are not subject to anything higher than myself. And so I feel helpless to reckon with the conflicting desires in my heart, or the man down the street who is a know child molester, or the nutcase in Iran who wants to nuke the Jews.

I'm left with the only answer I can say with any confidence today, "I don't know."But I don't know how to live this way! Sometimes I feel like I'm on the brink of insanity. And I don't say that casually. The things that I find to be most reliable in life are desire, medication, and pain. And of those I don't trust the first and don't like the second or third. Peace and happiness to me are torturously fleeting in light of the horror of Life.

Oh that I could believe in Christ ...