Today my son said something beautiful.
"Mom, what if the universe is just a painting. What if it is just a painting that God made up. What if God created it and it's just a story?"
It reminds me of another conversation I recently had with another adult. This adult told me that his response to creation and evolution was to wonder if we are all just a fantastic story. If this life is a story world like Tolkien created. I love that my formative years were spent with this adult, my father.
There is so much fear about the unknown in lots of Christianity. It's something that saddens me deeply. I have never really been afraid of the unknown despite my religious background. I am so thankful for this. I am sure this lack of fear comes from my love of story, art and science. Though I haven't been afraid, I haven't felt freedom either. I am just now starting to enjoy freedom.
I have a good friend who frequently finds herself in arguments with Christians. She likes to tell me about it and we laugh a bit and shake our heads. She is always confused by these arguments, she doesn't understand the intolerance and even ugliness towards different ideas. I say the same thing to her every time,
"You have to have patience and compassion. You are talking to people who have been taught since a young age that listening to or even entertaining different ideas will start them down a path of faith compromise."
This was brought home to me recently in a conversation I had about evolution. It would be bad form to share who I had this conversation with and why so I will just share the little thing I felt so sad by:
"We don't want our child to learn about evolution in school. We want to prepare her to be able to stand up for herself in college. We are encouraging her to go to a christian college but she may choose to go to a secular school. We want to equip her with the tools she needs to stay strong in her faith."
It's heart breaking really. You won't believe how many times I have heard sentiments like this. Here is something I find encouraging:
“We live by revelation, as Christians, as artists, which means we must be careful never to get set into rigid molds. The minute we begin to think we know all the answers, we forget the questions, and we become smug like the Pharisee who listed all his considerable virtues, and thanked God that he was not like other men.
Unamuno might be describing the artist as well as the Christian as he writes, "Those who believe they believe in God, but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself.”
-Madeline L'engle
"Mom, what if the universe is just a painting. What if it is just a painting that God made up. What if God created it and it's just a story?"
It reminds me of another conversation I recently had with another adult. This adult told me that his response to creation and evolution was to wonder if we are all just a fantastic story. If this life is a story world like Tolkien created. I love that my formative years were spent with this adult, my father.
There is so much fear about the unknown in lots of Christianity. It's something that saddens me deeply. I have never really been afraid of the unknown despite my religious background. I am so thankful for this. I am sure this lack of fear comes from my love of story, art and science. Though I haven't been afraid, I haven't felt freedom either. I am just now starting to enjoy freedom.
I have a good friend who frequently finds herself in arguments with Christians. She likes to tell me about it and we laugh a bit and shake our heads. She is always confused by these arguments, she doesn't understand the intolerance and even ugliness towards different ideas. I say the same thing to her every time,
"You have to have patience and compassion. You are talking to people who have been taught since a young age that listening to or even entertaining different ideas will start them down a path of faith compromise."
This was brought home to me recently in a conversation I had about evolution. It would be bad form to share who I had this conversation with and why so I will just share the little thing I felt so sad by:
"We don't want our child to learn about evolution in school. We want to prepare her to be able to stand up for herself in college. We are encouraging her to go to a christian college but she may choose to go to a secular school. We want to equip her with the tools she needs to stay strong in her faith."
It's heart breaking really. You won't believe how many times I have heard sentiments like this. Here is something I find encouraging:
“We live by revelation, as Christians, as artists, which means we must be careful never to get set into rigid molds. The minute we begin to think we know all the answers, we forget the questions, and we become smug like the Pharisee who listed all his considerable virtues, and thanked God that he was not like other men.
Unamuno might be describing the artist as well as the Christian as he writes, "Those who believe they believe in God, but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself.”
-Madeline L'engle
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