The Context of our beliefs-

When I was very young the Universe was believed to exist in a stable steady state. Like star stuff floating in a vacuous sea, everything remained pretty much where it was just a short time ago. Oh, there were relative motions, but for the most part it was not going anywhere or doing anything.

At least, that was pretty much what I recall being taught when the matter was approached at all. However, behind that theory was the growing acceptance of an expanding universe. Things were moving away from each other, as if all that is was blown away from some central point.

Of course, a few centuries before that the universe was much smaller. It was made up of various things, such as concentric spheres or a disk floating on the sea. For some it was no more substantive than dreams or illusions, and for others it is turtles all the way down. The universe, or at least how humans perceive it, has changed a great deal.

The universe of my childhood was going to simply cool down and die a very cold death. An expanding universe could die similarly, but if enough matter exists it could stop expanding and eventually collapse into a Gnab Gib. That's Big Bang backwards. OK. I agree it is dumb. However, being over 45 years old I am required to make dumb jokes from time to time. It's the law.

This is all dross and duck feathers to some fundamentalist believers of several major faiths. The universe was created and so-called science is just wrong. For other believers the seeming inconsistency between the universe of science and the universe of faith has to be compensated for in some manner. They may put their divergent beliefs in different compartments in their minds, taking out the one they need depending on what they must think and talk about at any given moment. They may simply appeal to "mystery," and not look too deeply.

I tend to believe that most of us assume that the universe is actually there, in some form. We bump up against it, have our senses stimulated, and draw conclusions. Many of us recognize that there are others similar to ourselves, and we have conversations and sex and babies and ideas and television shows in common with these others. The context of our bumping into each other frames a lot of our beliefs.

I haven't had a conversation with anyone who really believes that the universe is not there. I have had some interesting discussions with people who have a far different perspective on the nature of reality, one or two of whom I was sitting on (in the course of doing my job) while they received the medications that would purportedly aid them in managing their perspectives better. Never with anyone who really believed that they and the universe did not exist.

What would they talk about, anyway? And why? After all, I am not really there in that context. How interesting could I be? Why should they listen, and with what?

In the course of my bumping up against the universe I have come to some conclusions. One such conclusion led to my conversion to the Christian faith. I believe that the God of the Bible is the one true God, a belief I adopted as an aspect of my conversion. I am convinced that the only being in (and transcending) the universe who really knows what is True is that one God.

He has the necessary perspective. The rest of us can learn some pretty cool stuff, bumping around in His creation. We can often draw conclusions from these experiences that are more or less true. We can share these as we bump up against others, and refine our thoughts and ideas and the things we imagine. However, none of us can comprehensively comprehend the whole of what is quite the way God can.

The scope of my own ignorance and propensity for error causes me to grant people a lot of slack in what they say they believe and how they say it. I believe that I am a sinner, that I fail to meet even my own standards of belief and actions, much less the standards established by God as revealed in the Bible. I am an inadequate human being. However, God has provided a sacrifice in Jesus Christ sufficient to make up for those deficiencies, and I believe in the sufficiency of that sacrifice. In Jesus I am saved from the consequences of my sin, my rebellion against God.

I don't know everything. I don't even know a lot. However, if what I just said touched something within you, and you feel a need for the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice, seek out a believer to bump up against you, and give you a new context for your beliefs. Open yourself to God directing your experiences.

If what I said does not spark some interest, then continue your own path of bumping up against the universe. The universe you experience is the context of your beliefs.

To believe is to choose. Choose wisely. Choose well.

Epiphany-

I have never been particularly religious. My family was not particularly religious, except perhaps for short periods at various times in various individual lives. I did not grow up with a particular religious slant.

My father was a professional educator and held his profession in high esteem. I grew up in the 60's, an era when science was given great weight in education. I valued science as a model of how we should think, and desired knowledge in a way that was probably religious in nature. However, God was not a common subject in the course of my growing up, and not often on my mind.

Even so, in some early day of my life I one night felt the vastness of the universe and the smallness of my place in that vastness, and cried out for God to love me. I experienced a warmth of love in that moment. It was a childhood epiphany.

It did not send me off on some grand quest, or cause me to commit my life to some great cause. It was just a moment in my life. A profound experience, and one that remains clear after a great many years. However, it is still only one of many experiences that made up my early days.

My second epiphany occurred years later. I had abandoned finding meaning and purpose for myself through endless acquisition of knowledge. I was on a spiritual quest, seeking some idea or experience that would define my life and give it purpose.

The path I was following was a self-made path. I had learned that elements of the Hindu faith were among the oldest know religious beliefs, and so I was trying to acquire knowledge of these beliefs through reading Hindu literature and practicing what I could learn of Yoga through books. I was opening myself up to mystical experiences that were not defined by reason alone.

During this time I was exposed to the witness of a fervent Christian. He had a depth to his belief that was greater than I had seen in other Christians. After months of talking and listening, he took me to a church.

Foreshadowing my epiphany and subsequent conversion to the Christian faith was a period I refer to as a pursuit by the Hound of Heaven. It was like God Himself was herding me toward the Christian fold. I tried to evade through argument and periods of drug and alcohol use, but it proved to be not enough to escape the Hound of Heaven.

Thus I found myself in a Christian church, surrounded by Christians and their doings. In that place a great golden light just beyond actual seeing flooded the church, and bathed me in a warm glow. It was like my childhood epiphany, but many times greater. I sensed a vastness and agelessness and a depth of love greater than I could grasp or express. It was something I simply had to accept, or reject.

I accepted. Not being particularly religious nor particularly fond of religious motions I continued my spiritual quest as a personal journey. At times I have shared in fellowship with other Christians, but I never fully accepted the culture. It did not seem necessary.

I still value reason, and think it should be applied to all learning and experience. However, neither my reason nor the reason of others is sufficient to judge all things. I continue to embrace mystery as a valuable part of all that is, as well as such knowledge as I have acquired and such knowledge as others will share with me.

Over time I have studied several systems of theology, and had fellowship with many different Christian groups. Ultimately I have come to the conclusion that our reason is an aspect of our faith, it is not the whole of our faith. Our relationship with God is dynamic and experiential. It is informed by customs, traditions, doctrines and most importantly the Bible. However, what is most real at any moment for any believer is the experience.

Epiphany is not the normal mode of experiencing God. Though I have had two such experiences, it is a tiny part of my overall Christian experience. It is a tiny part of my human experience. Important, defining, but still just a part.

These experiences have informed my approach to evangelism (sharing the faith with those who do not yet believe) and interacting generally with other people. I cannot expect, much less demand, that others follow the same path I have followed. No, I can share my experiences, share what I know, and even offer advice and encouragement.

In the end I can simply be part of their experience, found on their own path. I can afford to be genuine, rather than a "fake" Christian. That means that they will see that Christians are not always nice or pleasant. I certainly am not. By being myself just as I am in my place along my path I can be available as an element in the experiences of others.

It is quite possible that I shall be some other person's epiphany.

Not likely, but with God who can say?