Sometimes revelation is a mountain-top. Sometimes it's church confessional. Sometimes it's a hospital bed. And, every once in a while, it's a long red light on your drive to work.

I didn't expect much from my drive to work yesterday. I was a bit sore from the workout, a bit full from a rare breakfast of eggs and toast, and more than a little anxious about all I had to get done before my noon meeting. I had my iPod plugged in to the car stereo (I have forgone driving with earbuds in; turns out it's fantastically illegal), and it was shuffling through it's 10-GB songload, flitting fickley between genres like a DJ with the very worst kind of ADHD. On I-71 at Smith-Edwards it was Billy Joel, at Kenwood it was Evanesence, and by the time I got to Pfieffer, Elvis Costello was half-finished whiney-warbling his way through one of my favorite love ballads of his, "She."

As I pulled up to the intersection of Kenwood and Pfieffer and waited at a red light whose greatest pleasure is letting everyone go straight and nobody turn left, a new song came on. And this is where the revelation begins.

The song came from a band that doesn't exist anymore, and the only album they ever made and that the vast majority of you have never heard. They were called "Dividing the Plunder," and consisted of a husband and wife just about my age. They live in Greater Cincy, and I came in contact with them when they came by VCC for a performance one weekend. I loved the song they sang, bought the album, and digitized it into my iTunes, where it now sits, nestled in the cultural warm front between Diana Krall and Dr. Dre.

It's a good album. Decent music, OK production, but great writing. That's what caught me. The writing.

The song that came on was called "Maybe It's Faith," and it goes like this:

(the full version...like, the kind with music in it...is on iTunes, I just checked).


---

“Maybe It’s Faith”
Dividing the Plunder - The Ordinary

I wish I had more to say.
It’s such a quiet room.
But today I can’t give voice to anything but doubt.
It starts doubt deep inside me
In my blood and in each cell.
And it makes it’s way to the blank look in my eyes
And the questions on my lips.

I wish I had less to say
It’s such a crowded room.
But the sun came up this morning
And it all began again.
The compulsion's is inside me
And it beats against my doors
It seeps into my sterile polished closet
Brings the skeletons outside.

There was a time I would have covered my face
I would have turned away
I would have broken my bones trying get out the door.
Here it is, come and take a good look.
Get out of the way.
Maybe it’s faith when I just don’t know for sure.

I wish I had a thousand books
To fill in what I’m missing
And a thousand days to read them
And a time back guarantee.
It starts down deep inside me
Every breath and every fiber.
And it makes it’s way up to the empty stare
And the tears on my face.

But I wish I’d never read a word
The answers were too easy
And I’m grown enough to know there’s more mystery than proof.
But it stirs down deep inside me.
And it stirs the dust of faith
Cries out to me about my hollow nature
And the desperate human need.

There was a time I would have covered my face
I would have turned away
I would have broken my bones trying get out the door.
Here it is, come and take a good look.
Get out of the way.
Maybe it’s faith when I just don’t know for sure.

And it’s a little more earthy than I’d like to believe
Like the holes in God’s hands
Like the dirt on God’s feet.
But I’m not alone in that it’s comfort more
Than I ever felt pretending I know anything for sure.

There was a time I would have covered my face
I would have turned away
I would have broken my bones trying get out the door.
Here it is, come and take a good look.
Get out of the way.
Maybe it’s faith when I just don’t know for sure.

---

This is where revelation came. It washed over me like a backrub. Maybe where I'm at is faith.

Yes, I've got more questions than answers. I always have, and I suspect I mostly will. I'm in a place right now where it seems I'm not sure about much. I'm searching for theology, a system to follow, a religion to belong to that I can reconcile well enough to play along. But I don't know that I'm searching for faith itself.

There was a time when the question itself scared the hell out of me. A search for spirituality is, inherently, a search for your own identity. And whenever you question your identity, you're questioning the very essence of who you are, as well as your relationships, your friendships, and everything you know about your social circles. To question fundamental Christianity is to question most of my young adult life, and that's scary. As the song says, "there was a time I would have covered my face, I would have turned away, I would have broken my bones trying to get out the door."

But I think that time is not now. I'm losing that fear. My previous post (Oct 04) was kind of a big deal for me...it's not that I have begun to have these questions, it's that I'm becoming unafraid of what it means that I've had them all along. I think theology can be a wonderful, powerful structure for understanding the entirely ununderstandable...but the quest is a little more earthy than I'd like to believe. It's blood, and it's dirt, and it's God...it's sacred, yes; but it's also human. I can't worship the quest, but I am beginning to recognize it's inherent value. I refuse to believe that God's primary concern is whether or not I had the single salvation experience at some point before I get hit by a bus...our lives are lived in a constant tension between sacred and secular, and our purpose seems to be more about navigating that tension rather than relieving it. The quest is not God, but the quest for God may be salvation itself.

I may find absolute truth, and a theology, existing or created, to match. And I may not. But I don't think I'm lacking faith. Maybe it's faith that I'm continuing to seek God, perhaps now more than ever, despite the personal and social ramifications that result from questioning the faith of my youth. Maybe it's faith that I believe that it's safe to question Christianity, because I believe that Christ himself is greater than both the religion and it's questioning, and that earnest pursuit of Him will inevitably land me in His presence.

I am in a hard period, but it is a good period. I don't know much, and I'm asking a lot. And I think I've long feared that I'm losing my faith because I can't claim the same outward surity I had in high school or college. But maybe it's faith that I just don't know for sure.

I've got a lot more to write to you about. It's about Manhattan, neon at 40 floors, and my brother the Esquire. But it's time to get to work now.

Peace,
Justin