Despite my hellish attempts to retreat headlong into the world of ideas and imagination, it seems father time demands that I rest my feet on some solid ground and call it home. Of course one cannot deny Thurman, “How good it feels to center down,” but there is so much calamity in rest. Rousseau claims the act of placing a stake in the ground and calling it one’s property as the origin of inequality in the world. How could one deny the logical premise embedded in this claim? It is in delineating the mine and the yours, the this and the that, the you and the me, which serves as the basis for all discrimination and dispute. And in some traditions this sort of distinction is the root cause of all suffering.
Deep in my heart I feel that all division is illusion, so a concept like home becomes quite problematic for me as all must be home and yet home cannot merely exist in one place. But enough of philosophical conjecture, the old man with the clock beckons me to make a call. Be it a growing sense of maturity or merely a concession to the established order, but it is clear to me that I must find a place within the church to call my home. The time is nearing where I must place myself within a tradition, a history, I must vote my ticket in the great debates which have plagued (perhaps too harsh a word, perhaps not) the the followers of Christ for centuries. Shall the priest marry or not? Is the bible alive or dead?Does the spirit move or not? Is God a God of the rocks or a God of the rapids? These questions and many, many, many more must be explored if I wish to take an issue such as denomination seriously. It is in the exploration of the great debates of the christian faith that I shall find my home.
Yet, I wonder if there is another element to this, call it the movement of the spirit if you may. Where does a seeker such as myself go to find peace and solace, where can I place down my personality and come into contact with my authentic self? Where can I seek God by asking what that means? I wonder if there is a place for a person such as myself who does not seek merely to be preached at (and from the other side of the pulpit, merely to preach to) but where can I enter into genuine communion with God, entering through the depths of my own spirit and seeing with the eyes of others. Perhaps if I can find this I will no longer be so uncomfortable calling it home.