Open Minds

This speaks to my personal experience in church studies. It’s probably influenced by my personality type and others will no doubt have a different take.

I seems to me now, even if it didn’t at the time, that bible studies are conducted much in the same manner that historians study history. Gaining knowledge and understanding is important, but at some point it becomes very important that you discover something new. The old truths are boring and you need to show your spirituality or justify your tenure, by finding something new. This is usually accomplished by making small things important,important things small, and by altering the lighting to make things look different.

A few weeks ago I asked a bombshell of a question, that probably went over many peoples heads. It was the type of question that called into question the whole leaning of the discussion and the whole manner in which some elders conducted their spiritual walk, which is what we were being instructed on. I didn’t get a satisfactory answer, and I really didn’t expect one. It was one of those questions that just might not have an answer. Unfortunately, the answer really is important to me personally.

Last week, I had multiple strangers come up to me to congratulate on my question. It appears that I ’scored’ points by being able to find something original (to them) to ask. Similar to finding some new truth when none really exists. The fact that the answer I got didn’t make sense didn’t register to people. It was ‘The Question’ that was killer. One guy emailed me about ‘The Question’, and I had a very very frank reply which laid out exactly what the answer wasn’t really an answer and why the answer was so important. I didn’t hear back.

The simple truths are enough to keep me occupied for the rest of my life, and questions that don’t have answers will keep my head spinning for quite some time. I just don’t have the patience for things that distract. Pretending to have answers when you don’t is one of those things that distract.

I should tie this in to Tolstoy. I had saved this post and was just flipping to chapter 4 when the closing part of chapter 3 jumped out. So appropriate.

The questions seemed so simple, stupid, and childish. But the moment I touched upon them and tried to resolve them I was immediately convinced, firstly, that they were not childish and stupid questions but were the most important and profound questions in life, and secondly, that however much I thought about them I could not resolve them. Before occupying myself with my Samara estate, with the education of my son, or with the writing of books, I had to know why I was doing these things. While I did not know why, I could not do anything. Amidst my thoughts concerning the farm, which at the time kept me very busy, a question would suddenly come into my head: “Well fine, so you will have 6,000 desyatins in the Samara province and 300 horses, and then what?” And feeling completely taken aback, I would not know what to think next. Or, beginning to reflect on the education of my children, I would ask myself, “Why?” Or deliberating on how the peasants might achieve prosperity I would suddenly ask myself, “What concern is it of mine?” Or thinking about the fame my own writing brought me, I would say to myself, “Well fine, so you will be more famous than Gogol, Pushkin, Shakespheare, Moliere, more famous than all the writers in the world, and so what?” And I have absolutely no answer.

This was a dark time for Tolstoy, because he had questions to go around, but no answer that seemed like it might be true. The path to those answers turned out to be the road less traveled and placed him on the fringe. So it will be with me, for better or worse.