“Everything That Rises Must Converge” or On the Inevitability of Seeking Truth
My parents have always joked that I have been going to church since before I was born. Even when I set aside hyperbole and reflect on the most formative moments of my life thus far, I am constantly amazed at how, for so many of them, a church has been the cradle. It was in stale youth-group classrooms, arena-style worship centers, and church basement hallways where I first encountered the “One in whom we live and move and have our being” and stood transfixed in awe and wonder at Divine possibility. However, I simultaneously slammed head on into the brick wall that is observable reality, the limits of language, and manmade institutions oriented around wealth, power, and influence. Now as a mid-twenties millennial, I am inundated constantly with the futility of participation in organized religion, the compromised integrity of conservative evangelicalism, the shallow, Enlightenment-inspired humanistic optimism of liberalism, the allure of being “spiritual but not religious”, and the sense of belonging and purpose offered by progressive political activism.
I find it more and more tempting every day to surrender to that current and float away, letting it carry me where it will.
Yet, here I am. Still involved in organized religion. Still attempting to discover what it means to follow a first-century rabbi who was condemned by his religious contemporaries and killed in a state-sanctioned execution. Still trying to become a modern-day mystic. Believing more and more every day that advocating for and identifying with the poor, marginalized, and suffering is not “socialist propaganda”, but is in fact the shape of the Divine itself.
My writings in this space are an attempt to outwardly process the inward reality that has been bubbling to the surface for as long as I can remember. I refuse to believe that I should just resign myself to uncertainty, perpetual deconstruction, and eloquent hedonism. Instead, I will turn my eyes upward, inward, and outward, seeking whatever Truth it is that may be found and devoting myself to the work of incarnating it wherever I go. And I hope you will join me.
