to know

to know graphic

[prompted by Sam as he made the distinction between to know and to know about, referencing *Giglio.]

waiting for revival

the first time i remember having an intense curiosity had to do with waiting.

i was in high school. i noticed many people stressed/unhappy/oppressed/hungry/dying. i couldn’t understand why. in particular – i couldn’t understand why a good god wouldn’t say – game over – and commence heaven.

why wait?

why would someone with the power to end/control this game gone bad – wait.

this verse (a 2 peter 3:9 – paraphrase) made a huge impact on me.

god isn’t being slow. he’s waiting. for everyone.

whatever your beliefs.. indulge/ignore:

suppose there is a good god. suppose he did create the earth and people. if that is true, then he must have also given us the freedom of choice. otherwise, the world wouldn’t be such a mess. and he must be holding to it, otherwise he would/could have forced a clean-up/change by now.

so then – choice must matter. choice must mean something deep/rich/sustaining/thriving. perhaps it’s foundational to knowing.

and the state we are in, coming from/manufactured by choice/man, perhaps can be manufactured back out. perhaps we can wake ourselves up, as it were.

that’s what i hear/see/believe in that verse. god is being patient.. for us to figure out how to get back to us/him.

[i think many assume they know who the people are that god is waiting for. ie: the people they are commissioned to change. but perhaps it’s more the one’s who know so very much about god, that the waiting has become dependent upon. perhaps he’s waiting for us to revive/release/choose ourselves to know god/people, more than knowing about him/them. breathing in, being known by each other, 24/7.]

i see math and god as similar in this regard. both are heavily pushed by people that believe them to be essential. perhaps if they are essential/true.. they show up. perhaps our pushings/agendas are what’s keeping people/us from them.

and the double backfire — often the pushing causes a knowing about, rather than a knowing. and that race never seems to end. an ongoing quest to get in places, to attach. and so humanity loses its authentic energy/love/peace.

is big, fast, efficient, assumed to be measurable, often driven by shame. if successful, leads to knowing about.

is ginormously small, slow, invisible, most likely immeasurable (both literally and in magnitude), best incubated in love/trust. if successful, leads to knowing.

perhaps that’s why choice matters so much.

perhaps deep knowing only comes from choice.

perhaps knowing about can come from compulsion, but knowing/relationship can only come from choice.

I want to know God’s thoughts – the rest are mere details. ― Albert Einstein

that would/could explain why a good god would let go of a perfect world, so that a perfect relationship, a deep knowing, might be possible.

________________

a second hugely influential curiosity came a few years later as i read the little prince. this passage in particular:

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

i started obsessing with a way to see better. like seeing with our hearts. could we do that?

might we augment/improve our vision/listening. enough to get/hasten us (back) to a culture of trust.

perhaps you are the only person that knows you the best. you see your heart/soul better than anyone else. simply because of your vantage point. could we share our personal vantage points more.

if so, perhaps a critical choice to hastening knowing:

whether or not we choose trust

whether or not we assume good.

like Chimamanda warns us – there is danger in just one story. and yet, the stories are too manifold to know them all.

what might happen with that, perhaps, is that the too big-ness zooms out to (reaches the limit of) trust. in other words, we abandon to trust.

if we simply assume good, we’ll be spinning our wheels much less. there will be much less flapping (cutting people down and/or playing defense from being cut down or simply flapping) think of all the conversations that go on in the course of a day. many are grounded in hype. much of the hype is grounded in misinformation.. mistrust.. insecurity. communication quote by shaw

we could choose to keep hearing more stories.. (which would be cool and we’ll keep getting to know each other better).. but at some point, we’ll run out of time in the day, to hear one more story.

if we want to truly be free, we’ve got to let go of the time/energy/money/people consuming mistrust, that perpetuates scarcity because knowing, rather than knowing about, personifies life over death. and perhaps it’s the only way to get to love.

love does