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Does the biblical God exist?  Were Adam and Eve the first?  Was Noah and family the new Adam and Eve?  Did the Chosen People wander?  Did all that killing happen?  Why just the “Chosen People”?  Is Jesus the Son of God?  Did Jesus grow without any biology we know?  Was Jesus nailed to a cross to die for me?  Did Jesus die and rise again?  Was I a sinner, am I sinner, and can I be cured by being saved?  Am I really indwelt?  If saved does that change biology again and allow me to live for eternity?

Yes and yes again.

That was my teaching and as I grew older the teaching changed.  But no one said that was wrong.  Inerrant and infallible … fitting-in … an immature Christian … not rocking the boat … That was my new learning.

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A “learning” I was taught everywhere by everyone for whatever “god” was being taught.

And away from church or in small groups  questioning stuff was okay (and “that” is “universal” as well).  But publicly and “in church”?  Publicly and in church we worship.  And worship is not questioning – worship is corporately reinforcing that teaching.  Worship can never question the teaching.  It never will.  It never has.

“Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

Except the bible – and Jesus within – does question that teaching.  All of it.

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Just as I don’t know what will happen tomorrow – but I have faith I will see tomorrow and so I live accordingly today.   Just as I don’t know that I will love my wife tomorrow – but I have faith I will and so love accordingly today.  Just as I don’t know everything about the past, present and future – but live only in faith that my belief in what I think it was, is, and will be … is enough to see me through.

I live a universal “not knowing” and believe through universal faith that I know enough to live.  It’s just the “what I believe” and how that changes that’s important.

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Will I still be tapping words on this tablet tomorrow?  I don’t know but I have faith I will.  Will you?  I don’t know but I have faith you will.  Will I be loved tomorrow?  Same answer.  Will I love you tomorrow.  Same answer.

And therein is how “I don’t know” becomes “belief” becomes “yes” becomes “fact” becomes “I am right” becomes “you are wrong”.

“I don’t know” is NOT what we want to hear.

We want to be certain, we want to hear certainty.  It is called strength.  That’s what we are all taught.  So I am taught to answer “I do know and you are wrong” because to answer “I don’t know and neither do you” is  weakness.

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And we do not win by being weak.  

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“Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

I think that’s how GSHJ does welcome all when “we” don’t.

And I don’t know if GSHJ expects me to recite the creeds … be a Christian as I was taught … live in “knowing” rather than in “faith”.  But if God Soft Hands Jesus DOES expect me to say all that worship reinforcement stuff …

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Then how can all be welcome?

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Because that is not living by faith.  That is living in “knowing”.  That is reinforcing the “knowing” of the rules of inclusion and exclusion.  That is NOT all are welcome.  That is NOT living in faith.  That is not moving mountains – that is building them ever higher.

We ALL have already moved mountains by living through each day.  We ALL move our  mountains of “I know” each day.  We ALL live in faith even though we ALL say we don’t.  We ALL say we know even though we can’t and don’t.

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And therein is the gateway to love without condition.

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Love allows “I don’t know”, accepts “I don’t know”, and liberates through not having to know.  That is faith and we all “know how” to live in faith because we all already do.

And how love does all of that … I don’t know.

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But I know enough to have complete faith that Love does.

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