It was a delight yesterday to hear with the kids the Penn State senior flute quartet play with this piece, which had a lick I think they borrowed from Debussy. They did just that: play, passing the fetching melody back and forth, making for an exquisitely planned but apparently ludic soundscape. It made me think of God.

Here is a list of Psalms that are useful when you are in doubt or distress:

• Psalm 6: “Return, O Lord, rescue my soul…”
• Psalm 10: “Why do you stand afar off, O Lord?”
• Psalm 13: “How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?…”
• Psalm 17: “Hear a just cause, O Lord, give heed to my cry…”
• Psalm 20: “May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble!…”
• Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”
• Psalm 27: “The Lord is my light and my salvation…”
• Psalm 28: “To You, O Lord, I call…”
• Psalm 30: “I will extol You, O Lord, for You have lifted me up…”
• Psalm 31: “In You, O Lord, I have taken refuge…”
• Psalm 35: “Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me…”
• Psalm 77: “My voice rises to God, and I will cry aloud…”

Listen. Act. Share.

In light of the bean burning incident, action! In light of last month’s crippling doubt, action! Let my love for Carla no longer comprise talking; let it rather comprise doing. Let my Christian faith no longer comprise reading, thinking, and praying; let it rather be listening, acting, and sharing! But especially acting.

1. In May, I began a formal evangelistic effort toward some formerly Christian friends. It comprised reading with them The Case for Christ, Atheism & the Case Against Christ, and The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach. (They have not read the latter.)
2. Serious consideration of the thoughts in the Atheism volume led to further reading on the Internet, which gave room for three theological “why?" questions to burrow into my soul:
   1. Why, if God is all-good and all-powerful, does the world contain apparently meaningless suffering and evil?
   2. Why, if God wants a relationship with His creatures, doesn’t He make Himself more obvious?
   3. Why, if prayer is supposed to work the way I understand the Bible to describe it working, doesn’t it work more often?
3. These questions led to serious religious doubt back in May, which led to anxiety, which led to a sleepless night, despite my anguished cries for rest.
4. Since then, I had mostly been able keep conscious doubt at bay. The...

If you’re not careful, you’ll cut yourself on Occam’s razor. (I’m definitely not the first person to make that joke.)

I value browsing Twitter, but doing it during usual bathroom time first thing in the morning prevents me from getting outside and taking a walk with You, God. So I will save it for a break from my DiamondBack work instead.

I re-read an email from my mom today, and line therein precipitated some religious anxiety in me:

However, God is faithful and I know His truth will prevail.

I wondered rhetorically to her: How do you know that His truth will prevail in my life? Has it prevailed in Jami’s life? Jessica’s? Every believer you know? For that matter, how do I know to what extent God was directly involved in my own recent salvation from the cliffs of doubt? Did He actually do anything? I certainly can’t think of anything obviously supernatural that happened to help bring me back. Was it all just my own? Sure, I am rich in friends, some of whom have miracle accounts, and Carla’s support and uptick in libido sure helped. But how do I thank Him for a role I’m not sure He played? And if He didn’t play that role, what does that mean about Him and His will for our lives? Does He even exist? Wouldn’t be easier to explain the lack of miraculous intervention to save me from doubt by saying He simply doesn’t?

For our date tonight, Sullivan and I purchased the Estes’ Shuttle Express model rocket kit today from HobbyTown USA over in the Benner Pike Shops. He was delighted, and when we returned home, we got started right away. It was gratifying to contribute toward something about which he is avid.

Plus, we found out that there is a maker space in State College now that has open houses every Wednesday evening. Sullivan and I could finally have a medium between us that will help us connect.

“For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; No evil dwells with You.”

— Psalm 5:4

I fail to comprehend how a theistic determinist, aka a Calvinist, can read this and say that God always predestines wicked behavior.

I just told Carla: “I evaluate what you’re thinking too quickly. I’m sorry.” She admitted doing the same to me. O Lord, that we be quick to listen and slow to speak.

I like the idea of viewing the whole of life as a gift for which I can be grateful. The problem I see with it is that it’s hard to see it that way without tripping into thinking that You have provided it specifically to me, as if You were specifically more providential in my life than, say, in the life of an impoverished, persecuted Christian in India.

God, if the translators are right, I’m not sure You could have chosen a more potent name in the face of skeptics: I AM is about as pithy and defiant as a name could be.

Lord, help me find a way back to gratitude to You. If you are as distant as I might decide to think You mostly are, I’m not sure on what grounds I thank You for, say, the food before me at dinner.

Finally, a pragmatic take on space exploration: We need to find a new home for when we ruin this one.

“I lay down and slept; I wakened again, for the Lord sustains me. I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people Who have set themselves against me round about.”

— Psalm 3:5-6

Reading through the Psalms is going to provide ample fodder for prayer—and encouragement and peace, I think, especially as I construe all the enemies involved as demons or anxieties or skeptics. Not that I will wish harm upon the skeptics as the psalmists wish about their enemies; but I will, as indicated in the above quotation, not be afraid of them.

“There would be no cults without the use of out-of-context proof-texts.”

—Stephen Crosby

What to make of Jesus’ extreme and embarrassing statements about the efficacy of faithful prayer, such as “All things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive”? There

• “Jesus is speaking hyperbolically.” This seems to me the most likely, or at least the most acceptable, option. Greg Boyd would claim this one.
• “Jesus was speaking literally, but ‘believing’ means something different from what I think it means, perhaps something closer to the ‘just knowing’ I used to get when prompted to pray for people’s headaches to go away.” This is C.S. Lewis’ take on the matter, at least as I remember one of his letters to Malcom on prayer.
• “Jesus didn’t say that.” Liberal Christians would claim this one.

All three options are plausible and don’t require me to abandon my faith in Jesus.

The most significant thing that happened was that Sullivan and I finally managed to get the Yankee into the sky. It helps that I had to climb fifteen feet up into the first oak on the right side of the paved park path to retrieve the rocket after the launch.

We will both continue the hobby. That bodes well for our relationship. With Éa, I’ll always have music, but with Sully, I’ve been searching for a material thing to serve as a connecting point for us. May we be like that pair of clips on either side of the starter, side by side launching stuff into the sky.

me:

I wanted to write briefly to update you: I have set my face to follow Jesus. But I have to tell you, the uncertainty about Him still undercuts my overall confidence and my prayer life. How do I talk with a still-invisible God of whom I’m unsure? The problem of evil makes me less likely to praise Him, the problem of divine hiddenness makes me less likely to thank Him, and the problem of unanswered prayer makes me less likely to ask of Him.

Moving through life with a foundation I’m unsure of is a novel experience for me. Whatever the benefits of the doubt—and I do intend to read that book—I think I was happier without it.

Why I’m unsure about Him after hearing miracle claims from close friends is a mystery to me. I do know doubt is very social, so I’m going to do what I can to avoid reading material from the dark side. And I have a lot of reading and video-watching to do to shore up my faith. One of the few things I’ve gotten to already is the McHargue article series you sent. I...

How do good things in the ekklesia end up going bad? Often the road to corruption is paved with stones of well-intended pragmatism. Virtue is not always practical, nor profitable. Love is not pragmatic. There is no love column on a profit-loss statement or a balance sheet. Love cannot be analyzed. Love can be entered in to. Doing what is right does not always have an immediate practical outcome of benefit. When a spirit of pragmatism enters a community (especially regarding money) little incremental steps are taken choosing the practical and the profitable over the virtuous and honorable. Those little bricks of making pragmatism our God, pave the highway to corruption. Pragmatism wants to assure that a course of action turns out well for me/mine and ours. Love wants to make sure it turns out well for others, even if it costs me/us.

—Stephen Crosby

Dad left a voice message for me yesterday afternoon asking whether we were still coming to stay at his house this weekend. This after me having asked him twice about 2 months ago whether we could come, only to get the standard, “Let me talk to Lorraine and I’ll let you know.”

We talked about it afterwards, and he, as usual, said that “it was OK” and that “we’ll both do better next time.” He is pitiably pathological in this regard: I did nothing that needs to be improved.

Nevertheless, I miss him and Lorraine and genuinely want to see him. Everyone is happier when we have seen each other. So, I’m going to start treating making plans with him the same way I treat following up on sales prospects: Contact them regularly in an attempt to meet your goals, and don’t let up until your goals have been met. Even after that point, I will confirm plans.

We’ll get to test this out with Christmas.

Briefly reflecting on Luke Muehlhauser, the “Common Sense Atheist,” and his dedication to preparing for the “intelligence explosion” he fears, it occurs to me that it might be best if I focused my charitable efforts like he does. Now, I won’t be concentrating on defending against the singularity, but I could stand to narrow things down. Currently, it’s Water.org, Young Life, the Pregnancy Resource Clinic, Food for the Hungry, the State College Food Bank, and Clearwater Conservancy we donate to. I like all those organizations. But if I want to make a difference, perhaps I need to get behind one in particular.

But where I want to make a difference is interpersonally. If I’m going to change the world, I want to change it through friendship. The problems I’m solving? Well, I imagine many might be solved this way, at least for the people I’m interpersonal-ing. But first among them is loneliness.

Reflecting on my knee-jerk thoughts when faced with criticisms of the Lewis trilemma—“Wait, what? People find problems with the Lewis trilemma? I thought that was open-and-shut! Man, this apologetics stuff is doomed.”—it occurs to me that so much religious doubt and anxiety might be preempted if we acknowledged up front that:

• We might be wrong about our religious beliefs. But it’s still OK to hold them, and to do so very passionately, provided they aren’t motivation for hatred or violence. In fact, for many people, it’s more than OK: it’s joyful and vital.
• Other people have looked at virtually the same evidence to the deity of Jesus and come to very different conclusions, often rationally, and sometimes motivated by love, or at least Polonian honesty. While this might challenge our soteriology or our Christology, it doesn’t have to assail our faith in God or even in Jesus.

Éa is a likable sick person. And Carla is an excellent nurse.

I have journaled enough today. So briefly, the most important thing that happened today is that I have regained some footing in my soul. Spending my DiamondBack vacation time to expose myself to the writings of Mike McHargue, Gary Habermas, Michael Licona, Dale Allison via the Internet has helped me regain the company of the thoughtful-but-still-Christian. Faith and doubt are very social.

Again, I remind myself: Exposing myself to skeptical writings from the other side is not healthy for me in any way at this time in my life.