Understanding now why LOVE MATTERS MORE by Jared Byas

"No matter how much we expand our own experience of the world, we will never know everything." (JB)

"It sounds simple, but it’s so important for us to understand that we are limited. In other words, we are not able to grasp absolute truth or reality as it really is. Yet in certain parts of Christianity we have made absolute truth an idol, and God has been replaced. We are deeply afraid of what it means for us if humans do not have access to absolute truth. And that fear comes out in hurtful ways." (JB)

First of all... let me say that if I were to die right now and the last book I read was a book with the title "Love Matters More".  Then I will be okay if that is the legacy I leave behind.  I am okay, if no other message is conveyed at my memorial, than "Love Matters More".  This is the cherry on the ice cream sundae of my library of books.  The title says it all.  Even if anyone forgets what Jared Byas wrote in the whole book... if they can walk away with these three words and implement them in their day to day life... I think he will have done what he set out to do.  

"This is my first memory of a Christian trying to love me who clearly spent way more time learning what to believe than how to believe. I have heard my entire life that Christianity is about love, but what I saw—through our programs, services, and interactions—is that Christianity is about belief. I’ve come to realize that fear about being wrong in our beliefs has crowded out the clear message of Jesus’ life and death—the unmistakable emphasis in the Bible and in thousands of years of church tradition—love matters more." (JB)

Okay... I was kind of kidding... reading the book is still a good thing to do and as I will point out in the blog... there is a lot of wisdom within the pages.   And I'm sure Jared did a lot of hard work on those words past the cover, but I wanted to emphasize those three words and how transformative they can be.

I mentioned in my last post on Rob Bell's book "Love Wins" that love in action has to matter more than beliefs.  Jared Byas is confirming the same thing.  So maybe this is something to think about a little more.  Why has there been such a focus on beliefs, when it seems obvious that Jesus was more about love in action, than he was about beliefs? 

The premise of this book is addressing a phrase, that seems vastly overused in the Christian culture. "Speaking the truth in love"  

"Honest conversations about how we experience people or how we feel about others can be an important part of love, even crucial. But something is out of whack when I hear story after story of people being hurt by people who are 'just telling the truth in love.'” (JB)

Love isn't something we need to tell people we are doing... we just need to do it.  In the church culture, so often people have felt it necessary to admonish others on their behaviour and found some out of context backup in the bible so that they could feel good about themselves when they "told the truth in love".  All the while, clueless to the damage they did to the person they were telling it to.  Jared wrote a book that is long overdue by decades.  

"One thing that helped me in this journey was to recognize that certainty is a feeling." (JB)

Okay... I thought I knew this.  But when my eyes glanced at this line it finally registered in my brain.  Certainty is a feeling... not a foundational cornerstone.  Wow!  So when someone tells me they "are certain" about something... I can understand that as they "feel certain".  Their thoughts may be coming out of their mouth as a belief about their unshakeable identity, but that's not what is actually happening... it is the expression of a fluid feeling.  

Jared Byas is a co-host with Peter Enns of one of my favourite podcasts: The Bible for Normal People.  Jared talks with Pete about this book in Episode 138 on the podcast.  So if at the end of this blog post, I haven't convinced you to get this book, go and listen to the podcast, and let Jared invite you into this conversation)  

"The real problem with “speaking the truth in love” is that at the end of the day, we want grace for ourselves and judgment for other people." (JB)

OUCH!  How often have I been the one who "wanted grace for me" and in the outcome... passed along my judgement to others.  I think I need a new definition of truth.  

"The New Testament also uses as its primary definition of truth the idea of faithfulness." (JB)

I know I am jumping around, so you will have to read the book to get the whole picture... but there were so many things that stuck out in this book for me.  Truth = faithfulness.  So truth isn't a set of ideas or opinions but a state of being faithful.  How might we honour someone if we chose to be faithful to who they are instead of who we think they need to be based on our world view? 

"Love has a way of changing our minds about what is true. It doesn’t change the facts, of course. It changes what the facts mean and leads us to wisdom. It changes how we see the world. And if we get enough people to change how they see the world, it changes the world. It is true in science, and it is true in the church." (JB)

I think something I need to take out of this book is the difference between two very different words. 

TRUTH   OPINION

My opinion is just that... it is my opinion.  It might be true, but it might not be true... but in the end... I don't even have to fit my opinion anywhere on the spectrum of truth.  It can just be my opinion and that is good enough.  These are my thoughts, my opinions, my understandings... and truth doesn't even need to enter into the same picture.  Truth is a portrait all it's own.  And the beauty of that portrait can stand on its own... without my opinion discolouring it or covering it up. 

"We love well when we understand who someone is and behave according to who they are. We do not love well when we behave according to who we want them to be or who we assume they are because of who we are." JB

Jared, thank you for such an amazing read.  Like I said... "the cherry on the top". I still feel like I have missed so much of what this book has to offer... so I guess to finish off this post... the only thing I can say is... 

PEOPLE, PLEASE GET THIS BOOK AND READ IT.  AND THEN WALK AWAY WITH THREE WORDS THAT CAN TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE. 

LOVE MATTERS MORE

A must read and a must see... "Love Wins" and "The Heretic" by Rob Bell

Some communities don’t permit open, honest inquiry about the things that matter most. Lots of people have voiced a concern, expressed a doubt, or raised a question, only to be told by their family, church, friends, or tribe: “We don’t discuss those things here.”

My hope is that this frees you. There is no question that Jesus cannot handle, no discussion too volatile, no issue too dangerous. At the same time, some issues aren’t as big as people have made them. Much blood has been spilled in church splits, heresy trials, and raging debates over issues that are, in the end, not that essential. Sometimes what we are witnessing is simply a massive exercise in missing the point. Jesus frees us to call things what they are. (RB)

I started this blog post as a personal rant... and then as I started copying and pasting some of Rob Bell's quotes in... I realized that he did all the ranting for me... in the book "Love Wins" and even in the documentary "The Heretic".  

To say it again, eternal life is less about a kind of time that starts when we die, and more about a quality and vitality of life lived now in connection to God.

Eternal life doesn’t start when we die;

it starts now.

It’s not about a life that begins at death;

it’s about experiencing the kind of life now that can endure and survive even death. (RB) 

Maybe Eternity isn't as long as it seems to be.  I think the concept of existing forever to be... undesirable... but maybe that isn't what Eternity is about.  Maybe it is more about the moment now, than about a destination after death.  This makes now... the NOW that I find myself in... to matter.  Now has to matter for me.  Because Now is that I'm sure that all I have. 

If you believe that you’re going to leave and evacuate to somewhere else, then why do anything about this world? A proper view of heaven leads not to escape from the world, but to full engagement with it, all with the anticipation of a coming day when things are on earth as they currently are in heaven.

When Jesus tells the man he will have treasure in heaven, he’s promising the man that taking steps to be free of his greed—in this case, selling his possessions—will open him up to more and more participation in God’s new world, the one that was breaking into human history with Jesus himself. (RB)

I don't know if the chapter "Here is the New There"  encourages me or discourages me.  I wanted to find something that would encourage me that I don't have to exist forever, because in my limited mind... existing forever doesn't line up with how Love has expressed itself in my life.  Love lives in my limits.  How would Love look in a redeemed place, when Love has blossomed in the manure of my life?    I am still not drawn into the forever aspect of eternity, but the Now aspect of eternity that he talks about... now that I can get inspired about.  That "heaven" is more about Here and Now... than it is about the There and Then.   This is still a very grey area for me.  I have no conclusions.

First, heaven.

Now, hell. (RB) 

But, simply put, the Hebrew commentary on what happens after a person dies isn’t very articulated or defined. Sheol, death, and the grave in the consciousness of the Hebrew writers are all a bit vague and “underworldly.” For whatever reasons, the precise details of who goes where, when, how, with what, and for how long simply aren’t things the Hebrew writers were terribly concerned with.

Next, then, the New Testament. The actual word “hell” is used roughly twelve times in the New Testament, almost exclusively by Jesus himself. The Greek word that gets translated as “hell” in English is the word “Gehenna.” Ge means “valley,” and henna means “Hinnom.” Gehenna, the Valley of Hinnom, was an actual valley on the south and west side of the city of Jerusalem.

Gehenna, in Jesus’s day, was the city dump. (RB)

So Hell in the Old Testament refers to the place of the dead, which wasn't a big topic of conversation.  Hell in the New Testament is the city garbage dump.  So my question... if this is obvious to biblical scholars... why have millions of people been told that Hell is a place of eternal conscious torment for people who don't sign up to be part of Christianity's club?  When I look for an answer to this question... I can only come up with words like power, control and fear.  There is no Love painted in this of portrait of Hell.  

 Many people in our world have only ever heard hell talked about as the place reserved for those who are “out,” who don’t believe, who haven’t “joined the church.” Christians talking about people who aren’t Christians going to hell when they die because they aren’t . . . Christians. People who don’t believe the right things.

But in reading all of the passages in which Jesus uses the word “hell,” what is so striking is that people believing the right or wrong things isn’t his point. He’s often not talking about “beliefs” as we think of them—he’s talking about anger and lust and indifference. He’s talking about the state of his listeners’ hearts, about how they conduct themselves, how they interact with their neighbors, about the kind of effect they have on the world.

Jesus did not use hell to try and compel “heathens” and “pagans” to believe in God, so they wouldn’t burn when they die. He talked about hell to very religious people to warn them about the consequences of straying from their God-given calling and identity to show the world God’s love. (RB) 

I am more and more drawn to the idea that "beliefs" don't make one iota of a difference to the Creator... Love in action is the real deal.  That is definitely evident in the storyline of Jesus.  This is GOOD NEWS!  I will struggle with what I "believe" until my last breath... but until I breathe my last... I can love.  There is no struggle for me in that directive! 

And then, last of all, please understand that nothing in this book hasn’t been taught, suggested, or celebrated by many before me. I haven’t come up with a radical new teaching that’s any kind of departure from what’s been said an untold number of times. That’s the beauty of the historic, orthodox Christian faith. It’s a deep, wide, diverse stream that’s been flowing for thousands of years, carrying a staggering variety of voices, perspectives, and experiences.

If this book, then, does nothing more than introduce you to the ancient, ongoing discussion surrounding the resurrected Jesus in all its vibrant, diverse, messy, multivoiced complexity—well, I’d be thrilled.  (RB)

Unlocking a treasure and finding out "What is the Bible" by Rob Bell

"First, the Bible isn’t a Christian book. I say that because many people have come to understand the Bible as a book for a certain group of people to claim and own and then help them divide themselves from everyone else. But the Bible is a book about what it means to be human. And we are all, before anything else, human." (RB)

Before I go on to expound on what this book has done for me, I need to tell you a story.

Yesterday, I was going through some boxes of books and keepsakes that I have stored out at my Mom's farm.  I found a red pocket Gideon New Testament with Psalms that some people were handing out at my elementary grade school. 

I would like to confess that by now, my angst against religion has subsided, but I discovered yesterday that is just went into hiding.  It came out yesterday when I realized what that little red book was telling me. 

"I can't believe that anyone would think a child would get anything out of a Gideon.  It's like handing the King James to a kid." 

 It started something like that and went down hill from there.  It was a New Testament, but it opened up with a verse from Joshua that raised the hair on my back. 

This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success. (Joshua 1: 8) 

What is a preteen supposed to do with that introduction to a book so small, so thick and so unreachable?  That's right... unreachable.    The bible has been unreachable for me for a good portion of my life.   And the secret comes out. 

So back to my question... what does a child do?  Enters the guilt for not measuring up, not being or hope to being what that book told me to be.  What hope did I have to be prosperous, or successful, when I couldn't "meditate day and night" on something so foreign to me.  

But how could I even hope to understand that something lied deeper in those pages, when I was given what was a big locked treasure chest and instead of a key to open it, I was given a dirt shovel.  

I hope I somewhat redeemed myself by thanking my mother for making an attempt at downsizing the opening devise for that treasure by giving me the Living Bible, and a Picture Bible.  But when I think about it, as sincere as those efforts were, they still weren't the key I needed to unlock the treasure chest.  

Later on, I was given a NIV study bible at Christmas,  during my first year in Bible School.  Now I belonged, I remember the feeling.  The Living Bible paraphrase wasn't "good enough" for serious bible study.  I felt like that child that brought the wrong kind of bread in my school lunch.  

As the years progressed, I collected bibles.  I collected different versions and even different languages.  Not only English, but German, Spanish and Greek... none of which I could read anyway.  It was all in an effort to get into that treasure chest with the right key.  

I kept that book and copies of that book around for all the years I was attending some form of "church".  It was the class text book and mandatory reading for passing the course.  But... I still didn't have the key to the treasure chest.  

It wasn't until authors like Peter Enns, Rachel Held Evans and Rob Bell introduced me to a library of books that were about humans like me.  Humans from a different time and place and culture... but maybe not so different in the grand scheme of things.  I just wasn't introduced to them as humans.  

"This is a book about a library of books dealing with loss and anger and transcendence and worry and empire and money and fear and stress and joy and doubt and grace and healing, and who doesn’t want to talk about those?" (RB)

I don't think I was given the chance by anyone, even me, to explore the stories from a human perspective.  I had convinced myself that the "Holy Bible" was a divine revelation of a people that were divinely inspired to divinely write a transcript  in a time of divine living.  Instead of a collection of stories about humans like me.  

"...you don’t have to believe in God to read the Bible. In fact, as you’ll see in these passages, the Bible is filled with people wrestling and struggling and doubting and shouting and arguing with this idea that there even is a god, let alone some sort of divine being who is on our side. If you have a hard time swallowing the god talk you’ve heard over the years, great—this book is for you, because these are exactly the kinds of things the writers of the Bible are dealing with in their writings." (RB) 

Lately my focus has been one of understanding my purpose on Earth.  I am not interested in living the rest of my life in pursuit of some cosmic dream I have no proof of attaining.  As fun as Southern Gospel music is... it no longer motivates me to be excited about life after death, Heaven, Eternity... I need something to give me purpose where I am... right here... right now. 

"That’s why the Bible is not a book about going to heaven.

The action is here.

The life is here.

The point is here.

It’s a library of books about the healing and restoring and reconciling and renewing of this world.

Our home.

The only home we’ve ever had.?" (RB)

Wow!!!... if this is true, maybe the key to that treasure is within my grasp!  It's not some hard to read rule book for how to get to Heaven... this is a right here, right now story and collection of stories about the right here and right now.  Humanity 101.  So they are stories from a different place, and a different time, but put into perspective... the humans of three thousand years ago, had the same struggles we have.  And for some reason, their struggles didn't get whited out of the pages that have survived for so many millennia.  There has to be a redeeming reason that the hard times made it into this library.  We are human.  Hard times are our reality.  

"When you read the Bible, then, you read it as an unfolding story. You don’t edit out the earlier bits or pretend like they’re not there; they reflect how people understood things in that time in that place. You read the stories in light of where they’re headed. The earlier bits reflect how people understood things at that point in history, but the stories keep going.

The Bible comes out of actual human history, reflecting the funky, flawed, frustrating world these stories came out of. And right there in the midst of those stories, you often see growth and maturing and expanding perspectives." (RB)

So thank you Rob Bell... and Pete Enns and Rachel Held Evans... and all those who have had a hand in getting the key into my hand so I can open up this treasure chest... we've come to know as the Bible.  

One more confession.  After reading this post, one might assume that I am going to be abundantly enthusiastic and start "meditating day and night" on the Bible... I can assure you that most likely won't be the case.  I don't live in the treasure chest, but it is there for those times when I need some inspiration, wisdom, comfort and understanding.  

I don't ever want to go back to the place where obligation and guilt were my companions.  I want to enjoy my journey and my helpful guides in this life.  I just hope that I can embrace this library in a new way as Rob Bell and the others so graciously have encouraged me.  

"Interpretation, incarnation, now then, a bit about invitation.

Jesus tells his disciples at one point that whatever they bind will be bound and whatever they loose will be loosed.

What’s he talking about?

Binding and loosing was a first-century way of talking about interpretation. Jesus tells his followers that it’s their turn to make decisions about what’s written in the Bible.

It’s as if he says,

You watched me do it.

Now it’s your turn.

Figure out what it means to put flesh and blood on it.

In your place,

at your time,

in your world,

figure it out.

He says at one point that it’s like someone who keeps bringing new treasures out of a storehouse." (RB)

The Greatest Hits collection... GRACE NOTES by Phillip Yancey

 

"All writing involves a kind of arrogance. As I write this sentence, I have the chutzpah to believe it will be worth your time to read it." PY

How can you not like an author who added this into the preface of his book... And not just any author or any book.  Grace Notes is the "greatest hits" of Phillip Yancey.  

I remember the first book I read of Yancey's collection. It was "The Jesus I Never Knew".  I don't remember much of my time through it, but it left a residue like most of my "Rocket Reads".  Yancey wasn't just another "Christian Author" out there trying to make a living by selling Jesus.  There was something more authentic about him. 

I like what is said in this excerpt taken from his bio page on his website.  

For Yancey, reading offered a window to a different world. So, he devoured books that opened his mind, challenged his upbringing, and went against what he had been taught. A sense of betrayal engulfed him. “I felt I had been lied to. For instance, what I learned from a book like To Kill a Mockingbird or Black Like Me contradicted the racism I encountered in church. I went through a period of reacting against everything I was taught and even discarding my faith. I began my journey back mainly by encountering a world very different than I had been taught, an expansive world of beauty and goodness. Along the way I realized that God had been misrepresented to me. Cautiously, warily, I returned, circling around the faith to see if it might be true.”

(a word about my book blogging... sometimes I blog the reads I just finish, and sometimes I like to go into the archives of my library and find a read that really impacted me years ago.  This is one such read. A book read not so recently, but one that resonated with me profoundly) 

"I have been writing full time for three decades, long enough for a publisher to propose this book of readings drawn from twenty-some books and numerous articles. As I read through them I feel a bit like Rip Van Winkle, going over experiences and thoughts from as long as twenty or thirty years ago. I’ve doubted, believed, doubted again, changed, grown." PY

Phillip Yancey has written his own library and his words have encouraged millions of readers over the decades.  For a novice reader like myself, I wish I had the time, interest and energy to read more than just two of them.  But thanks to his Yancey and his publisher... I have "Grace Notes".

I admire and want to read authors who aren't afraid to admit that they have issues and doubts about God.  The words that come from their inspiration have more meaning and relevance to my life as a result of their struggles and openness to share them.  

"Everything I write is colored by my family, my upbringing in the South and in fundamentalism, my back-roads pilgrimage. I can only write with passion about my own experience, not yours. Yet somehow my rendering of church, family, and halting steps toward faith may provoke a response in the reader, like the harmonic overtones from a plucked guitar string. As Walker Percy said, a writer may help reveal what the reader knows but does not know that he or she knows." PY

Grace Notes is a beautiful collection of Yancey's wisdom that is spread out over decades of his journey.  It is a colourful artistry of a life that isn't figured out in one weekend at one conference; but painted over a lifetime of ups and downs, struggles, doubts and moments of joy in the midst.  

Yancey maps out the whole calendar year with readings... 366 to be exact.  This book can be read as a yearly devotional or just as as sporadic and spontaneous as the reader wishes.  

"I do not try to defend the church, but instead identify with those it has wounded and point them toward the good news of the gospel. Jesus said that the truth will set us free and that he came to give life in all its fullness. If it’s not setting you free and enlarging life, then it’s not Jesus’ message. If it doesn’t sound like good news, it’s not the gospel." PY

I just read a few "days" or chapters and I am reminded that this is not a comfortable read as much as it is a read to get one out one's comfort zone.  Phillip Yancey didn't write to make anyone feel comfortable in an easy faith, but to expose a little more reality and rawness into what is often a very complacent world.  He talks about Jesus, not as a religious icon, but as a radical in a real world.  I like that.  

“I write books for myself,” he says. “I’m a pilgrim, recovering from a bad church upbringing, searching for a faith that makes its followers larger and not smaller. I feel overwhelming gratitude that I can make a living writing about the questions that most interest me. My books are a process of exploration and investigation of things I wonder about and worry about.” Yancey writes with an eye for detail, irony, and honest skepticism. (From Yancey's bio) 

Today, I wanted to write a post, and so I went into my archives and was reminded that this blog isn't just about sharing great books, but sharing great authors.  There have been so many great authors that have made an impact on my life's journey, and will continue to do so, because what they have is a timeless legacy of wisdom, research, unearthing discoveries, raw truth and amazing insights into a history we have been so far removed from.  Phillip Yancey is such an author and my library will always have room for his books. 

"From the Old Testament we can gain much insight into what it “feels like” to be God. But the New Testament records what happened when God learned what it feels like to be a human being. Whatever we feel, God felt. Instinctively, we want a God who not only knows about pain but shares in it; we want a God who is affected by our own pain. As the young theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer scribbled on a note in a Nazi prison camp, “Only the Suffering God can help.” Because of Jesus, we have such a God." PY (March 24 - "Disappointment with God") 

Going on ADVENTURES IN MISSING THE POINT by Tony Campolo and Brian D. Mclaren and Tony Campolo

ADVENTURES IN MISSING THE POINT: HOW THE CULTURE CONTROLLED CHURCH NEUTERED THE GOSPEL

"This was a book I had been thinking about writing for a couple of years. When I brought it to EmergentYS, they suggested Tony Campolo as a coauthor. We divvied up the chapters, and then each of us wrote a response to the other’s chapters. Tony disagrees with me on several points, which is part of what makes the book interesting and fun, I think. We’ve gotten really positive response on this book, especially from people in “the Christian subculture” who feel it kicks some doors down and opens some windows for needed fresh air. " (Brian Mclaren on his Blog) 

This is the first time I started a blog post on a book that I haven't finished reading yet. I am so excited to share what this book is about that I am wanting to set up my post already.   I am about two thirds of my way through this astounding read.  I admit, I am casting a wide net in the books I am reading lately, but this book confirms that I am on the right path.  It seems that this book is a culmination of a lot of the books I have read. It's the shortcut through my library of "Rocket Reads". 

Brian and Tony expound on how the "church" as we know it is "MISSING THE POINT" in eighteen key areas of life.  

Broken down into three headings: God, World and Soul, the following topics are: 

God: Salvation, Theology, Kingdom of God, End Times, Bible

World: Evangelism, Social Action, Culture, Women in Ministry, Leadership, Seminary, Environmentalism, Homosexuality 

Soul: Sin, Worship, Doubt, Truth, Being Post Modern

"You won’t find a blueprint in these chapters—no five easy steps, no new model to roll out. We’re just two bald guys learning to love the Lord and the church and the world, and we’re trying to figure out the point of being Christians. In the process we’re becoming more and more aware of how often we miss the point ourselves. And on occasion in these pages, you'll see how each of us thinks the other might be missing the point as well! (And hopefully, you'll see us demonstrate a good-natured way of disagreeing, too.)" (BM&TC)

My favourite reads come from multiple authors.  I enjoy the back and forth banter between two or three people that have the same goal, but often different perspectives and even different ways of reaching that goal.  This is about teamwork.  I like the format in this book.  Tony takes a subject and Brian responds, Brian takes subject and Tony responds.  Sometimes they are not always in agreement, but they do compliment each other well. 

"What this adventure is about is facing our own blindnesses, our own insanities, our own foggy thinking and clouded judgment. It’s about admitting that we haven’t seen things clearly, and about wanting to think more clearly than we do." (BM&TC) 

I have enjoyed bouncing around in this book.  The chapters stand alone in their content, so jumping ahead to different chapters actually works in this book.  Some topics I wanted to read right away, while others I didn't mind waiting until later.  

"We do not claim to see all that much. We’re just rubbing our eyes and trying to be aware of where our perspective has been foggy. We’re trying to wake up. Part of that waking up is to engage each other—and, hopefully, you—in a conversation." (BM&TC) 

Don't let the subtitle scare you off.  Once you read a chapter or two, you will find that scaring you off is not their intent.  They just want to address the areas of life, thought, actions and behaviours where the "church" is "MISSING THE POINT"... so many things have gone horribly wrong in the attempt to make something for the masses to find God.  Brian and Tony bring attention to some of those things and ask questions, and even provide alternatives to thinking and acting that are more in line with the way Jesus did things.  

"The adventure is for those who simply and passionately want to see. It’s for those who have a passionate thirst for insight that won’t be silenced by the polite crowds along the road. It’s for those who, as they begin to see, want to follow Jesus along the road." (BM&TC) 

It is  Sunday Morning, and I finished the book.  I am glad I read this one.  It gave me some food for thought again.  I didn't agree with everything and I am learning to enjoy books, even though I don't agree with the author or authors.

This time in my life is about expanding my horizons, learning new things, challenging myself and my thoughts and really... finding out what I can believe going forward.  I would like to believe something.  Right now, dwelling in my head is working for me, but will it work long term... I am not sure.  But in the meantime, I want to hang out with passionate people like Brian and Tony.  Even though they come at my questions from different perspectives, I can still admire their passion and seek to find it for myself.  

"So we’d like to invite all of us to consider ways that we’re missing the point—to share a journey of (re)discovering what we’re supposed to be about." (BM&TC)