Swimming

School has been in full swing for a couple of weeks and, ever so joyfully, i have the spent the bulk of this Friday evening at home, doing homework. It could be much worse....I promise. i mean, i could be sitting in a pile of trash, and that would be worse, right?
Slowly, but surely I'm getting to know others. I'm enjoying class, and getting my head all mixed up about what i believe and what solid ground looks like. Perhaps, this year, that is the point. see the shaky ground that i have been standing on, and re-evaluate.
Example #1: The first quiz in class ended with this question: How do you "know?" tricky, right?! what kind of knowing are we talking about? i must have jotted something down about things ringing true to my own experience and turned the quiz in. I wasn't worried about getting a grade, but the results were in the next week: most of us said similar things. the difficulty comes when we try to learn and study things such as scripture. If i only "know" because something rings true to my life and experience, there will be much of the Bible that i do not get. Or if I'm trying to counsel a friend, and have no idea where they are coming from, how can i "know" what to say or do? but if something does NOT ring true to life experience, how do we process that?
Example #2: a couple of articles i have read for class have been about God in creation and currently living in and through His creation. If the world is like God's body, am i doing an adequate job taking care of it? Do i see him in it? Do i pause long enough to praise so that the rocks don't have to cry out? But, if God is in the earth and world, what about in the smallest, obscure thing that would seem so irreverent? Is he in that too? Is he in rocks? What about the crazy ivy that is taking over the front yard at my house? What about in the Hurricanes that take over the gulf coast every fall? Is that God too?
Example #3: if the Bible had a specific cultural, time sensitive message about slavery and women in the church, what about homosexuality? Could it be wrong or out of date on this issue of homosexuals?
Do you see how this starts things spinning?