Life is messy

I finished reading a good book: Forgotten Among the Lilies by a Catholic priest, Ronald Rolheiser (Doubleday, 2005). It contains much wisdom.

Rolheiser refers to the philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, an atheism, who wrote about the ambiguity of life as a reason to not believe in God. Rolheiser says that the ambiguity of life is actually a good reason to believe in God because it reveals the authenticity of creation.

He quotes the poetic words of Gerard Manley Hopkins:

And all is smeared with trade; bleared, smeared with
toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the
soil...

Rolheiser writes: "We are not angels, free, soaring spirits, unencumbered by the limits of time and flesh. Our souls are born enfleshed in soil, pain, blood and smell. We were never intended to be angels."

I resonate with Rolheiser's viewpoint. The Bible tells us that we see reality "through a glass darkly" -- that is, everything is fuzzy. Religion that tries to make life too clear and neat is a rejection of the Scriptural viewpoint. Life is not neat. It is messy. It is unfair. It is godless as we see it through human eyes.

I wish I had all the answers. But I don't. I don't even know all the questions.

Nevertheless....

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