I Think I Know Why I Hate Bush

I Think I Know Why I Hate Bush
Well, ok, I have *another* reason...

I was watching the Colbert Report tonight and, well, his clout has certainly increased because instead of recycling Jon Stewart's guests, he landed Madeline Albright. Madam Secretary. Whatever I'm supposed to call her. She's written a new book, and, well, I was half-listening so you'll have to forgive me for inaccuracies, but she was basically warning against Bush's deep-rooted certainty of being right, in God and everything else. And it's true because one of the common complaints/criticisms of Bush is his inability to say that he's wrong. But her point was bigger than that. That it's dangerous to think you're so right and to be so sure. And I would have to completely agree.

When I was a senior in college, I had a bit of a faith crisis. I'm still not sure why, but I think it had to with me believing that faith and living my faith was all about following rules. I know that's not right, and I'm not sure I don't not believe it anymore, but anyways, it was senior year, and I was having a faith crisis. At the time, a significant portion of my life was intertwined with a campus Christian fellowship and I started to buck it all. Somehow, at the end of the year, I ended up going to the annual retreat -- Summer Conference. It was held that year at this gorgeous camp on a gorgeous island. That was probably part of the draw, but in any event, I went. And I participated in the Genesis study. (Yeah, that Genesis.)

My struggles were very real during that week ... everything I didn't understand in the text felt like something I didn't understand in life. The study was so profound. But there was this guy and he bugged me endlessly. Why? Because he was so *SURE* in his faith. He would offer his explanation of something unclear in the text and it wouldn't be based in the text, it would be based in his wider belief. Maybe it bugged me because he was bringing in things from the New Testament into Genesis, into the creation story, and so it didn't seem rational. But really, he bugged me because he was so sure. And in some ways, that diminished my struggles, because he made it seem so easy and that it was my problem for not having the same ease in my faith as he did. Yet I know that to believe is to struggle, and he probably struggled too, but at the time, it was so irritating.

One night, we were going through a particularly hard passage -- I think it had to do with the fall. You know, the apple (fruit of the tree of knowledge, really), the snake (which wasn't really a snake, but whatever), the bite. And I think we were discussing how God could love us yet let us fall. And the discussion was coalescing into this general consensus that maybe God wasn't so good after all, that the fall was done out of ... something that wasn't love. Ironically, it was me who stopped that vein of discussion with a passionate diatribe about how could we believe that when we know God had created this most beautiful world and filled it with things out of love for us, created us out of love. In the end, I halted that discussion with my faith that God is good.

And then I bolted into the bathroom and cried.

Sometimes, when my faith wavers, I think about that night.

There seems to be a place for unwavering certainty. Then there seem to be places where a little reasoned debate is helpful.