The Question is...
Ellis Paul in his song, “Angel In Manhattan”, asks the question from the Angel’s voice, ”The question here is: Do I believe in you?”. On Facebook you have the choice to tell your friends your “religious view.” When I considered the option, I realized that my view was always going to be skewed, politicized, biased, tainted, and way too small. So, under this option I wrote, “However God views me.”
Isn’t that ultimately the point?
After all, there are plenty of times that I am not even sure if he exists, much less believe in him. But I exists, and my experience is that he believes in me far more than I do in him. And not just in the empirical sense, either. He, also, seems to believe in me, and you, in the manner that we could use someone believing in us; the way we always want or wanted our parents, our spouses, our friends to believe in us.
The other morning I came to the unoriginal conclusion that the image I carried of God often defined my image of my self and the world around me, but didn’t stop there. The conversation with him went from there to admitting as much and choosing to drop my addictive images – the ones I had carried for so long, the ones that I am convinced I can’t live without – and let the chips fall where they may. Not so much asking that he fill in the space that is left… because, ultimately, that becomes another addiction – as previous explored. It’s a bit unnerving, yes. And what is worth it that isn’t?
Not soon after this conversation my day went haywire, like someone sat down at the control center that is my world and hit the red button. Towards the end of the day as I had time to walk away from the dust and breathe a bit, I said to him, “So, this is what your response is to my letting go of a false idea of you?” I could’ve concluded it’s all a joke, that I am just fooling myself, that shit happens, and God or no God, it’s all one big crazy mess.
But I got home, put on my earphones and running shoes, and headed out the door. The random selection on my Nano started with Public Enemy’s ”He Got Game,” in which is said, ”My wandering, got my ass wondering, where Christ is in all this crisis… are you ready for the real revolution, which is the evolution of the mind, if you seek than you shall find, that we all come from the divine.” And on the heals of that came G. Love and Special Sauce, singing, ” I began/Giving thanks and praise/Cause I could’ve been/Pushing up daisies/With Babylon/trying to fight me/But I evade it you see/Got involved with/Something that had nothing to do with me/Giving thanks for the quest/For one love and one unity/Cause free is what we should be/One people not in captivity…This is just the beginning/So I keep my mind open/Eyes shining bright/I’m an old dog learning new tricks every night/And every time you get cut/You know you might get scarred/But don’t sweat it kid/Just remember who you are/When I give thanks and praise” (Yes, I run to hip/hop, why not?) It was an affirmation of my frustration, and a reminder of the bigger picture.
In light of the day I’d just survived, it was as if I was being tapped on the shoulder by the God who made me with legs to run, “The question is: Do I believe in YOU?”
Isn’t that ultimately the point?
After all, there are plenty of times that I am not even sure if he exists, much less believe in him. But I exists, and my experience is that he believes in me far more than I do in him. And not just in the empirical sense, either. He, also, seems to believe in me, and you, in the manner that we could use someone believing in us; the way we always want or wanted our parents, our spouses, our friends to believe in us.
The other morning I came to the unoriginal conclusion that the image I carried of God often defined my image of my self and the world around me, but didn’t stop there. The conversation with him went from there to admitting as much and choosing to drop my addictive images – the ones I had carried for so long, the ones that I am convinced I can’t live without – and let the chips fall where they may. Not so much asking that he fill in the space that is left… because, ultimately, that becomes another addiction – as previous explored. It’s a bit unnerving, yes. And what is worth it that isn’t?
Not soon after this conversation my day went haywire, like someone sat down at the control center that is my world and hit the red button. Towards the end of the day as I had time to walk away from the dust and breathe a bit, I said to him, “So, this is what your response is to my letting go of a false idea of you?” I could’ve concluded it’s all a joke, that I am just fooling myself, that shit happens, and God or no God, it’s all one big crazy mess.
But I got home, put on my earphones and running shoes, and headed out the door. The random selection on my Nano started with Public Enemy’s ”He Got Game,” in which is said, ”My wandering, got my ass wondering, where Christ is in all this crisis… are you ready for the real revolution, which is the evolution of the mind, if you seek than you shall find, that we all come from the divine.” And on the heals of that came G. Love and Special Sauce, singing, ” I began/Giving thanks and praise/Cause I could’ve been/Pushing up daisies/With Babylon/trying to fight me/But I evade it you see/Got involved with/Something that had nothing to do with me/Giving thanks for the quest/For one love and one unity/Cause free is what we should be/One people not in captivity…This is just the beginning/So I keep my mind open/Eyes shining bright/I’m an old dog learning new tricks every night/And every time you get cut/You know you might get scarred/But don’t sweat it kid/Just remember who you are/When I give thanks and praise” (Yes, I run to hip/hop, why not?) It was an affirmation of my frustration, and a reminder of the bigger picture.
In light of the day I’d just survived, it was as if I was being tapped on the shoulder by the God who made me with legs to run, “The question is: Do I believe in YOU?”