"The new phone books are here! The new phone books are here!"
Navin R. Johnson was jumping, skipping and dancing when new copies of the local phone book arrived. "I wish I could get that excited about a new phone book!" said his boss.
Navin R. Johnson felt it. "Millions of people read this every day. I'm somebody now. Things will start looking up for me now." While he was talking a gunman opened up to any old page and did a skydive with his index finger onto a random name. "Johnson, Navin R...sounds like a typical random (bleep)." Then he drove to where Navin worked and started shooting at him from the hill across the street.
McManus' first entry in the new section of Soul Cravings (Meaning) is titled "Is It All Just Dumb Luck?" He goes all fatalistic on us and leaves the entry with pretty much nothing but questions. Who decides whether we live or die? What is the difference between that one miner who lived and the twelve who died? Why that one? Is it all just dumb luck? He asks questions, but doesn't answer any of them this time. This is respectful of the reader and it's courageous. There is something about resolution that makes us not sit comfortably when we don't have it.
I remember that conversation with David Crowder earlier this year, where I asked him how he could let someone come to his church, ask questions, and then leave without the answers. It almost sounded cruel to let such a thing happen -- especially when we are convinced that we have some of the answers to life's important questions. But he said he trusts that God was part of the "equation" when this person came into his "space" and that God will be a part of that when this person leaves his space. He brought up how we (in America, especially) have a "Messiah complex" that basically says, "If God is at work, it is partly because I am involved in it.
Sometimes a good rhetorical question should not be answered. It forces those that hear it to consider the question carefully. That's a good thing sometimes. McManus certainly does this with Entry #1 of Meaning...
Posted by Doug Van Pelt at December 6, 2007 09:15 AMAmen brother.
An important aside to this is that sometimes when we give answers, we do more harm. We think we know what is best for others; we think we have all the answers.
I always say, share our beliefs in a humble, non-dogmatic manner and then leave it at that, relying on faith and prayer and the Holy Spirit to take it from there.
Posted by: Doc at December 6, 2007 10:33 AM