Once again I find myself in a word-weary frame of mind. Being word-weary was the reason I started praying in color in the first place. Now after spending over a year writing The Season of the Nativity and promoting it for four months, I am again sick of words– especially my own. I am also weary of most of the words I hear and read about God and Jesus–especially the kind where God is deemed knowable and definable by a finite set of words, maybe even just a few paragraphs. And then more words get hurled around amongst believers about who has the best and most correct words to define God. And about who God loves. And about what God thinks. Is the desire to make definitive statements about God a way to defend God or is it a way to find safety and control in a chaotic world?
A very close friend of mine does not believe in the existence of God. He is not an atheist exactly, more of an agnostic. He is also a scientist. “I don’t believe in God,” he says, “but I believe in Awe and Wonder.” A spectacular sunrise, a beautiful mathematical equation, the paradoxical physics of the cosmos and the mere existence of his young daughter all render him awestruck. His comment made me wonder if maybe he isn’t really more of a believer than I am. When it comes right down to it, no amount or precision of words is adequate to describe God. And though I will continue to try to lasso and corral an infinite God with a finite number of letters and sentences, my bottom-line, most-humble response to God is Awe–to fall on my knees or lie prostrate with my jaw dropped and tongue stilled by the magnitude and wonder of it all.
