Kent Hayden, M.Div (Princeton) on The Case for Christian Agnosticism:

There is no poetry in the accumulation of answers. Poetry, and truth along with it, comes from an encounter with those corners of life which have not yet been filled with language. It comes from entering into our ignorance with the honest courage to question. It comes from a willingness to shake up the mental sediment in which we have hidden our secrets.

On the cross, Jesus was an agnostic. He was willing to face death with a why on his lips. Sometimes, in the comfort of a sunny afternoon, when much less is at stake, I have found the strength to entertain such questions myself. And when my belief is stirred by the gusts of doubt, and my knowledge is silhouetted against the beauty of mystery, I feel the uneasy presence of something beyond my capacity to speak, and I am grateful for all I don’t know.

People are often surprised to learn that Mother Theresa secretly harbored significant doubt. Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising. The most difficult questions we ask of God are those that arise out of suffering and in the face of evil - precisely the intersection in which Mother Theresa lived and worked and prayed. It was in the face of unimaginable suffering, personal and intimate and real, that Jesus asked, “My God, my God - why have you forsaken me?”

I don’t think we can ever know God in the same way that we can ‘know’ a formula, a definition, a specification or measurement. We can, however, experience God. This is a very different way of ‘knowing’. The first way - the way of measurement and observation - suggests God exists wholly outside of ourselves. The second - the way of personal experience - suggests he exists within us. Jesus’ words in Luke 17 are ambiguous; various translations state that the kingdom of God is ‘within’ and ‘among’ you. ‘Within’ indicates a personal and individual experience of the Kingdom of God while ‘among’ can refer only to an experience shared in community.  In either case, Jesus’ reply to the Pharisees is unequivocal: it can’t be identified through a rational process. The Kingdom of God can only be experienced and part of that experience might include doubt, questioning and uncertainty.

Press in to God. Do not give up, do not despair, do not walk away. Press in. P.U.S.H - Pray Until Something Happens. This requires considerable effort. It means clearing the decks of all that is irrelevant, time wasting, distracting to our search. No, you probably can’t quit your job, but you can not watch television for two or three hours a day, you can take time from other activities, you can open time in your schedule. You can pray for three or four hours a day - you just have to figure out how. Get up in God’s grill. Hang on. Do not let go. Holler, bellow and wail, plead, beg and cajole. But press in, and keep pressing in, until you hear from God.

To live in the mystery of God is one thing. To reconcile yourself to the questions that cannot be answered is another, and Dr. Hayden suggests he has found a way of living with both. To live in abject doubt, though, is to aimlessly wander the corridors of a peculiar kind of living hell. Trust me on this, it’s awful. I hate it.

Press in. P.U.S.H. My experience has been that I’ve never received the answer I was looking for. Almost inevitably God bypasses the question altogether. But I have always gotten the answer I needed.

P.U.S.H.

Business Guru Seth Godin on Exploration and the Risk of Failure:
People seem to be in one of two categories:
Those who seek stability, affiliation, work worth doing and the assurance it (whatever it is) will be okay.

Those who explore, need to know that failure is an option and quest to make a dent in the universe.
Think [...]

David Brooks, writing in the New York Times on two ways of understanding life:
The person leading the Well-Planned Life emphasizes individual agency, and asks, “What should I do?” The person leading the Summoned Life emphasizes the context, and asks, “What are my circumstances asking me to do?”
There are some points on [...]

From Relevant Magazine - Cameron Conant on Why We Need Unanswered Questions:
And so as I sleep in a queen-sized bed by myself tonight—the same bed my wife and I once shared—simply knowing that God is there is enough for me, too. It has to be. Of course, I still have questions for God, [...]

Rae Vyn on community.
when we moved here i had big ideas about neighbours and community. i had pictures in my head of the kind of neighbour i wanted to be. the kind of neighbourhood I wanted to be a part of creating. i wanted to be in a neighbourhood where we knew each others names. [...]

Or so it seems. Ah yes, the parable of the ’shrewd’ manager. The enigmatic parable of the shrewd manager. The one in which Jesus praises a guy for taking advantage of his boss.
Take a few minutes and read the story. Think about. What’s really going on here? Jesus ends up praising the man for trashing [...]

I’ve got questions about God, about Jesus, the Holy Spirit. I’ve got questions about the bible, about how we got it, about what it says and doesn’t say. They’re real questions. They’re not going away.
Over the last year or so I’ve found myself increasingly disturbed as I pursue these questions. What unsettles me, far more [...]

The Apenine Mountains run like a high, ridged seam down the center of Italy’s boot. The Rubicon river, flowing down out of the mountains to the eastern coast, neatly divides the map into northern and southern regions. In the ancient world it was illegal for a Roman general to cross the river with his troops [...]

Sometimes the bible’s lack of detail is maddening. The entire book of Exodus - from a the Pharaoh who knew not Joseph, to the baby Moses in the reeds, through all the plagues and the Passover - leads to one, climactic moment in which the Jews flee Egypt in the middle of the night. After [...]