And slowly, I came to realise there was more behind the abstract – I’ve said this before, too many times maybe. Which really shows how much I actually have appreciated this as more than a principle. When things linger in your being as something that still resonates, maybe the eventual click hasn’t yet happened, and maybe, there is still a lot more to go before eventually driving this down into a conviction.

Maybe this particular thought is one of those quiet movements that will fasten it a little more.

Perhaps it starts from the word “coherence”, a word that is more than a part of my vocabulary because it has become a word that highlights so much of my Christian growth (consciously, I have avoided using the word “experience”) Christianity is a coherent faith, and my subjective puts a premium on that explanatory effect (Others say – Relationship. Worth. Guilt-appeasement. Acceptance. Love. And whatever other language one can use to frame the truth of the gospel.)

Coherence has silenced the cry of my unanswered questions, my mind has settled into a tired maturity through the rigor of repeated arguments. The facts remain as they are, the interpretations stand as they always  have been, and I’m no longer stirred by a proposition that attacks my existential certainties by pure philosophy.

And so maybe (actually no, I still disagree. but to go along with the flow of logic anyway), doing Literature was a blessing in disguise. To say it superficially, Literature has given up on this enterprise of questioning the human condition, deciding instead to describe it. And utilising  all the powers that language allows, it dives into the construct of the narrative, unveiling what it can through the power of a story.

“…if we suddenly found ourselves on Mars and grew a pair of wings and a new respiratory system, it would not take us out of ourselves… Not as long as we have to use our same senses. Not as long as we’re stuck in our same consciousness.“

- Ilium, Dan Simmons

Man is fundamentally a reader. He merely chooses the ‘texts’ he wants to read. He chooses how much he wants to get out of the text, how much he wants to run away from text, even how much of the text he really wants to read anyway (In this light, the bible makes a lot more sense, but that’s something else altogether) There are texts that lie. Readers that lie. There are texts that were lies, but are really truths. And readers who really were honest about a pursuit of truth, but then later on get tangled in something that look much like lies.

My mind has settled. But it is now my heart that cries out. And no, coherence does nothing to settle it. Because a person is not a text. We are readers. We read texts. But a person is not a text. And I think that is the main problem.

This is probably why the questions that are closest to being argued against are the ones that brush so closely to persons. You know, the why does a good God allow suffering?, what about those who have no heard? kind of questions. Its not that they are unanswerable philosophically – You take the time and pains to follow a logical argument, and you’ll realise that it can be quite well argued. Its more that the answer is, not an answer.

Sadly, I frame these things now in the context of ministry. I see myself looking at the person’s predicament that led to the question. Making an assessment of his or her situation and circumstance. Drawing upon relevant arguments that hinge onto something that I can illustrate from their life (so it forms a more empathic argument). After satisfying all the intellectual grievances to corner the query into a boxed-up reasonableness, I finally invoke Deuteronomy 29:29. All in the name of ‘coherence’ (of course, I mean God. But honestly, I think my sinful nature might push this to the foreground)

But the questions that are the hardest are not these. Not  questions that are existential but questions of things that are going on in existence itself.

‘Coherence’ does nothing to settle it – Yet, in my language of faith, ‘coherence’ should. Feeling no longer the need to be vindicated in questions that have no answers in Philosophy, I need to come to terms with how there can be no answers in what is more than philosophy too.

Because the answer to life gives coherence enough, there is no need for relational closures. No need for emotional clarifications. No need for an attempt to unknot the knots on the frayed strings.

No need. Not because of coherence, but because of the gospel.

“For the sake of love or its essence – telling, informing, announcing, commenting, opining, distracting, listening and laughing, and vainly making plans – one betrays everyone else, friends, parents, brothers and sisters…In order to flatter the person you love you denigrate everything else in existence, you deny and abominate everything in order to content and reassure the one person who could leave you; so great is the power of the territory delineated by the pillow that it excludes from its bosom everything outside it, and it’s a territory which, by its very nature, doesn’t allow for anything else to be on it except the two partners, or lovers, who in a sense are alone and for that very reason talk and hide nothing, voluntarily.”

-  A Heart So White, Javier Marías

So it is strange why I keep trying to summon mind-reading powers in instances where it seems ‘possible’. Like when putting across an argument in a debate, or when crafting an illustration to convey a biblical principle. Or when sharing the gospel and hearing a template-form response to a point made. And of course, when deciphering what a girl means by a particular action or silence. During all these moments, I unconsciously attempt to gnaw hard on anything that can activate this elusive faculty.

I guess there are times I do come close and find the right chord that will resonate in my audience. Plenty of other times though, I am sure that this effect is far from achieved.

The reality is that we are very separate individuals. In every “we” there are minds that are ultimately isolated, hearts that are engaged with issues with varying convictions and wills that require very different conditions to be challenged. Even among the closest of friends, such ties might only be made on the basis of some of one’s strike-the-nail-on-the-head connections, not all of them.  The very need and sublimity expected from the act of communication is a testament to that.

Trying to say something gets a lot harder when one is trying to say it to a particular individual. But I’m not a mind reader, and so I can only try.

The beauty is in the unconditional nature of the act, in the your-my-only-one-because-I’ll-always-feel-this-way idealism, in the quiet acceptance and selfless spirit. The chief thing that has to guard all these things is untaintedness. Or at least an attempt that comes close, one that tries best to fight against the theologian’s verdict that even my tears of repentance are tainted with sin.

Time, growth and learning about the greys of the world makes it harder to deal with untaintedness. Reluctantly, we have to escape from the sanctuary of innocence and brace ourselves for murkier depths in reality so as to fight for a purity that is more potent than just the mere illusion of it which innocence could give.

Still, that lie was so refreshing. Refreshing in the existential sense because it meant lesser ambiguities to wrestle with philosophically. And also in the sense of hard reality.

But now, when I look around at all my friends and try to find that person – The person who gave that bracelet, who baked that cake, who folded those cranes, who gave that rose, who wrote that poetry.  The person who had dreamed about that future someone. Who could frame a perfect wedding day, at a outdoor garden with a band that played your favourite songs. The person who could look into that someone’s eyes, saying decidedly you are special to me, and meaning it without any memories of brokenness.

I can’t find those persons anymore. Be it my friends, or the younger ones who only look rash, childish and familiar because they are a reminder to one’s past stupidity.

There were times in the past when I can look at the night sky, admire the  moon in the distance and trust that somewhere out there, there is someone looking at that same moon.

I can’t feel that feeling anymore, and sometimes I miss it.

“I’m not disillusioned with Church, I’m disillusioned with God.”

My friend’s reply made me pause for moment to realise that how easy it was to feel that way. Not just anger at church, at the bunch of uncertain individuals that try their best in all attempts – But at God Himself.

Although the basis of her  logic was bad theology (which makes it frustrating because it’s difficult to balance correction of theological logic with telling someone that your not trying to convey moral platitudes, especially when the person’s rationality would naturally be bounded by that emotional state), there is just a visceral simplicity in the whole idea. It’s framed into a neat, coherent, ‘I-got-Someone-to-point-my-finger-at’ feel and gives some room to transcend yourself with the balm of cosmic self-indulgence.

The other perspective:

…no contemplation of the beauty and glory of God can be complete without some understanding of the relationship between the Three Persons of the Trinity.  The image God has given us in the Trinity is an image of three co-eternal, co-equal Persons giving themselves to one another in eternal self-effacement.  The glory of our God is not a thunder-and-lighting quality, but a self-giving love within the Trinity.  And Jesus’s prayer for his disciples (and followers to come) is that this same glory may be given to us that we “may be one” even as they are one.  Is there any question why servanthood and relationship-building is no longer an optional extra for the Christian but essential to reflecting the glory of the Triune God?

In a society that is increasingly fragmented and individualized, it is easy to develop a theology of the Church as a collection of perfect individuals.  But a right understanding of the relationships within the Trinity would militate against such an interpretation.  We do well to remember the powerfully acted parable of Jesus as he washed the disciples’ feet.  The feet of all the disciples were dirty, but as they would submit themselves to cleansing by one another, they would emerge as a perfect community (John 13:14).  We may fundamentally have no difficulty having ourselves cleansed by Christ, but to submit to ablutions by another is virtually unthinkable.  The disciples would have been very happy to wash the feet of Jesus, but his injunction was that they should wash one another’s feet.  It was a strange but effective way of communicating the importance of relating to one another by forgiving, cleansing, and accepting one another in perfect mutuality.  In other words, two imperfect individuals can synergistically portray a perfect relationship—the very antidote so desperately needed to correct our individualistic privatized spirituality!
– Relational Injunctions , A Slice of Infinity (RZIM)

In other words, in marriage, we discover… the paradox of gift. The paradox is that in giving the ultimate gift (our self), we gain what humans throughout the centuries have described as “the meaning of life” (the love of one’s spouse and children). When it would seem that we lose ourselves, we find ourselves. Not only do we spiritually “find ourselves,” but we also physically find a reflection of ourselves in the children that come from the marriage union. As John Paul II said, “The lover ‘goes outside’ the self to find a fuller existence in another.”
– What If She’s Not the Right One?, Boundless.org

And so, God increasing and us decreasing (John 3:30),  living for God to attain the fullest joy (John 15:11), praying a prayer to God to ask for the things that break His heart break to yours as well – It’s not that these things are lofty, Sunday school model-answer things.  Another way to look at it is that when you want to grapple with reality as it really is, you have to come to terms with a God that was never meant to be your puppet. Before we can assert how angry we are with God, it’s important to know that before we even get to the “God Loves you and have a wonderful plan for your life” part of things, there is the major God is angry with you part.

Life is so much more than yourself. It’s a statement that is hard to write in any setting without it sounding a little escapist or self-righteous. But Salvation was never about a balm or an antidote – It is about a rescue plan. God’s rescue plan.

toxic, saturated, crumpled feeling.

It used to be so much easier for me to try harder.

It’s not that its anything new. The life-is-a-train-ride analogy I’ve heard, and even told a few times.

But a university schedule just reinforces things-  Tutorials where you see that same bunch of people only once a week. Myriads of groups that you can forge allegiance with for temporary timeframes to engage in temporary activities. Eating places and corridors that force you to smile or wave at somebody you “know” every 5 minutes or so. Observation of how everyone is really a ‘nice guy’ because the time of contact gives them that benefit of the doubt, even the ones who might be pushed by the social dynamics differently if it were a less first-impressionistic setting.

Stuff like that add up, give you room to retract and hope for the exceptions.

Be interested in the precise answers to Christainity’s questions, pouring over apologetics books and drawing up diagrammatic arguments and explainations.

Find an interesting relevance in the parts of a societal conversation that I already heard mentioned in another place but given a depth because its a different individual.

Enjoy feeling the presence of people, of someone.

Like savouring the solace in being alone. With moments to engage crystal contemplation, or blank disengagement .

used to. I mean, still do. But maybe like all things that will fade with time and age (I mean it seriously, age) it just mellows down and they all register themsevles as notions of innocence or quirks of a past ignorence.

And I miss just to ramble on in an unedited thought process. feel the adrenaline of raw, self-laced writing without the forces that puntuate one into coherence and clarity, demanding some sort of literary elegance – Just a feel.

Or maybe, in all the above, in others words I just mean that I used to try harder.