The River of Thought

I took this picture in Nebraska last summer on a canoeing trip. There were six canoes in all and almost every time we’d hit a bend in the river, someone (or all of us) would get stuck in the tree branches that were sticking out. Sometimes the canoes would tip and the soaking boaters would rush around collecting things from the water; occasionally, they would not be able to catch all that had tipped and they’d have to either let things go or rely on someone in a different canoe to collect items downstream. Other times, a canoe would get stuck and the frustrated passengers would need assistance from other canoes to get untangled from the branches. By the end of the day, there wasn’t a single boat that had escaped being tipped and most of us had war wounds from running into the tree branches.

In many ways, my theological development this past quarter has been like that canoe trip. I came up to bends in the river of thought and my mind got tipped over. Annoyed at being tipped yet laughing and enjoying the cool of the river, I collected what I needed and was forced to let some things go. I let go of certain ideas about what church “should” look like; ideas on salvation needed to float downstream because they were too narrow. There were times that as I approached a bend in the river, I got stuck in ideas or concepts and needed help getting untangled. For a few years now, I’ve been stuck on what to do with homosexuality – decry, accept, affirm, etc. Slowly, I’ve moved from one end of the spectrum to another and our class discussion helped to cement my desire to accept and affirm not just privately with friends that are gay but in classes or to my more conservative family members and friends. It’s nice to be unstuck from that branch – I’m glad my view of God has expanded.

As a tangent, I feel like the color picture is boring. I see green, brown, blue, and white in my everyday life. I like the picture in shades of gray better because it is not my everyday experience. Theologically, I’m moving from black and white to varying shades of gray and I’m learning to be comfortable with ambiguity. Theology is impacting my everyday experience and making it more interesting.