Politics Aside--A Personal Note.

There is a part of all of us that is always seeking to know the answer to everything. I want to know why I'm here. I want to know where I'm going after I breathe my last breath. I want to know why there is suffering in the world, and why infants starve to death and children die of cancer. I don't know the answers, and I may never find them. But I've gone looking.

I'm leaving behind all the warnings of my parents and Sunday school teachers who said that I would find nothing but lies if I searched beyond what they taught me from the Bible. They taught me not to question, just to believe. If I asked too many questions about God or the reality of Jesus, Satan himself would fill my head with all sorts of dangerous heresies and I would lose my salvation and go to hell.

I don't believe that anymore. And right now I don't know what I do believe. So I'm going on a spiritual quest to see what I can find out about the historical Jesus, and learn about other religions as well. I'm going to examine the scriptures (as instructed in them), find what other faiths believe, look for truth where I can find it. I don't know how this will come out, and I don't know how long it will take.

Since my wife died in 2003, I have been pretty much directionless. My faith took a beating during the 8 months that she battled cancer. Prayers went unanswered, pain increased, questions begged an answer, and a wonderful woman was taken. I walked away from that an angry man. The silence that I experienced at the time has continued. I have prayed for direction and peace hundreds of times since then, asking for help in numerous situations that I couldn't seem to get out of. There has never been an answer. No "still, small voice," no miracle phone call with the answer, no sermon, no Bible passage, no friend who "had been thinking of me." It's like the window is closed and I'm not being heard or considered. I have beat myself up trying to figure out what I have done wrong, what I've done to anger God so badly that he will not hear me. Maybe I had already "lost" my salvation. I continued praying, but it grew hard to keep a facade that I expected to hear from God. Prayers became infrequent, and church attendance stopped completely.

One day recently, I was flipping through the channels and came across TBN, The Trinity Broadcasting Network. I have always been leary of the station, especially since seeing the founders wife, Jan Crouch, telling the faithful that Jesus Christ had stopped by her bedroom one night to encourage her during a particularly difficult time in the networks early days. Jesus. In the flesh. On this particular day, a "minister" named Benny Hinn was on. Dressed in black and wearing a priests collar, Hinn was broadcasting from Jerusalem. His message seemed rather urgent, as he was flailing his arms about like he was expecting to be raptured and wanted to help with liftoff. Benny is usually pretty laid back, so I listened to see what was of such importance.

At the top of his voice, Benny was letting us all know that there was a way to get out of debt with God's new "miracle of debt cancellation." It seems that there is some obscure Old Testament scripture where God wiped out the nation of Israel's debt to other nations. Benny and the Lord had seemingly managed to come up with a way to finance Benny's ministry and wipe out all Christian's debt! It just requires you to send Benny a check for at least $100, wrapped in his special "miracle debt cancelling hankerchief". Next thing you know, God will either send you the money to pay off your debts, or your going to get a really nice letter from your lender that says you don't have to pay your bills after all! Either way, God will cancel your debts!!

I spent an hour pondering the fact that thousands of people were, at that very moment, writing a check to Benny and wrapping it in the miracle handkerchief. But I wondered what would happen when no miracle occured. What would these folks do when they found out that they still had overwheming debt and no windfall from above to pay for it. No happy phone call from VISA, no Publisher's Clearinghouse knock on the door, no forgiveness from the IRS. What then? Do these people just wait for the next TBN hoax? Do they wait for Benny to tell them they didn't have enough faith to move the hand of God? Sorry? How many people will be devestated today?

All this led me to question why intellegent people would fall for such a story. Is it because they, like me, were told to never question? Just believe. Then I began to wonder if we aren't all following a story, the story of God and his son Jesus. Is it mythological, or is it just like I've been taught? Is the Bible God's word, or are we taking to heart the innocent stories of those seeking their own answers to how we got here? I need to know. Like Ulysses, my goal is "to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." I want to find the truth. I'm not going to get into all of the things I've learned so far, this journey is only a few days old as I write this. But I will say that I hope those of you who know me will be patient, and be supportive and not judgemental toward me as I go. This can only make me stronger.

Peace.