In some recent private correspondence, I've been made aware that there's a perception I've been witholding a part of myself for the past couple of years -- ever since the faith shake-up. That is, I've not shared much about the inner me with those close to me.

I've been trying to process this assessment for a couple of days. It isn't that I don't want to share myself with others -- shoot, this blog is a case in point. But there are parts of the faith question that I have definitely kept out of conversation with others, and I think that's been sensed by others. I won't initiate faith conversations much these days. I don't talk much about God, except to marvel at how little we can actually know about such a being outside of tradition.

I used to think that it was plainly obvious that "the heavens are telling the glory of god", that God is plainly evident "through what has been made, so that [I am] without excuse". But now, I look around me and see a lot of data, but I see no clear logical warrants or implications. Time passes, as it always has. One thing leads to another, which of course begs the question of what or who the first thing was. But as to the question of what leads us to think that that first thing is the God of Genesis, or the Father of lights in James, is far less certain.

Every so often I grab some beer and pizza with a friend, and we talk about how we're doing. I ask him questions about his life, his marriage, his studies, etc. He does the same for me. I don't think I'm holding back much when we talk (he can of course feel free to contradict or speak to that in the comments section), but that's because the guy has been alongside me the whole time, and has watched me grapple with and voice so many concerns that my anxieties about God don't freak him out.

So about a month ago we're sitting in Starbucks, watching people pass on the sidewalk in the Chapel Hill dusk: folks getting on about their lives, cars driving by, panhandlers, the evening streetlights coming on. I asked, "Does it ever occur to you that in the end, regardless of what we read and hear and think and say we know, that nobody really ever knows what the deal is about God, or what happens when we die?" My friend, who is steeped in the Baptist tradition and the proud son of missionaries, paused, and then replied, "Yep. We're all just grasping at straws." And then he sat there thoughtful and silent. No qualifications, no emendations, no cleaning it up.

That answer, in its brutal honesty at the remains of the day, was more life-giving than a hundred attempts to cajole me into giving up my ostensibly misguided approach to historicism.

But ask yourself: would you be able to give that answer? I imagine that few would be able to help but try to bring the focus of such a conversation around to a more conventionally positive or scripturally based assertion of God's identity and essential goodness. And, to be frank, those answers consequently step out of the discomfort, and do little to help.

And that's why I keep my mouth shut.