Off the Deep End

At work the other day, I met a guy who identified himself to me as a Christian. I myself am a pastor's daughter; and no matter how long and convoluted our past may be together, I still believe in and love God. We're just in the middle (or maybe the beginning) of a long process trying to define what that means.

So I don't attend church regularly - I find it to be stuffy and for the most part not authentic.

I consider myself to be spiritual, and I'm very gun-shy of religious people.

I do read the bible quite a bit, but I also read books from psychics, critics of the bible, books of the bible that weren't canonized, books about the books that weren't canonized, scientific books. . . just about anything and everything that contains scraps of knowledge I read and think about.

And where does this get you?

For the most part it turns your brain into a highly knowledgeable pea soup. A conglomerate of ideas, many of which contradict each other and it makes it difficult to formulate your own ideas. So while I know a lot about many things, I don't have real solid opinions one way or the other.

I don't even know if that's a bad thing. I don't think it is. Seems that too much of our more deplorable world history has been wrapped around people holding too tightly to a solidly held belief.

But, back to my co-worker. We got to talking about Christianity (the rhetoric of which I am too familiar with) and he mentioned that he and his friends wanted to start a bible study here at work where we could start asking some hard questions, toss around ideas. I thought this was a really good idea, and volunteered to help lead it (it is, after all, in my blood). I suggested next Wednesday, as it is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, which I like to observe even though I'm not Catholic. So I threw together an email with some ideas, and it included these paragraphs:

"Maybe these questions are a good place to start:

What unhealthy patterns do I see in my life during the past year?
What relationships need reconciliation or my new or renewed investment?
How can I improve my relationship with God?
In what ways can I join God in healing and restoring the world?

I know we don’t really know each other, so I think our first study should be just a get to know you sort of time. We can throw around these questions, but I also don’t want to get too personal if it makes you uncomfortable. Really, they’re good questions for personal reflection and journaling if you like to do that sort of thing."

Immediately the response was that the questions were too personal, and maybe the only one we should bring up (if even) was the last one.

Now, I don't fault people not wanting to share deeply intimate parts of their lives at a work bible study, but at the same time, if we're not willing to ask those questions - how can we even begin to work on the last one?