makes me think

I don't know what it is about it, but returning home always makes me think about the "big questions". Whether home to CA, or home to here in Houston, I feel like I enter into some sort of cognitively-dissonant phase of questioning whenever I come back to an old familiar haunt. When I'm not exciting nostalgia, flipping through mementos of memories that have gathered dust while I've been away, I sit down, become oddly philosophical, doubtful, and temporarily load up my Amazon cart full of books that I hope will cure my current state.

Odd things seem to trigger thoughts on topics, but the topics are ones that I'm sure anyone can relate to: death, the meaning of life, the existence and identity of God.

1. Death: I enjoyed my time with my parents in CA, which makes the thought of their aging all the scarier. I was conceived late - my parents were past 30 by the time I was born, so they are rapidly approaching 60. As I read obituaries and hear of deaths, I can't help but reflect that they're rapidly approaching a human's average life span. Nothing paralyzes me more than to think about this - I love them, have so much I want to tell them, and depend on them for so much advice that I need at this point. And more so than ever, I've begun to understand how family is precious: their relationships with you are unique, stronger than any others. While they may not identify with me as well as others, they share memories of and know me far better than maybe anyone else on this planet ever will.
   
   Just in terms of time spent, they've been around far longer than even my closest friends, and leaving my closest friends for Austin has only reinforced these thoughts; making new friends and building new relationships is difficult. How much more so to build a family.
   
   
2. Meaning of life: I didn't use to think this was a difficult question. Glorifying God, obviously. Sure, the realization of this end was difficult to characterize since it was unique for everyone, but at least that was far off and I had a long time to consider it. Almost 10 years have passed since then, and I think I'm less certain of how to achieve this goal in my life. How do I do so in my job and career? Do I need to be passionate about what I do? What if my passions change? What about serving outside my job and in the community? What about my beliefs and thoughts? What about family?
   
   Over all of this, the end question still looms - is glorifying God the correct meaning of life? I don't often question the goal itself, but that's probably due to the fact that, given a broad view/definition of God and a broad view/definition of glorifying, almost any positive activity can be said to strive towards this goal. At the very least, I have to question the way that I answer this question at any specific moment in time and ask if my criteria for glorifying God is even correct.
   
   
3. The existence and identity of God: such an interesting question. I always keep coming back to the science-and-religion discussions. Just thinking about it can waste a good hour of time (as evidenced by my writing of this blog post). My views seem to have become much more "liberal", to use the umbrella term. I can never be completely sure of any view, so at any time, I guess I tend to rate the views I know by some rough estimation of how likely it is that that view is true (given current knowledge). The existence of God is hard enough; the identity and nature of God are even more difficult.
   
   The question of evolution is especially interesting. Ray always gives great points I can't answer, but there's so much evidence and a massive scientific consensus behind macroevolution as well. Yet, questions arise; not necessarily complicated theological questions and consequences (though those exist too), but simple ones as well. What do we do about the first 11 chapters of Genesis if humans evolved? How does this tie into evolutionary psychology and psychology's interface with ethics and morality? What does this tell us about the dualistic idea of an immaterial soul? And many more.
   
   Thankfully, like Dr. Greg Boyd and a German theologian whose name escapes me now (EDIT: Jurgen Moltmann), I feel like I can always approach Christianity and God through Jesus whenever the rest of the science-religion discussion becomes too much for me to handle. For the moment, it seems as if Jesus is a concrete example of a historical anomaly, an event that changed much about the world. I may not know what I believe about science and religion, but I think I believe in the Resurrection, and I finally am beginning to understand why Paul writes that without the Resurrection, our faith is in vain.
   

At the same time, at the encouragement of my Dad, I've started trying stocks, thought about getting a job, wondered about how I will make new friends, wondered about how I will ever meet a girl, and on and on and on. It's difficult growing up - I don't know exactly what changed, but somewhere along the line, whatever box wrapped up all my thoughts into a nice simple package ended up tearing, and everything just fell out, expanded, and made a very complex mess.

Yet, at the same time, I don't think I could go back to the way I used to be. Everything's more complex, everything's messier after coming out of the box, but things become more accessible. Once things come out of hiding from that simplistic box, they're there to examine more closely, understand more fully, and interact with more wholly.