inquiring and discerning

have you ever had moments when everything gets incredibly clear? when time seems to expand?

if you're ever going to pay any attention whatsoever to the content of this blog, you're going to have to get over any aversion to my deep devotion to the x-files immediately. i'm first to acknowledge the show's many failings (gillian anderson's utter incapacity to simulate CPR, for example) -- when they get it wrong, they get it really, really wrong. but, casting aside the expectation of plot resolve or closure, the questions so many of the episodes pose are not only intriguing, but terribly important. at least, i think so. and this is my little corner of the universe.

before i can think better of it and keep this fact private, i want it to be public-ish knowledge that this blog is named after an episode of the x-files. as with most of the series' best episodes, the plot details aren't really the point. the point is the philosophy. or the mystery. i like that. i'm a details person; i like knowing every tiny little nook and cranny of my surroundings, every tiny little piece of information about my friends and family (and, for that matter, acquaintances and complete strangers), every tiny little specification of how whatever i'm working on can and should be done. the details are what hook my attention most of the time, they are my passion, and they create how i go about my day-to-day. but where the material, practical, solid, earthly world stops and the theoretical, laws-of-humanity, philosophical, theological world -- what some would say "really matters" -- applies, i swear by the big picture. (more thoughts on unity and ultimate reality later... this is Post One and i'm in details mode at the moment.)

my point is, last night i helped katelyn set up some things in her new place, and we discovered lots of shady-looking appliances with price stickers still on them (meat tenderizer, anyone?) and ate sushi on the floor and drank a little wine, and when i got home and parked on the street around 1:45 a.m. no one was out and it was snowing lightly in the way that absorbs sound and makes everything shimmer, like you'd imagine a scene in narnia if the movies hadn't ruined it, and it was maybe one of the most perfect moments i've ever experienced. the details were what set everything up, but at the culmination, all the details dissipated to be replaced by an overwhelming sense of joy, during which my only thought was, "God, how beautiful everything is."

now, depending on your preference, you can take or leave the "God" bit, but my sense is that everyone has moments like that. or at least one moment. my sense is that those moments are important, and that they're telling of us as humans. my sense is that those are moments when our awareness extends much farther beyond ourselves than it typically does (if it typically does so at all).

i'm going to address a lot of things here, just as they pop into my head. that's the plan, anyway. i've got a lot of opinions about things, and a lot of questions regarding things about which i've yet to formulate opinions, and so far as i can tell, there's nothing wrong with inflicting the burden of my rants and inquiries upon the internet. it can handle it.

i've got a phrase in mind as a guiding philosophy, by the way: the subject of this post, "inquiring and discerning." it's religion-related, and i'll explain it later, because i've got all kinds of other thoughts and questions about it, too.

why now, this blog? why public, and not in my own private, hand-written journal? i've got one of those. it's got other things in it. theorizing and philosophizing and theologizing are, i think, best (and most easily) done by rambling at people until they stop you and argue. and what better time for any of this than in the deep, dark midst of everybody's quarter-life crisis? am i right?

but mostly, because it's just occurred to me that everyone and everything around me is in the most delicate of balances. it's one of those things i've known logically, more or less, for quite a while, but just really took hold for me very recently. we ourselves are incredibly fragile, and so are our relationships, our lifestyles, our temperaments. by our very nature, we overlook a lot, and take things for granted -- if we didn't at least some of the time, i believe we'd go crazy. but knowing that fact does make me curious about what i've overlooked, and why.

Scully: What if there was only one choice and all the other ones were wrong? And there were signs along the way to pay attention to?

Mulder: Mmm, and all the choices would then lead to this very moment? One wrong turn, and... we wouldn't be sitting here together? Well, that says a lot. That says a lot, a lot, a lot. Probably more than we should be getting into at this late hour.