In "Voices" I talked of how I was struggling to make a decision about the future, and in "Voices from the dead" I talked about how the past steers us into a future.
This thing called the future: what is that? Is this the future where we joke "No, I am not single. I am in a long distance relationship because my boyfriend lives in the future"? Or is it the future where we despair "The past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody's guess"?(James Thurber). As George Burns said, "I look to the future because that's where I'm going to spend the rest of my life." Its no surprise that we want to hear voices from the future. One organization (futurecoast.org) started capturing voicemails from possible futures - peoples ideas of what life might be like in a climate changed world. Strangely, rather than apocalyptic depression the voicemails mostly capture ordinary people dealing with ordinary problems under extraordinary pressures. Think: We exist in the instant that is continuously destroyed and created anew. Our present is forever a moment of decision, never anything else. We think we choose to make a decision about the future, but the present is really only a decision trying to create a future. We could choose not to choose, but that is also a choice, for the instant is always filled with choice. Even though our memories may be a guide to a future, yet neither the past nor the future exist in our instant of choice. That's all quite bizarre: I have free will, so when I make a decision I'm creating the future. But didn't God create everything? And doesn't God know the future (for those aware of that debate, I should be clear that I'm not an advocate of "open theism"). It's complex, isn't it? Either we have free will and a future gets created by our choices, or the future is fixed and I have no free will. Well, on all practical grounds I am convinced I have free will. So I create a future. But God knows that future, so ... ... hang, I'm confused. I accept that as a finite being living in a (probably) infinite universe created by a God who exists independent of the universe, then there's things that necessarily remain a mystery. We can experience the mystery, we can even describe it, but ultimately there will always be some mystery that we cannot understand. So it is, I believe, that its a mystery that a God knows the future that I have yet to choose to create. (Isn't thinking fun?) But for all that, I still have to live in the instants, and make my choices, and it'd be really, really nice to have some information about the future to help me choose. Knowing some things is easy: the world is going to get a lot hotter before I die - that's a certainty I can count on. But will the UK Brexit? Will Trumps ego implode, or if not, will he be elected and take the USA into an era of isolationism? Will Zuma take another wife? And will I meet my work deadlines this month? Not all information is relevant, and if relevant not all information is significant. The information I really need is the information for my choices. Here I have a problem, because I, myself, and me often argue. But if I listen instead to others who say things I like, well then I'm standing in an uninformative echo chamber. Conversely, I could listen to those who disagree with me - that certainly broadens my perspective - but everyone thinks they're the good guy and that their view is right, yet how do I know that? For months now my instants have been filled with decisions that have only served to defer a decision about leaving my Church. Finally I decided, and now my instants are filled with decisions about a "church next" future, and whatever that may involve. Of course there's been a myriad of other decision-instants (not instant decisions) that have dealt with all sorts of issues - but all have been decisions forming a future. God was quite good at helping out here by giving me a sense of reality, a lodestone, a reference. Because God's voice is inherent in the fabric of the instant, from his creative joy visible in the world (which, by the way, we're doing quite a good job of destroying) to his love seen in relationships - God's voice echoes all around. But I don't want only the echoes and the generalities, I want the specifics for my instant. Some of the specifics I already know, but sadly often try to deny. For I know good and bad, right and wrong (most times), but sometimes I ignore the fact that I know so I can choose what I want. The real challenges are those choices where there is no obvious right and wrong, and here is where I need a voice from the future. In deciding whether or not to leave my church of 12 years, I made a decision that shapes a future. If I stay, some people in the church would have a different experience to if I left. And certainly my own future is shaped hugely differently by whether I stay or leave. And so the instant of choice will determine the future I create. Not having an audible voice from the future whispering in my ear, the options were to weigh the voices of others, consider my memories of what we like to call the past, and to envision what the futures could be. Then, and this is the critical step, to give these to God and say "You know the future my choices will create, so please let me know which one gives peace". Because he told me not to be anxious and to let my requests be made known. Then he would give peace that passes understanding, i.e. the mystery. So I tried. I did all that. Then in one of those instants I weighed everything up and decided to write a letter. After I wrote the letter, I asked, "Am I at peace so far?" And having considered that, in my following instant of choice I pressed "send" and created a new future.
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Why?
Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
May 2017
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