hope from Haiti.

I've been struggling to understand the implications of the incarnation. So I emailed an Episcopalian. Those people are just so right most of the time.

As I read his response, I imagined Tim Keene's response to my strenuous agreement with the Episcopal (or this Episcopalian's) world view. Their theologies are ummm, not identical.

Here's what was great about it: I'm not going crazy. Sometimes, when I talk with my James River friends, their certainty gives me pause. I think, should I be that certain? Are other Christians that certain? And because I don't have the education or the vocabulary to fully articulate the differences I am perceiving between various denominational worldviews, I find myself at a loss to explain to the JRA-ers my reservations to their beliefs. So our conversations turn to mush, and I start to doubt my sanity.

But the Episcopalian could articulate, with beautiful clarity, my own understanding, and the simple power of his explanation helped me to see the differences between where I am, and the location of my friends.

So, it's great to be sane again. Unfortunately, that doesn't clear the tension between the two views. I love the Episcopal mind. But I am thrilled by the Pentecostal passion (even if I behave more like an Episcopalian in its midst). Can I blend the two in a more substantial way than just attending two churches every Sunday (a practice I frequently used back in the Chicago area with Episcopal and nondenominational)?

But about the incarnation. I took a long walk in the sunshine yesterday afternoon, eventually arriving back at my mailbox to find a letter from the Haitian kid I sponsor. By the way, I know that some people might find it untoward to talk openly about a charitable act like that, but I think I'm fairly open in this blog about my not being a saint (ie. this isn't about self-aggrandizement). I unfolded this letter, and saw the handwriting, and my mouth hung open, and all I could think was that I was holding something that came from a place I had never been, from a kid I had never met, and how amazing is that? I made a choice, and something of a sacrifice I guess, that is changing someone's life. Of course, there's no magic or mystery here, in one sense. But in another, this piece of paper represented to me the glory of the Incarnation.

Christ came into the world not in a metaphorical, ethereal sense. But in real, flesh and blood, concrete form. Love, as an entity or emotion, can't be seen, but I used it to help the Haitian kid, and in that way, Love became visible. It became practical, and earthly. So with Christ. I can't see Him, but He came once in practical, earthly form. And the effects of that coming are still felt around the world. They're felt in Haiti right now by a little girl whose favorite color is blue.

I think that sometimes, I misunderstand Christ, and the nature of Truth. I equate supernaturalism with reality, in a sort of unintentional test of God's Truth. As though I'm saying, "God, if it's true, it has to look like magic." I imagine that He might say, "Look around, kid. Where you see Love, there I am." And I'd say, "Well, yeah, but what's so "other" about that, God? How does that prove You? People have always loved." And the response, "They love because I first loved them."

If the person of Christ wasn't also a manifestation of God reaching into the world with a divine love, it means nothing to say that one follows Christ. We love because we were loved before, either through our first birth or second, in our creation or our redemption.

That's pretty magical.