“ I am a child of unbelief and doubt even now and (as I well know) I shall be to the grave. What fearful suffering this desire to believe has caused me and still causes me as it increases in strength in my soul as the contrary proofs multiply! However, God sends me at times many minutes during which I am entirely at peace… and during such minutes I have composed for myself a confession of faith… this is it: to believe that there is nothing more beautiful, more profound, more sympathetic, more reasonable, more manly and perfect than Christ, and not only nothing like Him exists but I say with jealous love, that it even cannot exist. And even more: If someone were to prove to me that Christ is not the truth, I would rather remain with Christ than with the truth.”
-Dostoevsky letter to the woman who gave him a NT on the way to prison in Siberia. (Overman,127)

I heard this quote first from a dear Russian friend of mine. He said that I needed to understand that he was a child of his generation and that this rang true for him. As we read in the pages of the Fabric of Faithfulness about a faithful, unified worldview that stands the test of time, a bit of sadness rose up in me. Maybe more a longing. I would love to cast judgment on many of the characters. The more I tried the more frustrated I became. While I can see some in our program have a solid fairly unified worldview that will take them far, I have seen mine shaken when I least wanted it to be and when I most needed a solid one.
Much of my time might be spent subconsciously avoiding such truths. I have been tired staring into the darkness of my desires and the consequences of their fruition. Suffice it to say that in many ways my heart has been jaded. I have longed for the breath of fresh air. A good man is truly hard to find.
And I guess that is some of the ridiculousness, in the actual “worthy of ridicule” way, of this train of thought. It ends up and a Cartesian mess. I become the universe and the universe is me. When I fail, then it falls a part. Right to do all, egoism that fails or mechanical propositions that lead one to deny them to be fully human become more reality than Russian novels.
Remember your creator… it sticks out solidly, “It is not too late for your salvation, but too late to serve as the presence of God in the midst of His creation.” I have lived in a world of self-imposed perfection, partially due to lack of correction, but mainly due to fear. As a child of my generation, I find Christ almost too good to be true, but a life without too empty for the embrace of the alternative.
This is where Christ is so necessary and I am so desperate. This is where I desire to experience the reality, but not the pain, of death so that I may be hidden with Christ in God. To be alive with His eyes to see the suffering around me, but to have the salve of His Salvation and Grace to ease and comfort. For miracles and healings and hope to be seen so that this doubt can be banished finally. Because too often and of late it is the question: why? Why do I do what I don’t want to do and that which I do I don’t? Truly what can save me from this fragmentation as the kid good enough to be passed by without aid and not bad enough to require repair? What can be my portion and render the broken new? Thanks be to Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yes, things that are complex will become simple and the simple complex as time passes and the diapers come off. Yet, if there is a jealous love that remains, then the integrity of that solid frame can survive. And if He makes all things new, then into grace I can fall. These thoughts are really slightly embarrassing as the though naked I am exposed as who I am before you. Our view of man is something that I have had to rethink. I was such an optimist. Maybe functionally a closet humanist. Now I am left with the deflation and rest of fallen people in a fallen world in need of a Savior now and evermore. So here’s to Russians, their long winters, and their even longer books. And here’s to the rest of a coherent worldview and the frustration of realizing places I haven’t functionally had one and the growth that comes from it from the hand of the One who can restore the years the locust have eaten.