homemade ice cream and food for thought

I read all night in a little cafe a few blocks from my apartment in the city. I drank multiple cups of decaf coffee and enjoyed some homemade cappuccino chip ice cream. It was quite lovely and I didn't want it to end, except that I was getting extremely tired and the decaf didn't seem to be helping. Nonetheless, I couldn't seem to put my book down.

I wanted you to have a taste...

An excerpt from Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

"The search for God is a reversal of the normal, mundane worldly order. In the search for God, you revert from what attracts you and swim toward that which is difficult. You abandon your comforting and familiar habits with the hope (the mere hope!) that something greater will be offered you in return for what you've given up...

The devout of this world perform their rituals without guarantee that anything good will ever come of it. Of course there are plenty of scriptures and plenty of promises as to what your good works will yield (or threats as to the punishments awaiting you if you lapse), but to even believe all of this is an act of faith, because nobody amongst us is shown the endgame. Devotion is diligence without assurance...

There's a reason we refer to "leaps of faith" - because the decision to consent to any notion of divinity is a mighty jump from the rational over to the unknowable, and I don't care how diligently scholars of every religion will try to sit you down with their stacks of books and prove to you through scripture that their faith is indeed rational; it isn't. If faith were rational, it wouldn't be - by definition - faith. Faith is belief in what you cannot see or prove or touch. Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark. If we truly knew all the answers in advance as to the meaning of life and the nature of God and the destiny of our souls, our belief would not be a leap of faith and it would not be a courageous act of humanity; it would just be... a prudent insurance policy.

I'm not interested in the insurance industry. I'm tired of being a skeptic, I'm irritated by spiritual prudence and I feel bored and parched by empirical debate. I don't want to hear it anymore. I couldn't care less about evidence and proof and assurances. I just want God. I want God inside me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water."




Just some food for thought for both you and I.