Life At The Margins of Faith

I have always been one who has lived at the margins of my faith. If there’s a theological line to be crossed I pitch my tent near it and live my life peering over it. I have a fairly natural abhorrence for dogma and have consistently been on the more liberal side of theological issues. I am possessed by a curious mind and it leads me to be suspicious of pat answers and many of the platitudes passed off as insight today in the church.

One thing I have never seriously questioned, though, was the goodness of God. That was until a rainy Wednesday a few months back.

The phone rang at work around four o’clock in the afternoon. It was getting dark as it does around this time in February in Seattle. Gretchen was calling to check in. She was agitated, I could tell by the tone and the clip of her voice and speech.

“Your son was in rare form today: I found him outside in the rain bawling his eyes out. I left for five minutes to pick up Katie and he managed to find his way out to the road. He had crawled down there, his shorts had been pulled down to his knees in the process, his pull-up was showing, and he was absolutely filthy. I was so embarrassed and horrified. I wonder how many cars drove by and wondered what he was doing and where his parents were.”

“Oh, wow,” I said and then sat silently at my desk. Ever the empathetic man that I am, I asked, “What’s for dinner?” A brief negotiation on chicken or pork followed by a short list for the store on the way home and I was off the phone and back to my job. Truth be told I was annoyed, too. Annoyed that Gretchen was dumping her day on me before I even got home and annoyed that my son had once again managed to fail in using common sense.

Driving home I had the nagging feeling that something was missing.

On arrival at a quarter past six that night, Gretchen filled me in on the rest of the story. With Griffin sitting within earshot she explained that just after she left, Griffin had gone to the front door to see what Kipper, our five month old Springer puppy, was barking at. As he sat in his wheelchair he couldn’t see out to the street, so he opened the door. As the door opened, Kipper made a break for whatever he was barking at and bolted past Griffin and outside.

Griffin explained that he yelled for Kipper to come back. And when Kipper kept running away, Griffin felt compelled to follow him to keep an eye on him. Our front entrance includes three steps which Griffin knew he couldn’t navigate in his chair. To use the wheelchair entrance from the kitchen door, it would require Griffin to lose contact with Kipper as he wheeled around the opposite side of the house. So Griffin chose instead to ditch his wheelchair at the front door and crawl to the road where Kipper was in chase of what we think was another dog. Griffin crawled the entire length of the walk calling for Kipper to come back.  Kipper had a different plan as he scampered around a large grassy common area across the street from our house. Griffin crawled across the street in chase and in the process his shorts were pulled down to his ankles. As Kipper continued to run and ignore him he began to cry.

“There were cars coming, dad, and I was afraid he would get hit. Mom left me in charge and I let Kipper out.” Griffin began to cry as he chimed into Gretchen’s retelling. “I was afraid he’d get hit…” His voice trailed off.

I began to cry as I walked over and knelt in front of his chair and hugged him. “You were incredibly brave today, buddy. I don’t know that I could have been that brave. I’m proud of you.” He burst into a full on sob. I did, too.

I was sobbing out of frustration with myself for having been annoyed a few hours earlier. I was sobbing out of amazement at my son’s tender heart for his puppy. And I was sobbing out of the grief I had that this brave soul found himself unable to fulfill his duty.

And it was then that I found myself questioning the goodness of God. How could a loving God create a boy with such a strong heart and no legs to carry him? The platitude goes that God has a reason for all things. I cannot believe my God intended my son to find himself sobbing in the February rain with his shorts around his ankles. And while there is good to be found in all things, I am having a difficult time finding the good reason for this.

I am a believer. I believe in God and I do my best (most of the time) to follow Jesus. But moments like this have knocked the polish off of my once gleaming religion. They leave me cold and left only to find what good I can in my response. I do not know what God intends and I do not know that his intention is good. I want to believe it, though, and I guess that’s why they call it faith.