Huh?

Tonight we had another Water's Edge Club meeting discussion time-type thing. We basically get together and talk about an array of topics, one sparking another and another, never really resolving but always questioning and wrestling with truth. I walked out with a headache and it was beautiful. I have found a place (or it found me) where I can say what I am thinking and often privately wrestling with without feeling bad that it doesn't fit into the norm of church life or in opposition of what I am "supposed" to think. I don't let out crazy ideas and receive no feedback. I let out crazy ideas and hear opposing and favoring commentary.

Afterward, a few of us were not quite ready to get rid of our headaches so we went to Starbucks to continue discussing. On the drive over I felt a strange sense of freedom. I felt like I am closer to truth now than ever by rejecting truth I have always unquestioningly accepted. I don't feel validated there, nor do I go to validate others. Rather, I allow ideas to flow in and out in pursuit of truth. As I was riding in the car I was wondering why it is that there I feel this strange freedom and not in my normal circles. I don't share my full thoughts on everything at church or at some of my friends' houses, and I realized that it is because we all so strongly crave validation. I don't want to tell people what I really think because they may disagree with me, and I have therefore lost their validation. Is this not why so many Christians will not befriend people of different beliefs? If someone who has a well thought out faith system that is different than mine, he or she might challenge what I think and believe rather than validate me. I am afraid that in our pursuit of validation we have built a cage for ourselves. Within this cage we are fed what to think and believe, and we all eat this in merry company. But a cage is a cage. Freedom exists outside the cage, and I can only imagine the power that would enter the world if caged beings parroting beliefs would trade the desire for validation in exchange for thought and the quest for truth - truth that may not ever be found by us, but we will die trying.