Pursuing the Horizon

I saw a man pursuing the horizon;

Round and round they sped.

I was disturbed at this;

I accosted the man.

“It is futile,” I said,

“You can never--”

“You lie,” he cried,

And ran on.

 -Stephen Crane, 1895

Sometimes I think that cleaning my room is like chasing the horizon.

You see, I’m a bit OCD. My closet is double-coordinated, both by color and by style, so since it’s January, my white sweaters are in the very front, yellow sweaters behind them, orange behind them...and so on until I reach the black print tees so far back that I have to travel across Narnia just to get to them, leaving rainbowed heaps of clothes and hangers in my wake.

But it’s not just not my closet that gets this obsessive treatment; how could I leave red colored pencils sardined between yellows and purples; Dr. Seuss on my bookshelf next to Jane Austen; or a Kenny Chesney CD sandwiched between Eminem and Casting Crowns? Gross.

I’ll be the first to admit, though, that this system is highly inefficient. When a friend calls and asks “Hey, I’m about to turn onto your street--do you want to go into Boston right now?” and I’m still in my PJs, it’s pretty much impossible to keep my closet organized. Instead, I reach for that cute blue blouse holding the median in my line of clothing, knocking off any innocent by-standers in my way, and when I rush into my room later that night to quickly pack for an impromptu sleepover, I’m more likely to send a few more shirts to the ground than to pick up the ones that fell earlier. After a few more hectic days, my previously perfect succession of tops is not much more than a giant, 100% cotton mountain just begging to be played hide-and-seek in. The same messy fate awaits my genre-classified CD collection when my mood swings send me from country to screamo in a matter of hours and my colored-pencils when my 2 year-old cousin Jack wants to make his mom a birthday card.

So unsurprisingly, three weeks before I was supposed to head off for my freshman year of college, I stepped into my room and realized that it was beginning to resemble a war-zone and decided that I wanted it to be completely immaculate by the time I left for school. I didn’t merely hang up clothes and vacuum the rug and make my bed; I gave away every outgrown article of clothing I owned; dusted every inch of surface in my room; and searched through piles of boxes, throwing away stringless yo-yos and pens without ink and broken earrings that at some point I had apparently decided to save (Hey, you never know when you might need a defective yo-yo...).

For the first week of this arduous process, something happened that I would have thought impossible: somehow, my room got even worse. Mounds of clothes and books and CDs and art supplies and magazines and shoes blanketed the floor, lines of mascara and necklaces and lipgloss decorated my desk, and loose papers and movie tickets and old receipts suffocated the top of my dresser.

Come to think of it, cleaning my room may be a bit harder than running after that horizon-thing.

But pursuing the horizon is also a lot like understanding God. The longer and harder you try, the more you realize just how small you are compared to what you’re chasing. And just when you think you’re finally catching on, you are reminded of how far behind you really are.

The more I study God’s Word and creation, the more questions I have; discovering one answer opens up another whole realm of ambiguities and uncertainties. Sometimes I wonder, why couldn’t God just answer everything straight-out? Tell us simply: seven 24-hour days or indefinite lengths of time? can someone lose his salvation? should women be allowed to preach? do you need to be baptized to be saved? 

If the Bible clearly stated the truth about these issues, then Christians could spend less time arguing about doctrine and more at soup kitchens. Instead of fighting each other, we could fight the sex trade. We wouldn’t be divided into hundreds of denominations--differing in styles of worship and views on the Eucharist--but would gather together as a united body of Christ-followers.

At the same time, though, these obscurities force us to search, to scrutinize, and to investigate. We can’t just open up the Bible and say, “Look here, chapter 9 clearly states that all Christians should oppose gay marriage.” And it’s better this way!

Have you ever tutored someone in, say, pre-algebra? It’s simple enough that you can easily execute the problems, but when your 12 year-old cousin asks "why?", you find yourself struggling to answer. When you need to provide clear support and lead someone through the process, you are forced to delve into the math far beyond the shallow “that’s just the way it is.”

This doesn’t only hold true when it comes to basic algebra; it’s true when discussing politics, or philosophy, or the Bible. When we are told the answers, then we don’t have to engage in the search--and, as is often said, sometimes the journey is just as important as the destination. Sometimes the process of studying the context of Bible passages, of analyzing scientific data, and of observing the world around us, is more beneficial than the solution itself.

Clearly, Jesus knew this. If he was merely interested in giving us all the right answers, He would not have taught almost entirely in parables and vague symbolism. He wanted his followers to dig for answers and take the time to decipher what His teachings meant. And He still wants us to do that.

So, yes, sometimes understanding God and the Bible may seem impossible. Sometimes it may seem as if studying brings us one step forward and ten steps back. Sometimes it may seem pointless. Sometimes it may seem futile.

But don’t give up. Run on. Keep pursuing the horizon.

(January 21, 2011)