I do not like to write, because I do not like to be held accountable.
I do not write. Writing is an act of catharsis; who wants their catharsis to be plastered all over the virtual marketplace of ideas? Or worse, published so that, like Augustine, we must write a new preface full of retractions.
I do not write. I do not write because the thought of being judged is horrifying. I don't want my conservative friends to know that I'm liberal. I don't want my liberal friends to know that I'm conservative. I don't want my metaphysical friends to know that I'm a non-realist, or a hyper-realist, or a deconstructionist. I don't want my post-metaphysical friends to know that I hope to God that the Trinity reflects ontology in some real way and that the analogia entis is true and salutary. I don't want my friends who are well read to know that I don't understand metaphysics or post-metaphysics as well as I would like, or as well as they do.
I don't want to be written off. So I don't write.
But I think that the reason I don't write is the reason that I remain a Christian. Because I have hope that there is someone, something, some being, some force, who (that) understands me; who will let me be, even if I'm not sure I can understand being. Because I have hope that there is an event, a future where words won't matter at all, where words will matter so much that humanity will not waste a single word writing me off.
I am put off by those with a faith that has no room for faith, but I understand it. I want so badly to be right. Not to have to second guess everything. Not to have to guess about anything. But I know too much to know that I know anything. And I don't know enough to know whether or not knowing anything is knowable. And I don't know what I love when I love my God. But I love God. And I hope (and pray without ceasing) that God loves me (more than mind can measure or time contain).
So I don't write, but I am a Christian. But not that kind of Christian. But not a new kind of Christian. I would like to think that I am the kind of Christian who followed Jesus without knowing where he was going; Who didn't have a succinct creed to sum up every metaphysical reality or to tell about the light from lightness of Christ; Who didn't yet have hope in the resurrection or the life of the world to come; Who simply left what he was doing and followed an unknown.
I would like to think that I am the kind of Christian who left her convent to live among the poor; Who knew (or thought she knew) that deep down there is nothing but emptiness and darkness; who didn't know whether God existed (who can know such a thing?), but existed as god's hands to those whom god's hands had forsaken.
I don't write, but I have friends who do. And I have friends who are Christians. So I will let them write.
And I hope that all of their stories are true.