Wednesday, August 17, 2005

In search of Panacea

Have you seen her? Panacea I mean. The daughter of Aesclpius (Greek god of healing) and Epione. She is the goddess that can cure all, with herbs, and solves all difficult problems. Surely you have seen her?

At least I am assuming a lot of people have seen her b/c their answers to difficult questions are, to them, the cure for the question. Clearly if all of humanity would listen to them then their would be no need for such petty arguments. Ever.

Clearly, and sadly, she does not exist. There is no cure for all disease and no one person that can answer with adept wisdom the toughest questions ever.

So why do you fight and argue like madmen to be right. Why do we tear entire churches and families apart in our desperate attempt to be the final authority on an issue? Clearly we need to see, as the Bible teaches us to see, that we must love one another even if we disagree. And if we have no love we have no God.

There is great need for discussion and passionate debate about real, meaningful, weighty issues. This is part of why I write this blog, so people can help me see things from their point of view. But at the end of the discussion, dialogue, debate we all need to hug and walk away realizing Panacea does not exist. There is no perfect way of doing things. In fact there is rarely a best way of doing things. There are just ways that work and ways that don't work so let's try to find the best in everything and love each other even though it may not be what we wanted.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Imagine the comfort Panacea would bring, should she exist. Imagine how secure we would feel, knowing that for every problem there is a cure. I think in an attempt to hold on to this comfort and security, we can, as you said, fight and argue like madmen and tear churches and families apart over issues that have no clear right or wrong solution. For some, the idea of seeing through a different lens than they’ve seen through for the entirety of their lives is unquestionable and they would rather narrow mindedly see things the way they always have. I do have great respect for someone who has strong convictions and stands by them. However, an unwillingness to bring things into question, to me, speaks of insecurity and lazy thinking and I myself can be guilty of it.
It sounds as though you are referring to more than just Christian issues but something I read a couple of weeks of ago reminded me of this blog.

“Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have guessed. If it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected, I should feel we were making it up. But, in fact, it is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up. It has just that queer twist about it that real things have. So let us leave behind all these boys’ philosophies – these oversimple answers. The problem is not simple and the answer is not going to be simple either”

From Mere Christianity. C.S. Lewis.