Because our weekly worship services were typically Sunday nights at 7pm, which is smack dab in the middle of the Super Bowl broadcast, our chaplain decided that it would be better to have two services; one at 5pm for those who wanted to see the game, and one at the regular time because there was no way he was going to let something as insignificant as the Super Bowl force him to not have church at the regular time. So rather than preach the same sermon twice (or preach two different sermons), it was decided that the sermon for that Sunday would be him answering questions submitted to him ahead of time that he had not previously seen (one of the students would collect the questions and organize them). That way, the two services could be different enough without him having to prepare two different messages.
However, there was also a deeper theological rationale to Faith Questions Sunday. He would frame the question/answer time by saying something along the lines of "Faith Questions is more than just the name of this service. It's also a statement, as in 'faith causes us to question'". The rationale being that an unexamined and unquestioned faith is not faith at all, and ultimately, that having doubts and questions does not make one a "bad Christian". These questions, and the uncertainty they cause, are instead to be celebrated. This is why he would also end the service by saying that the congregation should not take his answers as authoritative, but they should keep asking them and struggling with them. Uncertainty is good.
Which brings me to today.
If you were on any kind of social media today (Facebook, Twitter, BuzzFeed, Tumblr, etc), you probably saw a picture of a dress. In fact, you probably saw a picture of this dress:
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| http://swiked.tumblr.com/image/112166688660 |
It must have been a slow news day, because this dress (and more importantly, what color(s) it is) is seemingly all anyone can talk about. It seems as if people can't decide whether this dress is white with gold lace or blue with black lace. Exasperating the problem is the fact that the lighting and overall picture quality is bad, which only adds to the confusion.
Now, when I first saw this picture, I wanted to know what all the fuss was about, because clearly it's white and gold. However, over time as I would look at the picture (especially when I saw different portions of the dress isolated, especially just the bottom portion) I started to see blue and black (which is the true color of the dress when viewed in proper lighting). This led to a mini-crisis of faith if you will. The dress was clearly white and gold. I would have bet anything on it, I was so sure. To see it slowly transform into blue and black shook me more than a stupid picture of a stupid dress should.
But then I remembered the lesson I heard every year in undergrad. Uncertainty is ok. Fundamentalism is not something to build a faith on, because if one thing gets disproven, the whole thing can come crashing down. Faith like a trampoline (that can stretch and give) will last longer than faith like a solid brick wall. Architects utilize this principle everyday. When designing a really tall skyscraper, there has to be some allowance for the building to move a little bit with the wind, because if the building were completely solid and firm all the way to the top, the strong winds would eventually overcome the building and cause it to snap like a twig (which, funnily enough, is another illustration I could use, but I'll spare you).
Maybe this is a stupid God-sighting and me just trying to cash in on a viral topic to get more page views. But the purpose of this Lenten discipline is to see God in the everyday, mundane, stupid, and insignificant aspects of my life, and it doesn't get more mundane, stupid, and insignificant than a debate over what color a dress is.
Today, I saw God in a stupid picture of a stupid dress.
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