An Existentialist hunting for truth

I am in my early forties.  I am married to a wonderful wife and have two great children.  I am adopted and that reality has contributed much to my personal development and some of my broken places.  I grew up in a Christian family where I was quite active in matters of Church and Faith.  In my early teens I took off and went my own way, living quite reckless and did so for a good decade.  After that I got my so called “act” together and started back on a road of faith.  I decided that God was calling me into a vocational type ministry so I entered my undergraduate program at age 26 and sought to learn as much as I could.  I have travelled quite a way down this Christian path (for most of the time feeling like I understood things) and have served as pastor in a couple of different contexts.  Today, I believe in God more because of all that I don’t know, more  so than when I thought I undersood things about God and Faith.  I am willing to question most anything, I am open to God’s grace being delivered and found in many other places other than just the Christian understanding of the world, I believe this mainly because it’s God’s world and he is free to encounter people and engage them as is pleasing to him.  I am of an existentialist perspective and I just want to be honest with myself, others and in my faith.

I enjoy the mountains more than any other place.  I am respectful of our world and seek to preserve and protect it.  I do like to hunt (not finding this antithetical to what I just said).  I am very interested in culture, especially Native American and Celtic but even more so the shift that is taking place in western culture at the present.  I have been reading about postmodern culture for a little over a decade now both the popular stuff and wading through some of the philosophical.  I sometimes feel that I was born too late but also know that now is just as important as any time previous.  I find life ironic and deep at the very same time.  I think that God is real, but I am not so sure we (humans, Christians, people of other faiths)  have any real idea exactly what it is that we have termed “God.”  At the same time I believe that I have encountered this one, bumped up against things larger, sweeter, more peaceable and more loving in this world, finding these in both people and in nature.  God is real, is the place where we live and move and exist.

Your comments are welcome on this blog.  Let me know what you have read, what you appreciate and what you find problematic.