Knowing versus Knowing about

Tonight is the first night in ten that I've taken myself off amitriptyline for pain, so I hope to write a little on this theme that has been hovering over my mind of late.

How do you know that you know someone, or know something? This sounds so simple but is so important. Have you ever questioned whether you really knew someone or something. I do, constantly. I just want to be sure, about the big things of course, and about the small things.

I think I know a little about medicine and human physiology, a little with a huge chasm of ignorance to fill. I also learned about pain in my anaesthetic training. But did I really know it? Sure in a sense. I learned about how to manage neuropathic pain in chronic pain-patients at Nepean Hospital in 2009. The knowledge stayed with me such that I was able to reproduce treatment on tens or even hundreds of patients. But I really knew neuropathic pain, when I went through it myself. I am currently having treatment for neuropathic pain of my left ulnar nerve, which has been triggered by a fractured pisiform (small, moveable) bone in my left wrist. I understand just what the quality, intensity, the relief you could get from gabapentin, only in this first-hand sense through going through it. I can say I know what neuropathic pain is like with more certainty now.

The same applies to an extent to any real relationship, not just professional collegiate but something like siblings, or a friendship, or even more personal, a courtship, a marriage! There. Nothing tops marriage in terms of relating to someone not yourself right? (perhaps, but not if you believe in the Trinity) How do you know the other? I could read biographies, emails, texts, watch you tube videos or even talk with those closest to this Other Person of interest. But does any of the fans know who President Obama is? Any follower know who Adele is and what her heart aches of? No. Not unless you have actual relationship with this Other Person, you know really know a thing or know for sure. A conversation, at least a meal, a group function, simple shaking of hands, or walk side-by-side, leads to a knowledge you can gain through mere data retranslation, no matter how detailed that data is.

I detest just knowing about someone AND thinking that I know that person or subject. Data and facts don't matter, in this personal and spiritual sense, as a relationship. That's why I give thanks for people who genuinely reveal themselves. THis is not an advocacy for selfish dumping of emotional burdens, but honest, self-revelation. Because it allows another to know The Other truly, with vulnerability. Friends, Brothers, Sisters, and even acquaintances take on a whole new level of trust when self-revelation does happen. Does it then surprise some of you that I seem open on this ever-evolving social network? It probably makes more sense as I AM revealing my thoughts in this blog.

I am most thankful for God's self-revelation. I could have studied, contemplated, dug deep into the heart of the earth, looked as far back and forward into the Cosmos to search for some truth about Him. Romans chapter 1 speaks of this way of knowing about God. But nothing beats knowing God. He is an awesome guy. A Father, A Friend, A Sympathetic Spirit, A Lord, A so, so and so. We do relate to HIm in many ways. Even as our Judge. Oh, on that Day we will really know HIm. But He's always self-revealing back then as He is now. I know Him by hearing HIm in His Word. I can't even begin to reject His person and personality if I haven't heard Him properly. So I'm kind of saying you can't know HIM enough to reject HIm just by reading about HIm through… say Richard Dawkins. You can't even know HIm throughout the greatest and truest theologians, let alone through this blog.

But if you'll have the grace and justice to hear Him, as He speaks and as is recorded through His Word in the Bible and talk to Him in response by prayer, then that is enough to kindle a real relationship. And that is a relationship no one can afford to ignore.

p.s. I have never found HIm cold, distant or silent. He is welcoming, yes honest, but always willing to relate. Jesus said: "Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened. Ask and it will be given." He refers to the Kingdom of God (God's very own self, presence and best blessings) in Matthew and LUke when He promises this of His Father. And that is exactly how I have found him.

Loneliness, Desires and other Voids of the Heart

 

 What do I think of human loneliness as a Christian?

Blaise Pascal (famous French philosopher and mathematician) is often quoted for saying inside each and every one of us is a "God-shaped" void or vacuum which is reserved for Him or only He can fill. In the same category as our universal sense of loneliness or alienation, are longings for home, for love, for significance, for permanence (oft called transcendence in philosophy) and for awe and beauty. It is so strange that this is really an innate thing, like some common experience built in our communal "DNA" or memory.

It's also strange that in our clearest and even happiest moments in the midst of friends and loved ones, we are acutely aware still of our need for a significant other, more significant than a lover, spouse, friend, family and even one identical to ourselves. Why is this so? I find that desires in their most raw forms all point to our need for a personal, loving Father God who knows and actively cares for and identifies with us in His Son and communes with His by His Spirit. [I will not explain this statement here, except it is part of His Triune nature] Most desires are good if fulfilled by the right object. The truest and most satisfying object of all our desires in sum and in parts is God Himself: our desires are perfectly matched by and in Him and Him alone. And the desire for fellowship, for communion and for deep belonging is fundamental to our sense of loneliness.

Where does my loneliness point? Will it be met in all its needs? A few of my friends are remarkably sociable creatures. It's great, honestly. But I know that still, all the best of us fail in providing for each other what only God Himself can do. I cannot replace my need for God with a significant other no matter how good he or she is. It is a universal experience again, and that's why romantic idealistic characters can never find that someone in movies. It's a funny experience most of the time because most people just get on with it and know and accept that a good marriage or friendship or relationship is as good as it gets. It's good when we DON'T take the relationship too seriously or exhaustively - I must qualify here - in the sense that we cannot place such a burden on the significant other to provide for ALL that we need. We can't, we don't want to, it breaks the other person and belittles the good that is already in them. A stable, faithful partner is good enough. But still, why this loneliness still, what good can it achieve?

As a Christian, I believe in something hideous called SIN. It is a personal betrayal of God our Father and Creator and Judge, the falling short of the perfect, the twisting of something good into something evil, and the essence of human pride against the goodness and trustworthiness of God. Sin is both against God and against others, usually, but always against God. One of the effects of sin is the separation of humankind with our natural owner or Creator or "husband" [if humankind is female-like] - God: it alienates us from His goodness and righteousness. And we live in it, we feel it, we sense it in loneliness and other cousins of this desire. It reflects a deep defect within us, for which we yearn an answer, a peacemaker.

God promises the deepest of reconciliation and communion with Himself, beginning with forgiveness, and all this freely through the Death and Resurrection of Jesus on our behalf for the sake of our sin. "He who knew no sin became sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God" (2Cor 5:21). The Bible has so many wonderful images on the relationship the Christian has with God, as his Children (Romans 8:9-11), as people with access to a glorious God (Romans 5:1-2), at peace with God (Romans 5:6-11), and so on. In Him, I truly find what I had been looking for and still long for, not perfectly yet, but fully realised in the future. It's true that though I may sense loneliness, I know it's a residue of the past, no longer a death-hold on my being or behaviour. I have great freedom now and confidence, knowing and tasting the love of God for us in Jesus, to serve and love others. By no means am I doing it right, anyone around me can tell that, but I know that it is a sure process. In Him the Christian is never alone, even if they are outwardly so in the world's eyes.

 

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Ecclesiastes 3:11 "[God] has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end."

 

Psalm 43:5 "Why, my soul, are you downcast?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

for I will yet praise Him,

my Saviour and my God."