Dear Friends

My brain wants a line. Faith doesn't draw one.

My brain never shuts up. Usually, it’s not thinking about anything useful, which explains a lot.

Last week, while walking with Charlotte, I pulled my phone out of my pocket to check the time.

On the TV remote.

So yes. This is the brain I’m working with.

I was sick this week and got bored, which meant my brain had even more time to wander. So, I did what everyone does. I had a long talk with ChatGPT about quantum physics and the concept of infinity.

It turns out human brains hate infinity. We’re wired to look for boundaries. We like edges. We like knowing where something begins and where it ends. Infinity bothers us because it has neither.

A similar tension bothers me when I try to find a line between grace and truth — but there isn’t one. Or at least not one my brain will ever find. Absolutes make me feel safe and in control, which may be exactly why this search keeps pulling at me.

Sometimes a friend comes to me with a morally complicated situation and asks for advice. Maybe she has an adult child who keeps making destructive financial choices. Would helping him out be grace or enabling?

Reading a few articles online about enabling doesn’t make me an expert. And yet, I don’t want to hurt someone with careless words. So, I listen carefully and ask questions. Even then, I often find myself less certain than I expected to be.

Real life rarely presents tidy stories. People come with complicated histories, messy circumstances, and questions no one seems able to answer completely. Situations that seemed simple in theory refuse to stay neatly inside the categories in my head.

I’ve wanted there to be a clear line between truth and grace so I would know exactly where to stand. There’s an illusion of safety in certainty.

But the more I read the Gospels, the more I notice Jesus didn’t seem very interested in drawing that line.

He told the truth plainly. But at the same time, he showed grace to people whose lives were tangled in ways that made the religious leaders uncomfortable — people like the woman caught in adultery, tax collectors, and those the religious leaders had already sorted into the wrong category. He never abandoned truth or withheld grace.

John once described Jesus as being “full of grace and truth.” Full of both at the same time.

Which may explain why this feels so difficult to me. I like clear categories. I like knowing exactly where everything belongs.

But faith doesn’t always cooperate with my need for tidy answers. Sometimes the questions remain, and the lines stay blurry.

Maybe it’s simply a reminder that I need to stay humble as the questions keep growing. Maturity looks more like learning which questions we can carry without having to solve.

Love, Patty

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