Silver and Gold — Guest Post by Ben Bishop.

Ben’s words ring so true of the confusion that can be wrought by seeking to follow Jesus downwards into the heart of the matter, with all its ugliness and mess. This captures so beautifully what he says:

There are many days when I shout at the ceiling, asking the Son of God, my so-called Lord (although it’s strange to call him that when I ignore him so much of the time), why he allows the widows and orphans to suffer, disoriented, alone, running forlorn upon the face of the earth like a hill of crazed ants, and receive only silence for my trouble.  But I cannot quit him.  His gospel is the most beautiful story I have ever heard told, and seems to me to explain the burning pageant of the world, including the existential despair that Kierkegaard called “the sickness unto death,” in a way that resonates, like a morning bell, with the ring of truth.