Yellow House Days

  When I was living in the yellow house Senior year, I wanted to understand the world. I wanted to know how I fit in. I thought that once I understood, I'd know what I wanted to do with my life—working at a job I hated to pay for a big house or fancy car didn't make any sense to me. I wanted to do something that made a difference in the world, but first, I needed to understand my purpose in life.

    When I attended Huntington, I was a Christian. I loved it. I could ask lots of deep questions. It was a way for me to understand the world and my place in it. I cared about knowing the truth. I thought that the other parts of Christianity, all the going to church, the singing songs, the waking up, wasn't as exciting. All I cared about was digging down and finding the truth. The more questions I asked, the more complicated things became. The answers to all my questions left me more and more confused. 

    When I left college, I wanted to make a difference in the world. I tried lots of different jobs, and nothing seemed to fit. I didn't feel like I had answered my questions about the purpose and meaning of life. I didn't know what to do, so I decided to go to seminary. I was sure that's where I could find all the answers to my questions. Then, when I graduated, I could work as a pastor, teaching people to live good lives and make a difference in the world. 

    But seminary wasn't what I expected. No one wanted to explore deep questions. The other students just wanted to memorize the standard answers to the standard questions and get on with their careers. No one cared about asking a bunch of new questions with no answers. So, my questions piled up; unanswered. Eventually, they crushed me. I didn't know what I believed, so I dropped out, and I left the church. All at once, I lost a community and a career, but it didn't feel like a choice. I couldn't regurgitate stock answers to questions about religion and life. The truth was sacred to me, and if I didn't fully believe in Christianity, I couldn't work in a church. 

    

    I needed some time and space. My oldest son Owen had just been born. My wife had a job she loved. So I stayed home and took care of him, and then my son Max came a few years later. Being a stay-at-home dad gave me a lot of space and time to think. It's been an isolating 14 years since, but I've been free to explore my thoughts, and I finally feel at peace with my questions. I found unexpected and straightforward answers and finally feel like I understand my place in the universe. I haven't shared my ideas with anyone before, so here goes nothin'.

    For the most part, I feel like the same person that went to Huntington and lived with you guys in the yellow house all those years ago. I'm still searching for truth, still obnoxiously curious, still love to have deep conversations, eat pizza, watch movies and play cards. The only real change is the perspective from which I try to live. It's an attempt to understand the world in the simplest way possible. 

    Humans have gained an evolutionary advantage by understanding the world around us. We continue this process of curiosity, discovery, and understanding because it increases our chance of survival. As our understanding of the world has grown, we have shared our discoveries with all people, this seems obvious, but I think it's profound. With a significant adaptation for survival, we have chosen cooperation over competition. The ability and willingness to share what we learn gave humanity the ability to see the world from a new perspective. For thousands of years, the Earth was all we knew, and it was the center of everything. 

    

    Only recently, in the last 1000 years or so, have we seen more of the universe. We now have a 3D map of the entire universe, and it shows that we are not the center. We live on a tiny planet, spinning around a fireball, hurtling through space, just like hundreds of billions of other planets doing the same. We are a tiny speck in an enormous universe. This idea seems stark and depressing at first, but there is hope as well. 

    As a species, we have made astonishing discoveries, but for all that we've found in the universe, there is one thing that we can't seem to find. We can't complex life anywhere else. We may find it one day, but we've been looking hard for a long time and have found nothing. As far as we can tell, the only place that life exists in the entire enormous universe is here on Earth. Life in the universe is rare. 

    Life is rare, and there's a chance we are it — the only life in the entire mind-bogglingly big universe. If we are the only life in the universe, that means life is valuable. It's a rare and beautiful thing. Because of this, each of our lives has value and meaning. Because of this, the Earth is rare and valuable. All life is rare and valuable. We must start living like this is true, like all life on Earth is important. Each life is living out its purpose, in which a unique combination of DNA interacts with a unique environment, and we become us. As we grow, we do our best to find the niche in which we can survive and thrive. As we live out our lives, each of us doing amazing things, things that give us meaning, humanity as a whole moves forward, life as a whole moves ahead.  

    

    There is one more thing that humans cannot seem to find that I think is significant. We can't find an ending.  Our story of curiosity, discovery, and understanding keeps going. Each discovery leads us to more unknowns, more questions. We don't know everything. We have come a long, long way, but we have a long, long way to go; we may still be at the beginning. 

    Not knowing something in our culture is seen as a negative. I've never understood this. Not knowing isn't stupidity or failure. It's an invitation, a cause for wonder and astonishment in the fantastic world around us. Not knowing caused the spark of curiosity that made humanity what it is today. Not knowing allows us to all be part of this great human adventure, working together to understand the world. And when we find the answers, we all flourish together. 

    These ideas may be simplistic, but they have helped me understand my life, my place in the universe. 

    While at Huntington, I understood the world from a Christian perspective. It's a beautiful perspective with a rich tradition that I sincerely appreciate. Yet, I have to understand all things in context. Two thousand years ago, when most major religions were codified, humans understood the world in a very different way. They had a different context. Humanity was at the center, and religion provided a way to understand life and the universe. It provided structures and systems that allowed humanity to survive and thrive. 

    

    We live in a different context now, and we must understand the universe in a new way. We don't know if most religious claims are true or false because we cannot yet understand them in a modern context. Still, we should recognize that religion has given us many of the structural values that have allowed us to understand the world, share our discoveries, trust in humanity, and see cooperation as more beneficial than competition. Now I think of religion as a beautiful part of my cultural heritage, and one of the primary means of cultural preservation. We should celebrate it as an essential part of our cultural heritage. This view also allows me to separate the good parts of religion from the bad. Recognizing the many of the ways religion has gotten things wrong over the years and needs reform.  

My time at Huntington has been one of the best times in my life. I will always be grateful for the things I learned and the friends I made. Thank you guys for being a part of it!

David