Podcast
On Being with Krista Tippett
This book, finished posthumously by Jeff Chu, explores themes of doubt, belief, and the complexities of faith, particularly focusing on the concept of wholehearted faith and the importance of community.
On the days when I believe, the sun streaks across these East Tennessee hills, showing me that green isn't one color but a million. The infinite deep blue of the sky feels less like an endless void re...
— Episode: Jeff Chu — A Life of Holy Curiosity (In...
Episode: Jeff Chu — A Life of Holy Curiosity (In Friendship...
This book, finished posthumously by Jeff Chu, explores themes of doubt, belief, and the complexities of faith, particularly focusing on the concept of wholehearted faith and the importance of community.
On the days when I believe, the sun streaks across these East Tennessee hills, showing me that green isn't one color but a million. The infinite deep blue of the sky feels less like an endless void ready to swallow me whole than an open and generous invitation beckoning all of us who are prone to wander.
On the days when I believe, the raucous laughter of my kids sounds like the prelude to a grander symphony, a promise of unadulterated joy to come.
On the days when I believe, I regard the tulip tree outside my kitchen window and learn from it. Rooted but flexible, it adjusts to the seasons, offering its abundant nectar to bees and butterflies during times of flowering and then seeds in shade to birds and squirrels after that.
On the days when I believe, I feel enfolded in a story so much greater than my own. It's a story that knits together a thousand generations of saints, which is to say folks like you and me who wrestle with their questions and their doubts, who interrogate the systems and structures of the society around them, who search for a way to make sense of it all, and who wonder whether they belong and whether they're loved.
It is nearly impossible to believe God shrinking down to the size of a zygote implanted in the soft lining of a woman's womb. God growing fingers and toes, God kicking and hiccuping in utero, God inching down the birth canal and entering this world covered in blood, perhaps into the steady waiting arms of a midwife.
Episode: [Unedited] Jeff Chu with Krista Tippett
This posthumously published book, completed by Jeff Chu, explores themes of doubt, belief, and the complexities of faith. It was described as offering permission to question and find solidarity in shared doubts.
On the days when I believe, the sun streaks across these East Tennessee hills, showing me that green isn't one color but a million. The infinite deep blue of the sky feels less like an endless void ready to swallow me whole than an open and generous invitation beckoning all of us who are prone to wander.
On the days when I believe, I feel enfolded in a story so much greater than my own. It's a story that knits together a thousand generations of saints, which is to say folks like you and me who wrestle with their questions and their doubts, who interrogate the systems and structures of the society around them, who search for a way to make sense of it all, and who wonder whether they belong and whether they're loved.
It is nearly impossible to believe God shrinking down to the size of a zygote implanted in the soft lining of a woman's womb. God growing fingers and toes. God kicking and hiccuping in utero.
In hindsight, I see that it was my privilege that protected me from the sharpest edges of my own theology. I'm white. I am straight. In my younger years, I served as a poster child for the most popular and protected religion in the country, in a town where my brand of the faith happened to dominate.
On Those Days and Nights, when my most honest answer to the question, why are you a Christian? is just, I don't know, why not? That might seem like a paltry and pale version of yes. But it is a yes nonetheless.