my train of thought

I've been having a lot of questions lately about the Catholic church and it's foundations and kind of just how early Christianity began. I was finally able to meet with Jesuit Joe tonight after Seekers so that he could explain some things to me. I just feel incredibly lucky that I am in such close contact with people like him. He really knows his stuff. It seems like any time I have a question, he can help me answer it. And I can tell he's thought about it a lot and has actually learned so much over the years. I wonder what it's like to be in possession of that much knowledge. To really know and understand a ridiculous amount of information and, on top of that, to be able to articulate it and pass it along to others in a very cohesive, interesting manner. PLUS, in a matter of merely two hours, I feel like I was able to finally understand things that I've been thinking about for a long time.

One of my favorite ideas that he presented to me is that the Jewish faith tradition acts as a wonderful testament to the truth of God. Judaism and its followers have outlasted all of the great empires and societies in history. It has always been just a tiny little section of the world's population and the people have endured so much throughout time, yet they are still here. They are still faithful believers in God. Israel truly is God's chosen people.
Joe presented this idea much better than I am doing right now, but it still has a lot of value. I think it's such an interesting idea and I really, really like it. I've been wondering what role then does Christianity play in all this chosen people business. I've definitely thought about that a lot before, but now the nature of the question just seems entirely different. Ah, I LOVE to think about things like this.

I am so grateful to Joe for sharing his thoughts with me and making all those wheels inside my head start turning. It feels like a lot of the little men that work on the railroads of thought in my brain just came back to work. They are laying new tracks or are running trains on tracks that haven't been used for awhile. I think I need to go buy one of those conductor's hats now. Yep, that's of utmost importance.