Ignorance is bliss??

Last week Sunday I was leading the worship service at a small church. A young girl gave me this after the service. I did not ask when she made it. I didn't want to know if she was so bored by the message she had to find something to entertain herself. There are times when ignorance is indeed bliss. This might be one of those times.

We have 3 tenants moving in the next 2 weeks. One house is going to need some work. There are 2 doors that are broken. Sharon and I went down to Menards in Ottumwa and bought the doors this week. I put a coat of polyurethane on them to get ready for a speedy door swap. I did not ask how solid wood doors get broken. This is another time when ignorance might be the best path. I told the tenant I would be deducting the price of the doors from her deposit.  She wanted to negotiate the price of the doors. 

These are the doors that are broken back when they were new. We put in mission style oak doors when we purchased the house. They are way more expensive than the 6 panel oak doors I am putting back in. Now all the doors will not match anymore and she thinks I am overcharging her.

Micah and I have been shingling this house the last 2 weeks. It has been a slow process because it is a total tear off and it has from 3 to 4 layers of shingles on it. Then parts of it need sheeting as the bottom layer is wooden shingles on spaced boards. It just doesn't get a whole lot more fun than that. I will be ecstatic when this one is done. 

As of right now we have 2.56 square of shingles to put on (yes I measured to make sure we had enough shingles, this was a time when ignorance would not be a good plan). Except of course for about 3000 pounds of old shingles still laying on the ground beside the house that have to be picked up and hauled to the landfill. We have already hauled away 5800 pounds. I am thinking the house might just float away with all the weight no longer holding it down. I don't think I want to know how much stress that weight was putting on the rafters.

 

The last owner had 1/4 of the roof replaced in the last couple of years, but he did not want to spend the money doing the entire roof. I had bought this house last fall. Sharon and I walked through it and made an offer without either Micah or Matthew seeing the house. I asked Micah last week after we had half the roof tore off ,"who was the idiot who bought this house anyway?" Micah said "it's making a pretty good return." I said, "good then lets hire someone to finish the roof." His reply was "It's not making that good of a return." After a few more back breaking hours I think he was beginning to see things my way. "maybe we could hire a few high school boys if we have another one like this." Nothing like hard labor to make a man start to change his mind.

So now it is time for a confession. We have a standing offer on this house which needs a new roof. Sharon and I walked through it. I saw it needed the roof fixed ASAP. You can see the broken curled shingles looking like a fringe on the roof in this photo. So once again I might be buying a house with a nasty roof to fix. As Micah asked me couple of years back when a ceiling was falling in a house "didn't you even look at the roof on this thing?" Yea, I looked at it, but I didn't say I got too close." See I was going with that ignorance thing again. If you assume the roof isn't going to leak this year you just might get lucky. Right??

 That is not the case with this house. See the ceiling. See the ceiling leak. I do not know at this point if I want the bank that has this house to accept our offer. I need some time before climbing on another roof and I know this one is no longer doing it's job of keeping the inside dry. 

I think that as I have gotten more mature (that is what I am going with now instead of admitting I am getting older) I have come to realize how much I do not know. It seems like every time I learn something I find out how much more I do not know.

There is no shame in not knowing. There is shame in not wanting to learn. I have learned that a lot of what I thought was true when I was 25 was not correct, and that holds for every decade of my life including the one I have just ended.

People have a tendency to think I am a little nuts when I tell them I like to read at least 2 books I total disagree with each year. I have read the Koran (not an approved version as all approved versions are written in Arabic and I only know 2 phrases in Arabic), I have read "The History of God" (that one could always put me to sleep).  Reading what I know I will disagree with makes me think about what I do believe. 

We could live our lives in ignorance. Blissfully ignoring anything that might cause us to rethink what we hold to be true, or we could devour knowledge. I was once told, "if you try to learn too much you will begin to doubt God". No I find the more I learn the more I realize I do not understand God. He is so much greater than I am, that I should never try to make Him fit what my mind can understand.

This is where I can say emphatically that I am ignorant. I know very little of the ways of God and can not even begin to comprehend why God does what He does.

So I do not understand God and am not able to comprehend His ways. Is ignorance bliss? Yes, if I can tell God,"You are so much greater than I am, You take care of my life and my problems and all will be well with my soul."