Faith in a Time of Doubt

The reasons behind my struggle to preserve faith when I doubt.

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I’ve grown wary (and weary) of people who have more answers than questions.

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...to master your little corner of the world and be content with it.

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Bittersweet

I had a reminder yesterday about my charismatic/pentecostal upbringing and it was bittersweet. I remember the certainty I had about God, and about the spiritual nature of the universe. I had a sense of who I was and I thought it was unshakable. I had faith that the future, and the world, was in His hands. Now, I live in a world that sits on the knife's edge of destruction. I see the damage that humans are capable of, both intentional and unintentional. I'm no longer certain about who I am or whether there will be a tomorrow. I can also see the negative effects of those beliefs I once held. I was insufferably narrow and judgmental. I lacked empathy. I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out what God's plan was for my life instead of looking at what I was naturally gifted at doing in Christ's love. I always worried that I had done something irrevocably wrong or damning. I always worried about the strength or quality of my faith. Did I have enough? I wasn't sure. My experiences have brought me somewhere else, though. Now I see that, although things are in Christ's hands, they are in his hands as the Body - the Church. We are responsible, not for imposing morality on the world, but for loving the world as it is. I see that our sacrificial love - reaching out to meet the needs of everyone, regardless of what they believe - is the only way to keep us from destroying ourselves. I also see that the practice of this love through the centuries has woven itself into the fabric of society. It's in our laws and institutions now, in some ways more than it's found in the Church. In this way, the spirit of Christ lives on, even if the Church blows it. I also see that it's important to do what I'm gifted at and love doing. It's important that I spend more time enjoying the lives of the people I love. It's important that I move forward and make the most of every day, because there's no guarantee of tomorrow. So, while my childhood may seem idyllic to me on those bittersweet moments like yesterday, I know that I'm on much surer ground today.

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There are reminders of my faith everywhere....

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Shackles?

Shackles? One of the reasons I chose to turn back to my faith was that I was incomplete—broken—without it. My faith had defined so much of who I was through my young adult years. Without it, there was no hope, no reason to do anything that didn’t please myself. Kindness was just a way of making sure that others went out to get me. I didn’t see it as merited by the other person, or as necessary to changing the world for the better. Without hope, I didn’t see a reason to change the world for the better in the long run. I wasn’t going to be here much longer, so why should I care what happened after I was gone? I didn’t like who I was becoming without my faith. There are people—perhaps the majority—who cannot care for others unless it is in the context of a larger narrative. I am one of those people. You can argue about what that makes me, but it doesn’t change that, outside of the love God has for this world, I only care about myself, and I will cause pain and misery in others if it will get me what I want. If atheists are truly noble enough to love others without concern for themselves, and are ready to throw off the shackles of religion, are they also ready to remove those shackles from the vast numbers of us who would destroy others for our benefit?

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I had a dream, once, that I wrestled with God all night long, like Jacob. I never reached the point in my dream where I demanded a name from God, but I felt as if that dream was a symbol of my life. I would be destined to wrestle with Him, simultaneously providing His existence, yet being unable to enjoy His presence. At the time, it seemed a heroic way to live. Now it seems like a lonely, constrained reality.

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The Diversity of Faith

It's been very difficult to keep up with this blog. Life sometimes gets in the way, especially when you're at the stage in life that consists of driving kids everywhere. I have a difficult time carving out a few moments to think, let alone write. This is my day off this week, and I've been blessed with a family that's been home all week, and has adjusted to sleeping in due to the weather. That means I get some moments of peace and quiet to begin the day. So, where do I stand right now? I've been thinking about how faith, and any worldview, undergirds every aspect of life. Each decision I make can be referred back to how I view the world, and it is helping me as I try to simplify my life a bit. Strangely enough, my belief in the fractal nature of the world, and the importance of diversity, leads me to understand differences a little better than I used to. I've become more tolerant of these differences, accepting the fact that they are necessary if we are to be whole as a body of people. This means that even the people I disagree with serve a corrective purpose to the excesses of my point of view. I know that any theory that is acted upon has unintended consequences, both good and bad, and that there must be an opposing force, which will protect the people who are vulnerable to such changes. The truth of reality is that it's really too big and complex for us to grasp. The best that we can do is continue to identify facets of the truth which bring us closer to the true picture, and that is especially true of God. After many years of thought and action, this has been my biggest realization. That, and the grace that undergirds it all, freeing me to be wrong. Freeing me to step out and play my part, knowing that it doesn't all rest on me. I will make mistakes and that's okay. I don't have to be afraid of how it all ends. I just have to live life well while it lasts. On a side note, I know it's good to take advantage of quiet moments like this, but really, the first two hours I'm awake do not have me thinking coherently. I tend to ramble.

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Experience and Grace

Through everything I've learned and experienced, I hope that I have learned grace. Things are not as black and white as I once perceived them to be, and I know that many people struggle to hold onto something they can believe in. I know that many people doubt themselves and want something certain to hold onto. I want people to know that I believe that there is a great deal of flexibility in how we approach the world, and if we have more grace for one another, we can work things out in the long run.

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Sometimes, it feels like the Light is a physical force that can chip away at my resistance....

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Light can overwhelm....

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The Tradeoff

One reason I have stayed with my faith through doubt is that nothing was lost in the process. Once I realized how entwined with my faith the rest of my life was, I could determine to wait for God to reveal himself--perhaps for as long as the rest of my life--because I knew that there was no harm in continuing with the core of my faith. The core of my faith consisted of my sense of ethics, caring for others, believing in the power of self-sacrifice, believing that there is a purpose in what we do daily, and that there is an eternal future for our souls to look forward to. With all of that in mind (essentially, a foundation for western civilization) I could afford to continue as I was, moving in the relationships that were dear to me, until my death. Even if God never revealed himself to me at all. What I held on to was of much greater value than that which I was losing.

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On the question of God's existence, most people end up believing what they want to believe.

Shane Hayes, The End of Unbelief

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Humor

It's funny. When a bit of the Church gets into the world, the world becomes a brighter place. When a bit of the world gets into the Church, the Church gets a bit darker. So, by all means, let's get rid of the Church.

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Empty Evening

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Desire, Fear, and Distraction

Some days it is hard to think intentionally about these issues. I try to set aside time in the morning, but I'm not always very good about getting to sleep at a decent hour, and the morning comes all too soon. The other thing that makes it difficult is this culture of desire and fear. Sometimes, after spending a few days fending off the media's cries of, "You want this! You need this! You have to have this!" and, "Look at this--this is horrible! Fear this! Worry about this! Buy that to forget about this!", I succumb and immerse myself in distraction, forgetting that these desires and fears are manufactured, and that what counts the most is what we do rather than what we consume. (I'm leaving that last run-on sentence in, by the way. It's kind of like a train wreck that won't let you avert your eyes.) The simplicity of faith comes, not from it's content, but from it's structure. In that sense, any purpose or ideology offers enough simplicity to help filter out the siren cries of desire and fear. The way it is done however, is by establishing a central desire or fear to supplant and conquer the others, and every ideology offers its own choice of desire or fear. If I choose Christianity, I can choose to fear Hell or to desire Heaven. I can choose to fear sin, or desire a whole life. I can choose to fear Satan, or desire Christ. If I'm an American Christian, I can choose to fear the loss of the comfortable life that I feel my faith entitles me to, or I can desire the challenges of creating a new world.

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Of course, our own particular life stories are often haphazard, and certainly they are unfinished. We don't know how our particular tales will end. So maybe we find the stories we read and see enacted on screen or stage so very satisfying because they have not only a beginning ning but a middle and an end. They possess a form that completes the action, a wholeness and an integrity that our own lives do not yet have.

Sandra M. Levy, Imagination and the Journey of Faith