I woke up to a message from Amanda Keller (hi, Amanda) asking me how my faith is going. I've opted to respond to her on here since it's probably a thing worth blogging about. To begin with, it's a thing worth thinking about, which I admit I haven't been doing so much recently.
And I'm not sure where to go from there. I just went back and read all of my blog posts from the beginning, which didn't take all that long since there really aren't that many. However, it did leave me pretty confused as to how to answer such a question as "How is your faith going?" I'm not bashing the question; it's valid. But looking at faith requires a particular perspective. I could look back on my blog posts and formulate a big picture of what God is doing with my life, or I could recognize each of my highs and lows for what they are, placing my current stance into one or both of these categories or somewhere inbetween.
Going home usually involves me leaving my personal obligations to prayer and Bible-reading at the front door, which is just weird. What's beyond weird and just plain not right about this trend is that it suggests my peaceful, non-thinking time at home is only peaceful and non-thinking when I ignore my relationship with God. Please raise one confused eyebrow at that one, folks. It's like I really am pinning all the blame of my frustrations and pain in constantly searching and seeking on God. This also reminds me of the time Katie Titus and I were hanging out during my "darker days" and she asked me if I'd been reading my Bible. I said that I had been reading it a lot and I was really earnestly wanting to, because I was, in fact, searching and seeking. This brings me to another question: Should I really only reserve searching and seeking for my own personal times of despair? Do these two words have to be so connotatively full of muddled desperation for me? Well, shouldn't be. I know that much. What I don't know is how to catch these "inconsequential" life patterns I have before they seep through the cracks and prove their consequence. Living for God could be looked at as a game of catch-up, and that's my default mode of seeking--I can't understand God but I have to try, dagnabbit. It sounds so desperate.
Why can't I take this time at home to enjoy God for being God? Elephino! (hi, Sadie)
Perhaps I'll take a crack at that.
Sheesh.
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Hmm this is confusing. So your "darker days" are behind you and you're more just not thinking about it anymore? I guess I totally missed you getting out of that Total Lack of Faith land. Buuut that's good!
ReplyDeleteSo yeah..I've been sort of ignoring it all recently. Mostly because I've just been getting so pissed at the fundies and their work on trying to get all the gays in Africa killed recently, wtf. And also it's like, whatever I read, I'm totally swayed by. I read the Bible and then I fall into that happy Jesus bubble, but then I start reading The Family: Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power (which I'm about a fourth of the way through) and the anger starts to seep back in towards Christians, and then the whole religion. I start to think it's all just useless stuff from ages ago that will eventually be forgotten, that will die out as we evolve. Yes, my brain destroys all happy religious thoughts juust as quickly as they can form them by reading a bit of a holy book.
Personally I think I just need to take a giant step back from "religion" and just trust in God, which is all I can ever hold onto, that belief in a loving God.
"Why can't I take this time at home to enjoy God for being God?"
True story. I know I seriously need to stop with this seeking bsns for a bit and just have some fun, or I might be a Grinch on Xmas (as usual). Ahhhh! And we know God through our interactions with other people, etc...
I dunno. I bounce back to Christianity, I guess, in spite of whatever really goes on, because I can't let myself be that completely cynical anymore - I just can't do it. But I do have a lot of anger towards Christians. >< Meh.
It'll be interesting to see if Christianity just keeps adapting to whatever political issues are going on, like if it'll eventually completely be okay with homosexuality and abortion and stuff, or if religion will slowly die out instead.
(Haha this is basically a whole blog post but WHATEVER.)
I'll start by attempting to address your question:
ReplyDelete"So your 'darker days' are behind you and you're more just not thinking about it anymore?"
Well, kinda. I've thought about it a lot even as I was getting out of a mindset marked by hopelessness. I came to a place of *actually* realizing God is not a hopeless God. I don't believe I was "getting out of that Total Lack of Faith land," simply because I didn't have a TOTAL lack of faith. Yes, my faith was weakened, and yes I was questioning things I've decided not to question anymore. To some extent I am with you in that it's a foolish move to stop questioning things, but I believe our disconnect on this issue is that I do believe in the authority of the Bible as God's word.
I was questioning the Bible's authority when we spoke before, and that's why our views seemed to coincide so well. Yes, I know there are no authentication papers on the books of the Bible. I also realize the Bible was actually physically written by mere mortals. But questioning that God really did inspire every single word only leaves me lost and confused. The Scriptures are self-affirming and the Bible as a whole is so complete. I am convinced of this. You may call this blind faith, but then I ask you what is a faith that can see?
I was frustrated that the Bible itself was putting God in a little tiny box, but upon closer inspection, I've realized it most certainly does not--in fact, it does quite the opposite. The Bible promotes God's presence in all of existence. I CAN learn about God even when I don't have my nose shoved in a gospel or one of Paul's epistles or a song of David. But that doesn't change that God has revealed Himself for all to see in the Bible.
I also recognize we don't all understand God in the same way. This is what makes me less frustrated about the issue of "forcing" the *Christian* God on everyone. All the Good that we know is from God. Shouldn't it be important that everyone recognizes the source of all the good things in one's life?
And then there's the Jesus business, and yes I do believe that Jesus is God. Again, I know I don't have evidence. And again, it all just makes sense to me, and I can't escape this truth no matter how hard I try to break it apart with my own rationale.
As for you deciding to take a step back from religion, I'm sure you've heard all that "Christianity isn't a religion; it's a relationship" stuff. While I agree with this mantra on some level, I still think living for God should be a religious pursuit. At various times in my life, I've learned that I really can't detach myself from any means of fellowship and still expect to live a life worth living. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I've also realized I can't rely too heavily on the fellowship itself to define my relationship with God.
Basically, I just know that God is vastly superior to me, and I am very very okay with this. I'm just another one of His children trying to figure out how to love Him and how to love everyone else. I know that following the path I was headed down this past semester is not going to take me to a place of being able to discover this love. So I'm not going to let my mind go to those places. Yes, it's been that easy. I'm not trying to ignore anything. I'm just trying to allow the fact of God's supremacy be the starting point of each answer I seek.