On Faith...
Sep. 12th, 2007 09:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
highlyeccentricI have been planning, since Easter, a coherent and cohesive blog post about the having and keeping of faith. I've been storing up things- notes, conversations, things i read- and I think I have enough to write it.
And now I realise that I shouldn't. Because that would imply that I have some kind of cohesive faith experience- I don't- or that I have some lovely logical progression of reason to hold faith together. I don't. I don't believe anyone who says they do.
So. Instead, you, O Blog of Mine, are going to get the snips and bits and thoughts which I have thought and bitted and snipped over the last nine months, in incoherent installments.
~
This first one is a conversation I had with a very dear friend, after a church event we had both attended.
He was explaining to me how liberated he had felt to be able to say to people there that he doesn't believe in God anymore, and to have them ask questions instead of lambasting him.
"I don't know, Amy" he said to me. "Maybe God does exist. There used to be times when I really felt God. But I just can't believe in it. I guess if there's a scale I'm just over the line of not believing."
Says I: "Well then I'm just on the other side of the line. I don't often feel God. I used to, really strongly, here. But not anymore.
Thing is, I figure God's existence- or not- isn't affected in any way by my awareness of Him.* God will exist, or not, as he pleases, and whether or not I'm aware of it doesn't change that at all. So I just operate under the assumption that he does exist, and get on with my life."
*Or Her, of course. But I think it's really a moot point. God is bigger than gender. We don't have a neuter pronoun suitable for a person. Therefore, I use He. (besides which, cool as women are, i don't trust them. if i'm going to personify God as my best-buddie, which i don't do often, then He needs to be a He.)
~
The other day, I read this article by David Van Biema, on Mother Theresa. A new book has been compiled from her letters, detailing her decades long crisis of faith.
From an undated letter to Jesus (isn't it awful, to think of someone's prayers being tossed around the internet?):
Where is my Faith — even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness — My God — how painful is this unknown pain — I have no Faith — I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart — & make me suffer untold agony.
So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them — because of the blasphemy — If there be God — please forgive me — When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven — there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul. — I am told God loves me — and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart?
Of course, the beauty (and horror) of this is that, to an atheist and probably to many Christians, it looks as if she has devoted her whole life to a lost faith. Isn't that just awful?
But is it the start of a new theology of Sainthood, perhaps? My saints, my heroic and beautiful Anglo-Saxon saints, they struggled with the selfsame troubles which beset their peoples: demons, pagans, the quest for purity. Saints are a people's faith blown large.
~
And now I realise that I shouldn't. Because that would imply that I have some kind of cohesive faith experience- I don't- or that I have some lovely logical progression of reason to hold faith together. I don't. I don't believe anyone who says they do.
So. Instead, you, O Blog of Mine, are going to get the snips and bits and thoughts which I have thought and bitted and snipped over the last nine months, in incoherent installments.
~
This first one is a conversation I had with a very dear friend, after a church event we had both attended.
He was explaining to me how liberated he had felt to be able to say to people there that he doesn't believe in God anymore, and to have them ask questions instead of lambasting him.
"I don't know, Amy" he said to me. "Maybe God does exist. There used to be times when I really felt God. But I just can't believe in it. I guess if there's a scale I'm just over the line of not believing."
Says I: "Well then I'm just on the other side of the line. I don't often feel God. I used to, really strongly, here. But not anymore.
Thing is, I figure God's existence- or not- isn't affected in any way by my awareness of Him.* God will exist, or not, as he pleases, and whether or not I'm aware of it doesn't change that at all. So I just operate under the assumption that he does exist, and get on with my life."
*Or Her, of course. But I think it's really a moot point. God is bigger than gender. We don't have a neuter pronoun suitable for a person. Therefore, I use He. (besides which, cool as women are, i don't trust them. if i'm going to personify God as my best-buddie, which i don't do often, then He needs to be a He.)
~
The other day, I read this article by David Van Biema, on Mother Theresa. A new book has been compiled from her letters, detailing her decades long crisis of faith.
From an undated letter to Jesus (isn't it awful, to think of someone's prayers being tossed around the internet?):
Where is my Faith — even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness — My God — how painful is this unknown pain — I have no Faith — I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart — & make me suffer untold agony.
So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them — because of the blasphemy — If there be God — please forgive me — When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven — there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul. — I am told God loves me — and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart?
Of course, the beauty (and horror) of this is that, to an atheist and probably to many Christians, it looks as if she has devoted her whole life to a lost faith. Isn't that just awful?
But is it the start of a new theology of Sainthood, perhaps? My saints, my heroic and beautiful Anglo-Saxon saints, they struggled with the selfsame troubles which beset their peoples: demons, pagans, the quest for purity. Saints are a people's faith blown large.
~
I've grown used to not feeling God. It's a long time since I had a crisis over whether God existed. Last time I had a crisis, it was because I was acutely aware of God but, for a range of reasons, felt myself to be unnceptable to Him. Which was crazy, but anyway.
I've come to terms with the fact that my trade-off for not being one of the Hated Christians is that few people outside the Uniting Church will take me seriously. I still feel dirty when I remember having a conversation with a school friend, who was complaining about the Conversion Brigade. You're not like that, Amy, she told me. You don't take it seriously. And I didn't say anything in reply.
I've grown used to not being one of those spectacular Christians. I won't be notorious for evangelising people (ugh). I won't be known for my efforts in my congregation (I attend only irregularly). I've never been much of a pray-er. I don't get ritual, though I wish with all my being that I did. I won't be known for my social work, or my passion for justice or my interest in the environment or my political activism. In fact, I will probably be remembered as "that girl who says all that stuff and whose friends are into it but never does anything herself". But no amount of believing it will make me an activist. Best I can do is support those who are.
Not spectacular faith. Barely even noticeable faith.
So I was very shaken when, sitting on a sandstone bench this evening,goblinpaladin, who is a flaming athiest, said to me something in this vein: Your faith subsumes your whole being. I can't talk to you without coming back to it. I keep saying I won't mention it and then I do. Have you seen Dogma? They have this great metaphor for faith... It's a cup, easy to fill when you're young and hard when you get old. You're like that cup, and when you hold it up it's blazing with light. Now, that doesn't come from an outside source, don't get me wrong. And it's not just the faith, it's all of you. But if you lost your faith, that light would go out. And that would make me very sad.
I'm still close to crying, just typing it out.
I've come to terms with the fact that my trade-off for not being one of the Hated Christians is that few people outside the Uniting Church will take me seriously. I still feel dirty when I remember having a conversation with a school friend, who was complaining about the Conversion Brigade. You're not like that, Amy, she told me. You don't take it seriously. And I didn't say anything in reply.
I've grown used to not being one of those spectacular Christians. I won't be notorious for evangelising people (ugh). I won't be known for my efforts in my congregation (I attend only irregularly). I've never been much of a pray-er. I don't get ritual, though I wish with all my being that I did. I won't be known for my social work, or my passion for justice or my interest in the environment or my political activism. In fact, I will probably be remembered as "that girl who says all that stuff and whose friends are into it but never does anything herself". But no amount of believing it will make me an activist. Best I can do is support those who are.
Not spectacular faith. Barely even noticeable faith.
So I was very shaken when, sitting on a sandstone bench this evening,
goblinpaladin, who is a flaming athiest, said to me something in this vein: Your faith subsumes your whole being. I can't talk to you without coming back to it. I keep saying I won't mention it and then I do. Have you seen Dogma? They have this great metaphor for faith... It's a cup, easy to fill when you're young and hard when you get old. You're like that cup, and when you hold it up it's blazing with light. Now, that doesn't come from an outside source, don't get me wrong. And it's not just the faith, it's all of you. But if you lost your faith, that light would go out. And that would make me very sad.I'm still close to crying, just typing it out.
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-12 05:35 pm (UTC)For what it's worth, I can relate to the things you say about faith, especially:
Thing is, I figure God's existence- or not- isn't affected in any way by my awareness of Him.* God will exist, or not, as he pleases, and whether or not I'm aware of it doesn't change that at all. So I just operate under the assumption that he does exist, and get on with my life.
That makes a lot of sense to me.
Urgh, just deleted a whole lot of stuff because it felt too exposing to post :$ Anyway, I just wanted to say, "yeah, I hear ya".
ps about Mother Teresa, in one way, I think it's also a spectacular spiritual gift that her writings are coming out, because it shows that she, too, was human. I think the loss of the feeling of the presence of God is something very common, and I can imagine it might be comforting to people to know that someone like Mother Teresa walked that lonely path too. Actually, I sort of think that losing one's connection with God is almost a pre-requisite on the path, because it challenges you to hold to your faith in the absence of any 'proof' whatsoever - kind of like climbing a mountain without ropes.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-12 10:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-15 04:25 am (UTC)I get Ritual. Not christian rituals. Ritual. But I think it's one of those deeply liminal things - the more you think about it and try to define it, the further it slips from your grasp. It's all about the faith you have in it. Ritual's power lies in believing in the ritual. And if you don't think you have the faith for it, then it makes sense to me why you don't get ritual. It holds no power for you. It becomes a pointless exercise without faith, or the belief in your own faith.
I don't think my belief in Ritual comes from past religious affiliations, though. More from the Fantastic and Mystic, than the Divine.
I never evangelised - I believe everyone has the right to choose their own faith, and that to try and convert others is bullying and wrong. I attended Mass regularly, but never really attended; like I said, I don't get christian rituals. And I was never really a pray-er outside those walls - the power of prayer makes sense to me, but not in those terms; I'm all for the power of the mind and will that prayer activates in and for the individual pray-er, but not when you're asking some omni-omnis to cure the world. And I wasn't an activist at all. But then again, I never felt god, and couldn't come up with a reason why.
I have to say, though, that what goblinpaladin said makes sense to me. When I think of you, I think intelligence and hilarity and awesomeness, but my first thoughts are of your being a Christian and a good person (as hard as it is to put those two together :P). I always saw it as a big part of you, and I can see it in a lot of your posts.
Maybe you don't have as much faith in it as you may want, and maybe you're a little like Mother Theresa for it, but is there anything wrong with being a good person in the name of some such higher power despite not having complete faith in it? Isn't it the actions that matter, not in whose name they're acted, or if that name belongs to anyone? Supporting activists is enabling and enhancing activism - it's all part of the same cycle; it's just as necessary as the activism itself.
And sorry for this being so late a response :(
no subject
Date: 2007-09-15 04:27 am (UTC)thanks for this post. Hopefully i'll get back to it sooner rather than later, but now i'm going to disconnect teh internets and do some work.