Do You Believe in God?
Do you believe in God? And do you practice that belief in some form of traditional religion? Or, like many, do you struggle with matters of faith?
Let me share my faith journey so you will understand the basis of some of my reflections, but keep in mind that I am only one of billions of people on the earth who have a story of connection to the divine…and no two are the same.
I was raised in a traditional mainline Christian home, going to Sunday School and church and taking part in youth group and choir. Religion was a fun social event and not a lot more.
When I was in fourth grade I went by bus with a Catholic friend to an afterschool class called ‘catechism’. What is this? I wanted to know more and thus began a life-long pilgrimage through different ways of understanding the divine.
Fifteen years later, I discovered a ‘spirit-filled’ church, which opened yet another door to ways of worship, and this led to a couple of years with what could probably best be defined as a cult, although it didn’t feel that way at the time. I thought I had found a people who lived their faith 24/7 and not just on Sunday mornings.
I was coming closer to what I yearned for—something not out of a book, but actually lived. It was a short two years before I moved to a rural area with two small boys to raise, and my only access to spiritual food was a small fundamental protestant country church.
By the time the boys were older teenagers, I was scrambling to survive with a serious illness. Religion seemed to always deliver the message that I was suffering because I didn’t [fill in the blank] enough.
For over a decade I withdrew from all traditional religion. I needed a God who didn’t judge.
Then I had an opportunity to finish the education I had abanbdoned years before and decided to go to seminary. Would I find what I sought there?
In my entrance interview the administrator asked me what ‘religion’ I was, as if one could ‘be’ a religion. What was I going to say?
I soon discovered that seminary did not lead to what my soul hungered for. Although I was ordained in ministry and happily served a number of years in the same denomination in which I grew up, I knew there was more.
I took advantage of a course at UMass Medical Center called MBSR (mindfulness based stress reduction) which taught me the importance of listening to my body and gave me a number of tools —many from ancient practices of Buddhism.
I began in earnest to read spiritual concepts that I was never taught in Sunday School. Everywhere I looked I discovered God, by many different names.
My problem with naming the unnameable was that whenever I did that I unintentionally attributed human characteristics (father, ‘he’, guide, ‘someone’ who watches over me…and judges me).
I began substituting “Love” for ‘God,’ and, most recently, “Mystery.”
For decades I had worshipped and served a God that is too small. The essence of Love, on the other hand, is that it cannot be contained, limited or understood. The essence of the divine is likewise without constraint and unknowable.
I had searched in all the traditional places and found only ‘ideas’ about something (heaven, hell, angels, for example), and sometimes ‘experiences,’ that are miraculous yet beyond understanding.
I no longer search and study to ‘know’ the divine. It is enough that I am known. The rest is Mystery
I love the best way I know how, but my love is limited. It is enough to BE loved.
In my pilgrimage, I have met too many wounded pilgrims, people who, in their own journeys, have bumped into liars, extortionists, and even rapists, all claiming to be ‘servants of God.’
In their pain, they have turned their back on God and/or spiritual growth. These experiences have created scars that run so deep it takes divine intervention to bring healing. Do you see the irony here?
If you are one of those for whom even the use of the name ‘God’ or ‘Father’ creates shivers and feelings of being judged or manipulated, I wish I could anoint you with an oil of Love that would lift you to a place of inner peace.
So what is someone to do who suffers in this way? And what do you do if you know someone who avoids traditional religion for these or other equally valid reasons?
There comes a time when all wrestling about religion needs to leave the arena of thinking and dialogue. The best example I can give is a couple I know who have been married over 70 years.
Their love is deep and profound. Their lifestyle is one of silence. They don’t need to talk about things. They don’t argue about who’s right and who is wrong. They don’t insist that they eat the same foods, or watch the same TV shows.
Their love seems infinitely expandable to accept and accommodate differences. Neither of them questions their love, nor their choices.
They don’t argue their difference of opinions or style of dress. Nor their differences in religion. They have moved their ‘religion’ from their head to their heart.
I can’t say I regret my long journey to find the divine. As an intelligent, inquiring person, it has been natural for me to use my head. It feels risky to trust my heart.
I am more comfortable with data. I can collect data, study it, compare it, make decisions based on it, argue for its verity and relevance, and prove almost any point I want with it.
Sounds like a lot of discussions about relgion, doesn’t it?
But if I stick with my heart, there is no data. Living stories reside in our hearts, along with feelings of love, safety, and courage, as well as sorrow and mystery.
Today, if someone asks what I believe, I have to say it’s Mystery. All Mystery. Amen.
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