October has been quite the month.
I apologize for my silence. While I truly have no excuse in regards to counting my own thoughts, it has indeed been busy around here. My fiance has returned from Iraq and we have been readjusting to one another. As a result, wedding planning in on hold while major issues are questioned and we both rediscover both each other but our relationship in our dually very changed lives.
And simultaneously, for the past month, I have been dealing with Doubt, and by Doubt I mean some deep dark night of the soul kind of doubt about our existence as human beings and a church.
Doubt isn't necessarily a bad thing. As we dig deeper into the profound reality of God, doubts often are a sign of growing faith, rather than a lack of it. When we question, often the very nature of God himself, we become seekers in the fullest sense of word. We struggle for understanding, but as long as we continue to knock on the door of faith by reading, asking, thinking, praying, we are on a path toward deeper understanding of God's depth.
I have been knocking. At first, I didn't realize it. At first, I panicked. I thought, 'oh my, what am I doing here? Is this even real?' only to find myself quietly breaking down my faith to its core......which I am sad to say meant leaving "spiritual activity" behind for a few weeks to meditate with my Christ in the silence of my heart.
Even though our Christian faith is meant to be a very corporal, community based practice, sometimes retreat into the nothing is necessary to maintain our relationship with God. As Americans, it is trend to forget ourselves in the busy noise of our lives, even the spiritual noise of weekly services and prayer groups which are all too often crammed into busy schedules of work, school, kids when we have them. And the result is that we barely have true time for one another much less ourselves and much less our God. Think. How many times have you sat in church listening to the Pastor or Priest's message only to have no real time to meditate on it because you had someplace to be the following hour, perhaps a family potluck or party? How many times has debating specific theological points gotten in the way of God's love? How many times as the noise of life overtaken you?
While God did make the Sabbath for mankind, many of us have little concept of what a true Sabbath truly is. It is rest. It is quiet communion with our maker. Jesus was aware of this need. He retreated often into the wilderness to 'lose' the crowd of followers, sometimes taking only his closest friends with him just so that he can return to his roots and be a better leader. Rest, simply, prevents burn out and the sins which can follow when our bodies and minds become weak to the noise.
I think that's exactly what has been happening to me. Between a part time job and more than full time academic life, my only time with my maker would come from weekly service and weekly small group. Being as the service was contemporary in style, when I seek quiet, it only comes across as noise. While I am not going to reprimand anyone for enjoying a contemporary service, and even enjoy their joyful noise for the Lord on occasion, I was raised enjoying the quiet of a more ancient style of liturgy, one which acknowledges the silence and leaves me in quiet contemplation. Because of my 'busy-ness' quiet contemplation is precisely what my heart has been crying for.
Granted part of this could be a collision of the variation of the faith life of Catholics to your more evangelical sects, as the expected amount of time put into each faith life differs sometimes dramatically. Perhaps it's an issue of the flavor of our relationship with God ---- which is very much an open handed issue and does not make one more or less a Christian. Maybe the only issue is that I am an introvert, who needs God to be my regeneration in my daily life as in my church life.
While I wholly believe we should be in community and that we should be in the word, I don't think the answer is constant 'spiritual activity.' If we aren't careful, we often leave our non-Christian neighbors by the wayside if the only activity we pursue takes place with other Christians. I can remember the many times over the past few years that I have turned my best friend down for the true love of just spending time with her and her husband solely because I had some church activity to go to. I repent of the chances I had to share the gospel with her that I turned down in favor of a service that could have been made up later.
I have also been having to deal with varieties of often opposing theological viewpoints crowding out my quiet times mentally, which is quiet troubling, leading me to question everything down to the goodness of God. So I am going to come clean, now that I have had the time to deal with and battle out my belief and disbelief.
So that is why I am retreating. I am dropping the 'spiritual activity' for a time in order to return to the roots, to return to what called me toward Christ in the first place, to filter out the theological noise to focus on the Good News. And boy, I have been reading. And asking. And knocking. And while part of this looks like going back to Catholic Mass for now, it also includes reading my bible on my own more than I have in a long while. I even have a few friends who have heard my doubts and have nudged me back toward what is important: love --- and my roots --- and to them I am grateful. I will continue to seek and to knock and search for the place God has set aside for me, wherever that is in the here and the now. But I won't know without searching.
In the meantime, I am, however, certain of this:
Christ died for my sins, on the cross, and in his resurrection he defeated the death which results from sin.
Christ died for the WHOLE WORLD, not just me, and his gift was free for me, or anyone else to take or leave, because God left mankind with Free Will and wanted us, all along, to choose him willingly. Because of Christ, we have the option of forgiveness in God's eyes (THIS, people, is the GOOD NEWS). And in pursuing sainthood, which is relationship with Christ and forgiveness of sins, I will be saved from death and have everlasting life with my Father in heaven. I am certain of the Trinity, of the Virgin Birth, and of the dual nature of Christ as both fully man and fully divine.
As a Roman Catholic by birth and choice, I look to the Testament of all the above as evidenced in both the Scriptures and our Traditions. By Traditions I do not just mean rituals and liturgies, I also mean a very rich, ever complex two thousand year history of martyrs, saints and scholars through which I can look to when interpreting the holy scriptures, as well as look to the Holy Spirit which dwells in me and all Christians since the days of Pentecost.
I am also certain of the unchanging Goodness of God.
Of all else, of all the extras in dogma or theology, I may not be certain of, but maybe I don't need to be as long as my foundation is secure. I'll let you know where it takes me.
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