A stab at the dark
I've got some time this evening, so I thought I might take a stab at the dark side of my spiritual ambivalence. Here, I don't have any book to fall back on - just raw experience.
Again, if spiritual talk is not your thing, please just skip this one.
Let me start with an experience Lisa and I had about three years or so ago. After Jon's illness and death, we did not socialize for quite a while. Partly because we were hurting too much and partly because our free time was taken up with grief groups and supporting each other in the immediate family. One of the first times out (maybe the first) was dinner at some friends' house. After dinner, our host was relating how he had been praying for a significant material item (on the order of a car) and, lo and behold, just the one they wanted became available for a bargain price. Wasn't God great!?
Lisa and I kind of nodded our heads and knew we were thinking the same complicated thoughts.
But, Joe (not his real name), God didn't heal our son. What do we make of a God that gives you this thing, but takes our son at age fourteen when hundreds, if not thousands, of people prayed for his healing?
Somehow, the easy, intellectual answers (God is sovereign, there's some things we just can't understand, etc.) just didn't cut it any longer. Perhaps, this is something that cannot be grasped unless you've experienced that sort of loss.
It was like suddenly, having hope and trust, while right and desireable, was exceedingly expensive. Also, it seemed somehow inappropriate to even ask for something material, almost like it was shallow or petty. It was abundantly clear that a formulaic type of faith (if I do this, God will do that) had also died on that bed on 7th Mott.
What was left was confusion. If looking to God for an answer is too risky, what, pragmatically speaking, is God good for? Or, perhaps better stated, if formulaic faith has died, what takes its place?
But, maybe formulaic faith is not really faith. Maybe real faith only exists when you know there are no easy answers and that you might chuck it all tomorrow. That is, when it continually requires a willful choice to put down that huge ante to stay in the game.
"Man does not live by bread alone..."
"Give us this day..."
posted by Stu @ 4:50 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
I love this post - it so captures how faith has evolved for me too.
It makes me think of a plaque that we picked up at an art fair. It says "I believe in the sun even when it's not shining, I believe in love even when I don't feel it, I believe in God even when he is silent". I was just involved in a small group discussion of an article by a self-identified agnostic about knowing vs. believing. I think formulaic faith thinks "I know this is true", while believing is simpler, humbler more from the heart, received as a gift without striving for mastery. Knowing something seems more solid, provable and scientific and includes a certainty that is an intellectual assent attained by study. There's lots more to say, but it's past my bedtime!
check out a cool site that we heard about at small group - you might want to add it as a link
Blogging the Bible - Slate magazine by a guy named David Plotz. I'll try to send a link via email.
I just finished the Job book I swiped from your bedside stand. It has given me a lot to ponder. One thought that I have is about the 3 friends who always get slammed in everyone's commentary. When they heard of Job's plight, they traveled to be with him. No easy task in those days. Then, so great was his suffering they sat in silence for SEVEN days with him. There's alot to be learned from that. The problem I get into (they did too)is when I open my mouth. It's just too tempting to want to explain God. Far better to remain silent in fear, awe, wonder and, in my case, lack of understanding. My kayak is my cathedral. I'm going through withdrawal. It snowed this morning. Sigh. Miss you guys.
I found Richard Rohr's Job book to be thought provoking as well. Job is one book of the Bible that makes me very glad I do not approach the Bible with a need for it to be 'inerrant' in the modernistic way some folks do.
ML, I'm so glad for the relationships between our families. You're a good friend. I hope that next time you visit we have floating cathedrals, too.
Let's pray for our god-daughters, OK? It's an important time in their lives.
I still rememer the funeral service at Zion. While faith was shaken the service began a restoration for me. The packed church, the kids standing in line to be pall bearers for their friend, the messages that exceeded the gifts of the givers, the profound presence of God that lifted all to a plane we had never before experienced---all this began to reclaim faith for me. Most of all I recall the fierce determination on your faces as you grasped that cross on a pole and headed down the aisle leading the casket of your son. The Lord himself was leading. God was surely there that day. (And what can we say about the economy of God except that nothing seems to be wasted.) God bless---Dad
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