the trouble with faith – part one

is doubt.

Without it believing in the hard stuff would be as easy as believing in the simple stuff.

Because some things just are. Or rather, some things just SEEM like they are because they make sense to us. Our minds can make sense of the argument for gravity pretty easily because we wake up every day and remain firmly on the ground. And if you get all doubty, you can just go find yourself an apple tree and replicate Newton’s experiment without too much trouble. Or fall out of bed. Whatever.

But believing in a just and benevolent God who loves and cherishes each of us as his own children in a world full of atrocity and struggle is harder.

But, faith is something most of us have. We have faith that we love our children, even though we can’t see it or touch it, because we can feel it. We have faith that our spouses love us because we can feel it, and that our marriages will work, even though so many don’t. We even, quite often, have faith that everything will somehow work out. Because for the most part, for most people, it usually does.

But. Sometimes it doesn’t.

Some parents turn out to be unimaginably bad. Some spouses lose their passion for each other and their marriages die ugly, painful, whimpering deaths. Sometimes good people lose and tragedy strikes the undeserving.

Sometimes, things don’t work out the way we think they should.

There are people who find a staggering degree of comfort in believing in God. Some of those people can tell you why they believe, and some can’t. Part of faith seems to be that it doesn’t matter why you believe it, just that you feel it. When the bad things happen, they’re the people who find comfort in the belief that it was all part of a greater plan. That someone else, some all knowing, all seeing, perfect deity is in charge and that he knows what’s best.

(I have no trouble believing in fun un-provable stuff like fairies and aliens and unicorns and Santa Claus, by the way. All totally real in my book and I’m super comfy with that. Probably because none of them are asking me to pledge my life to their service while believing that they’re perfect and always know what’s best. But it could just be that the outfits are better. I’m not sure. But, I don’t have to be sure to believe in those, which I guess is also kind of my point.)

I don’t always have that. Sometimes when I read the bible I do nothing but scoff and question. There seems to be an awful lot of attention and detail around who begat who a zillion years ago while actual important things, like, say… the resurrection can appear to be full of holes so big you could drive a season of Ice Road Truckers through them. I’m sure there are other parts of the bible that give other really good reasons for believing in Jesus. But I don’t know what or where they are.

I need more education. More instruction. I don’t know that the bible is the kind of book you’re supposed to be able to find your way through by yourself. It’s kind of like New York, to me. Just because you can read the street signs doesn’t mean you have any idea where you are or if you’re going in the right direction. I need to understand why I should believe, besides just the fact that a lot of other people do and it’s comforting when life sucks to believe that someone else is at the helm and that they’ll take care of you.

A great place for that kind of instruction is church. You know, where they keep those Bible Study groups? I’ve never been to one of those but I’m thinking of starting (after BlogHer. This Summer is kind of kicking our asses at the moment.).

I grew up going to Congregational church. I lit the fancy candles with the fancy candle lighter most Sunday mornings and I went to Sunday School and I sang in the Children’s Choir and I played in the Bell Choir. (Y’all? I love Bell Choir. Like I love it a kind of unreasonable amount. Want to know how to get me back to church, reading family members? Get a bell choir. You can have as many holes in your story as you want, I am that much a sucker for a bell choir. You have to let me play in it though. Which means someone has to teach me how to read music again, cuz I forgot how.) I was like, involved and stuff. I even went to sleep-away Bible Camp most summers with most of my girlfriends.

Where, between the ages of 8 and 12 I was “saved” no less than 4 times. Twice by the same “counselor”.

Which I think is where part of my “problem” started.

The fact that do-overs were so readily accessible and no one actually bothered to find out if I needed saving (I was 10. I struggle to imagine the circumstances under which my grievous sins required annual whitewashes from the bucket of eternal salvation) left the impression that being born again is a lot like saying yes to the annoying check out girl at Target when she asks for the 576th time if you’re sure you don’t want to save 10% today by just signing up for the damn Red Card already, because seriously lady I see you here all the time buying diapers and granola bars so you know you’re gonna use it so come on already and just get the thing so I can get a $20 bonus for hitting my quota this week. OKAY?!

I felt like a commodity. And I believe in many ways I was. I could have been anyone, to them. MY immortal soul was the least of their concerns. It was a numbers game. At least 2 of those times I was only doing it because all of the kids who did it got so much positive attention and the kids who didn’t do it were completely ignored and even ostracized.

Which, obviously, is disgusting.

(And I’m not saying all born-again folks are this way. I’m just saying this was my experience at one bible camp in Northern Michigan over 20 years ago.)

(I am so old.)

When Topher and I were engaged we started going to the Episcopal church down the street from my apartment. We really enjoyed it and I will say that I probably felt the strongest in my faith at that time. And even then there were still times I doubted. But obviously I’m the kind of person who needs some reinforcement to feel comfortable believing in God. I got baptized in that church (Topher is my Godfather. Kinda creepy, right?) and we were married there. We loved almost everything about it. And then we moved away.

The “solution” to my “problem” if that’s what you want to call it would logically be to find another church. Which we tried to do. We started going to the church Topher’s parents go to, and when we do go to church that’s where we end up.

But. That’s tricky too.

Part two coming Monday. Because if I don’t split it up your eyes will start bleeding.