4-9-11 How am I different as a person of faith?
My late father, the God-less man of conscience, claimed belief in what he borrowed words to term, “the fundamental isolation of the human spirit.” Pop had many friends, did much good work, but I think had no real sense that he lived connected to others. He certainly loved a few people and liked many, many more, but I don’t think he ever experienced what I think of as faith’s great gift of inclusion—a feeling of community, a feeling that whatever it is we’re all in, we’re all in it together.
I grew up awash in Pop’s doctrine of fundamental isolation; believing that I felt as alone as I did because that’s just how humans naturally feel. It continued through two marriages, as well as many relationships with lovers, friends, and colleagues. After I became a person of faith however, at some point, I noticed that it had simply gone; that I now lived as a human among humans.
I don’t as a rule trust feeling to characterize my partnership with the Almighty, because I’ve learned the hard way that my feelings can too often reflect what I wish were true rather than what I know is true; but I do trust the feeling of inclusion in community that has come through it. Why? Because it has changed the way I act in community. I am much less focused on what’s in it for me. Today I believe—have faith— that the Almighty is present in each of us, and that it is this presence that can (and often does) link us together in all kinds of deeply satisfying ways. I can only think my father would have rejoiced and relaxed had he been able to discover and acknowledge a similar feeling of inclusion.
These days I’m able to accept (for the most part) that as a person of faith, I must slog through real life’s inevitable discomfort without attempting to dodge or deny its existence, doing what I need to do in spite of how discombobulated it makes me feel; learning, thinking, observing, caring, and making the best decisions I can. My partner, God, is the Whatever that is in me but isn’t of me., and It gives me the will and ability to rise above prejudice, fear, and personal anxiety in order to act and think in ways that are beyond my own self-interest. God binds me to others in common concern for a common good. I may hunger for protection from the discomforts of reality all I want within such a working partnership, but I leave it behind immediately once I expect God (or Rush Limbaugh or Einstein or MoveOn.org or my mother) to provide me with any such protection. God is my ability to participate in and, yes, enjoy, reality.
It took time for me to relax into a working faith; time to stop arguing with my own intellect, time to accept unequivocally that God both is and is available to me in some inconceivable way, time to accept that my part of our partnership was nothing more than living that acceptance. But once I acknowledged the Almighty’s existence, I couldn’t seem to unacknowledged it. I might choose to ignore God’s voice, but I could no longer pretend God wasn’t there, nattering away.
My faith, then, is what I do with my absolute acceptance that God is. My partnership with the great Whatever is not something I need to think about or figure out. Instead it is inherently a call to kinder, gentler, more truthful, more forgiving action than I am capable of on my own.
I’ve always liked a good challenge, and I’ve found living as a person of faith—engaging with real people in the real world—to be as tough as challenges gets. I also do a lot less harm, both to myself and to others. And occasionally I’m aware of feeling something that feels suspiciously like joy.
Tags: community and faith, faith, faith and joy, fundamental isolation, unconventional faith
I have no idea how to answer this question.
This blog is styled as “an unconventional conversation about God”. I think I would like to be a part of this unconventional conversation, but some of the comments I have read make me wonder whether I should be here. In question #1 of this blog Martha defined faith as follows: “Faith … assumes an acceptance of Mystery’s existence, an acceptance that God is.” Based on this definition is seems that question #12 (How am I different as a person of faith?) is addressed only to those who accept that “God is”. I do not accept that God is (neither do I accept that God Is Not), therefore, I may not be welcome as a contributor to this blog.
I would offer for consideration a different definition of faith, i.e. faith is action based on a belief in something. In my case, I believe that there is an objective reality, that I am a part of that reality, and that I have at least partial knowledge of that reality. I have faith that my understanding of reality is sufficient to enable me to live productively and happily in my future reality. By my definition, I am a person of faith.
I am an old man. I grew-up a long time ago in a small town, fundamental Baptist church. I may have been religious, I may have shared in the faith of that Baptist church – I really don’t know. As a young man that part of my life went away, and I began a journey toward secular (democratic) humanism. I began to ask more questions, to explore various philosophies, to seek new connections, and travel new paths to meaning.
Was I happier as a Baptist? Have I been happier since leaving that faith? I have no idea, but I will testify that the faith I grew into has been/ is very fulfilling and led me to a life worthwhile life in terms of family and the larger society.
Is faith such as Martha describes better than mine? Is her life more abundant than mine? Who can say. If her faith works for her, that is great. My faith works for me (most of the time), and that is good because any other faith is impossible for me.
And so the question stands: Do I have anything worthwhile to contribute to this “unconventional conversation about God”?
I have been a person of faith since I was 6 years old, lucky for me at that point religions was not part of it. I was in a large family and sometime I would go on walks, we had 40 acres and talk with God. It really keeps me grounded, and when my parents’ divorce it was a lifeline, knowing that everyone around you can fail, but my best friend seemed to always be there. To this day through all the ups and downs life hands you I still have that simple relationship that I did when I was 6. The funny thing is atheist try to take it away, religion tries to control you with it, but if you can just keep it simple and pure it can be your greatest asset.
How am I different as a person of faith? First I must state that I believe there are others who believe exactly as I do, who may not have examined their belief as I have done, and therefore have not stated their true beliefs. Yes I am different, but there are others who are similarly different and may not even recognize it.
The thing that makes me different is the fact that in my mind, I have always been different even though I accepted the concept of God passed on to me by my parents, my Priest, school teacher and other members of the Christian faith. I have lived with confusion about an Almighty God, who knows all, sees all and controls all, who despite the fact that there were, originally, only two humans, was unable to divine what the serpent was about to do, and therefore was unable to stop it. Even at an early age, I began to be confused by the existence of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, if God did not want evil to exist in our world, and since the tree must have been planted by God, why was the label “original sin” placed on man (even though I now see evil and sin as different entities).
As I have grown older, and perhaps wiser (I hope,) rather than more foolish, I have developed a personal concept based on the realisation and acceptance that nothing can happen in the world that God created, if it were not permitted by God, for some good reason, that I may never have personal knowledge of. I am intrigued by the fact that inspite of the actions of the serpent, Adam and Eve, at the end of the seven (Biblical) days, God looked at the world that was created and declared it “good”!
I am different because I do not believe that God granted man “free will”, as I believe that man was granted freedom of choice, and that it was God’s desire that man choose good over evil. I believe that the choice given humans was between God’s “purposefull will”, which for Christians is the actions to which we are committed through acceptance and belief in the Holy Spirit; and for non-Christians, through some sense of conscience or social responsibility, or something; and between God’s “permissive will”, which is ours through the freedom of choice. I believe this could be gleaned from the Biblical record when we recall that after the sin of Adam and Eve, God decided to prevent access to the” tree of life” through the use of flaming swords and cherubims. If man was granted free will by God, man would not have been denied access to anything in our world.
Since the Bible was first recorded millions of years after the creation of the world, I believe that the first recorders who had to rely on questionable factual eveidence which had to be interpreted, I believe that man erred when it was considered that he was given dominion over the earth. I suspect that an error in translation led to the substitution of the word”dominion” for “temporary custodianship”. I also believe that humans, do not resemble God, physically, but only through the capacity to distinguish between good and evil; the ability to think, reason and things such as improve the quality of life for our fellow men and women.
To this extent, and more, I believe that I am different. ItT is this belief that led to the book that I expect to be published soon, titled: God, the Christian Religion and me.
“God is my ability to participate in and, yes, enjoy, reality.”
Such a hopeful respite from the idea of God enabling me to “endure” reality. As if the Creator’s presence in me somehow enables me to suffer the spiritual slovenly people I am surrounded by. Oh, what am I to do…”please help me endure these idiots”…followed by the impression at my core that these “idiots” are God’s people and are, therefore, my people. Community. Selflessness. Integration. Love.
“God is my ability to participate in and, yes, enjoy, reality.” That one’s going on the fridge this week.