I’ve spent my entire life talking about religion. I’ve frequently barked at the least deserving friends lately. I was taught that faith has three steps, no matter what the religion of choice may be.
First, there is imitation; we are brought to Church, Temple, Mosque, Meeting Center by a parent or role model. We do not know what’s going on. We watch them and listen (sometimes) to the big voice at the head of the building. We whisper because we are told to—though I think we all remember that need to shrill out one note or another in church just to get that wonderful bubbly feeling of our own voice bouncing back at us.
In the second stage of faith, we make our religious practice, in a sense, our own. We go to church, because it is what we do. We learn stories and memorize prayers. We whisper in church because we have learned that we are in the presence of something greater.
Then there is the last stage of faith. Understanding why we pray. Understanding why we go to church. Doing more than just going to church. We don’t even whisper in church anymore because we are busy with the business of actually being in church.
I am sure there is a hazy golden circle of truth to all this, but like most religious matters. I don’t think it can possibly be that simple. When we are involved in a stage of faith we have no idea, we don’t step back and say, “Ah, yes, stage three, well, that’s about right.” The only time we attempt objectivity in regards to faith is when we have no idea what stage we are in.
It has always baffled me that there isn’t a stage of faith called “Doubt”, and another called “Disbelief”. I think that doubt comes in between three and four amongst all he other adolescent irritating ambivalence. “Disbelief” is an optional step. Those who reach it, either know nothing else, or hit it immediately after stage three.
I think not deciding whether or not you believe in God is a waste of time and energy that you could put forward to believing or not. The atheists I know are far more devout and firm in their disbelief than any Christian or Jew of my acquaintance. It is a fallacy to treat atheism as a choice that ultimately cuts the individual out of humanity. In their very nature, atheists are committed to life on this earth and dedicated to the betterment of the only world they will ever live in. Before I am drowned in a sea of letters from angry agnostics, lets me explain—I don’t believe agnostics to be life haters—I have my agnostic days. But, I also have days where I really like the Backstreet Boys; neither is something I advertise.
The Backstreet Boy comment was tongue-in-cheek—in fact, I have a hard time accepting someone as being a “good fill-in-religious-practice-of-choice” unless they have those, “dark nights of the soul.” Without doubt, there is no fear, without fear the promise of divine hope and love means a little less.
This is the time of our lives to earnestly seek the truth and make it our own. I started with books, such a cowardly way out of really facing the world. Iris Murdoch speaks of the sovereignty of the good in her philosophy. I can’t live my life by Murdoch, what I take away from her is also what I take from D.H. Lawrence—a strong love and regard for our relationships with each other. Some would put this another way—seeing God in each other. Others would tell me that that sentiment rings a little blasphemous. Finally, someone would say something about vampires and I’d have reached the bottom of the crazy hate mail pile.
Obviously, I am searching for what I believe. I thought for a while at least, that I could reconcile myself to doubt, but that doesn’t seem to be possible. There are too many wonderful, awful, dangerous, and lovely things that happen every second for there not to be some delicate elaborate joke behind it all.
Until last week, I could not remember the last time I felt anywhere close to being comfortable in my spiritual skin. I would feel all my nerves stand on end, my pretentious streak comes out, and my eyes droop. Last week, I shared a dinner with my friends. With the food we made ourselves, they continued to cook as we all gathered around the table, sitting in a motley crew of chairs and arranging place settings in a rainbow of colors and textures. Wine was poured; food was passed. A collective sigh went up for that moment in the little house we created, I felt every soul living and dead joining us in this communion. Hokey? A little, but most true. We cannot begin to understand God, life, and death if we sit down and write in our journals and look in our mirrors mouthing “Who am I?” We can only peek at the secrets of the universe when we look to each other and treat each person as a distinct lovely being, connected at some level not yet nameable to the question our fat smart heads keep thinking we have to figure out.
Spirituality and love do not only allow intellectuals. They allow thinkers; they allow you. And if they allow you, I can keep my fingers crossed in hope to squeak by without too much ruckus.
