I wasted a lot of time in my early life trying to make myself believe what I don't actually believe. I tried -- hard -- for years, even deluded myself and paid the price in internal anguish, but I couldn't make it work. At least for me, I think, belief is sort of instinctive -- the feeling, transcending words or logic, that things just are what they are. Not something you choose, but something that just is. I think we believe first, and then think up the logic and find our explanations and reasons for believing the way we do.
[This is, neurologically, not so strange as it may sound. Researchers have found that it's not so clear whether intent precedes action on a motor-neurological level (see work by Benjamin Libet or Itzhak Fried, for example), so maybe belief also preceded conscious thought or logical consistency.]
I am still a Christian (in my own mind, not in some other people's), but I no longer try to fit my head around some of the orthodox explanations of what Christian doctrine means. Instead, I try my hardest to find the truth of what I have experienced of life, of God, reflected in the creeds and doctrines I share with members of this historic faith. It is, at minimum, my cultural heritage and the framework in which I learned the language of faith and spirituality. It's a big part of who I am. And I have found that I can do that. But for others, this Christian creed doesn't seem to be the one that best fits with how they experience life and catch glimpses of what, if anything, is beyond and above. I'm OK with that truth, even if some fellow Christians are not. And, for a long time, that has been a source of discomfort for me. Is Jesus exclusive? Is Christianity "special" among the world's religions. However much I'm supposed to believe it, I don't believe it -- not the way others do, anyway. What is special or unique? What does that mean?
When my (also female) spouse started to get disillusioned with Christianity (It's hard to stay starry-eyed about the "promise of the gospel" when everyone is beating you over the head with the Bible for being different) and began to explore Buddhism, I should have felt like she was endangering her immortal soul, at least according to some people's interpretation of the teachings of my church. But I felt no such thing in my gut, which still always takes precedence over my head in matters of God. Instead, I felt a calm assurance that her desire to pursue spirituality in whatever form was most accessible to her was a good thing, and I encouraged it. The searching has certainly paid off for her--I can see a major difference in her confidence, her serenity, her connection with others--and for me. I feel so much more like we are on the same path, now that we are officially on different paths.
So, the problem was how to explain to myself what my experience was telling me is true, regardless of what I've always been taught. I got a glimpse when reading "The Shack," a book everyone in my current reading group told me they loved and that I had to read too. Mostly just OK, there were a couple gems that made up for what seemed otherwise somewhat muddled to me. In one spot, the "Father God" character was mentioning that true believers weren't all Christian and all Christians were not necessarily recognized by God as God's own, but true believers were any who had entered into a genuine relationship with God. The protagonist asks if that's not the same thing as saying that "all roads lead to God," which we all know most Christians think is the same thing as saying, "anything goes." God says no. In fact, we are told, no road leads to God, not even Christianity. However, God can travel down any road to meet a soul that is truly seeking. God refuses to be limited, and God is not Christian property.
God. Not us. We are not the gatekeepers. I don't know what/who God is (perhaps to be explored in a different post) but whatever else God is, God is in this context the attractor, and the actor, and the foundation that makes it all possible. Our faith does tell us that it is God's grace that save us, after all; that it is God that does the pursing, not anything that we can do to find God on our own. That's orthodox. We just have a difficult time living with so much uncertainty about the process, or that little control.
This is what my gut tells me I have believed all along.
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