Entering into Faith Slowly, Through a Process of Doubt

      My life is not my own, not really.  It belongs to God.  It always has.  His love—this furious longing that He has for His entire creation—is pursuing, prodigal, purifying.

     There is nowhere I can go to flee from His presence.  Not in the pursuit of money.  Not in relationships based solely on lust, where our pursuit of pleasure ultimately, and simply, reveals that we are searching for the highest Pleasure of all.  Not in alcohol, or whatever it is that we use to numb our inner yearning.  None of these things—none of the demons that have pursued me in life, or, rather, that I have pursued—kept Him from finding me.  Where shall I flee?  In the loftiest abode, or in the lowest hells, His Presence fills all.

     No, my life is not my own.  It is His who fashioned me from nothingness.

     But it wasn’t always like this.

     I came to faith slowly, through a process of doubt.[1]  It is in my nature, I think—it is how God made me.  My faith was never one swayed or persuaded by revivals or fiery sermons.  When I was young and my family attended a Baptist church, I probably “accepted Christ” after some such revivalistic rally, but I doubt that had much to do with my real conversion.  Or, perhaps, I should say conversions—here I am reminded of the old Benedictine saying: “pray for my conversion, and I will pray for yours.”  Faith and conversion—they are both part of an ever on-going, ever deepening process.  As we enter into the depths—for God is not found in the shallows—of a relationship with Christ, with this Personal God that is the Truth of all things—He that fills all things—we are changed, molded, transformed, converted.

     Don’t get me wrong.  I am grateful that my parents took me to church every week when I was young.[2]  Perhaps I would not be Orthodox without it, for I did find Christ there, just not in revivals or sermons.  (I doubt I ever actually listened to a sermon, to be honest—I primarily tried not to sleep through them.)  I found Him in stories from a sweet Sunday school teacher, in friends who doubted like me, in parables from Scripture, and in my inner heart.  Christ did find me there—it just took me many years to realize it—and perhaps that is why He has pursued me ever since.

     He has pursued me through doubt.

     My doubt will always be there—I believe this to be a healthy thing—but now it is tinged with something greater: the presence of Christ.  His presence—a presence of love—is an all pervading Reality indwelling in all, and somehow indwelling in what, to me, at least, seems like the oddest thing of all: myself.

     My wall of doubt was first invaded with an understanding of the meaning of faith.  I had always thought of faith as something akin to belief—growing up, I heard the two words used almost interchangeably.  But one day I read what seemed like the weirdest thing at the time: belief is what you have when you lack faith.[3]  Slowly—ever so slowly—faith began to take on a new meaning.  It took on the aspects that it always should have.  Faith as trust.  Faith as surrender.  Faith as hope.   Faith as love.

     Love.

     That word has lost its meaning in our society, a society in which I say that I love the Dallas Cowboys, good craft beer, caramel macchiatos, and the music of Coldplay.  Perhaps it, somehow, goes hand in hand with our religious replacing of faith with belief, and, thus, our replacing the God of love, with the god of a religion that hinges on making sure we believe all the “right” things.

     But God is love, and faith must be forever infused with it.  The Christian God is unlike any other God, for He is love, and love alone is credible.  Religion before Christ came into the world, before He gave himself for the life of the world, was filled with gods that were petty, cruel, harsh, and vengeful.  If we turn our God into any of these things—and many people do—then we have blasphemed God, and created an idol of our own making.  Christ is the only way to salvation, which means that love (and Love) is the only way to salvation.

     Christ’s love must fills us, infuse us, and transport us to that place our souls yearn for.  And if we are to reach that Place of repose that holds the comfort of our soul’s yearning, then the process of doubt must include communion with That in which all of our doubt ultimately points toward.

     We must pray.

     We must pray to a God who often doesn’t answer—or doesn’t seem to in any sense that we can comprehend.  We must pray to a God who is silent, but not just one who is silent—the One who answers us in silence, and so we yearn for Him all the more, this hidden God.

     Perhaps it is His very hiddenness that reveals Him.

     He is hidden in the suffering of the sick, the downtrodden, the dying.  (On a personal note, I have always felt the closest to God—sensed a very real, palpable Presence—when going through difficult times, and I don’t think this is any trite sentimentality on my part.)  He is hidden in the touch of a lover’s caress, and in the kindness of a stranger’s generosity.  He is hidden in the depths of prayer, where words and thoughts cannot reach.  He is hidden in tears and laughter.  He is hidden in sunsets and sunrises, and in the cracks of daily life between the two.

     Perhaps He is simply hidden in plain sight.

     For now—for the sake of this essay—what I have written on faith, love, the hiddenness of God, and how they are intrinsically tied to doubt will have to suffice.  But one other thing I must speak of: belief.

     A few paragraphs ago, maybe I made belief seem as if it’s almost a non-factor.  It’s not.  But I don’t think it has to be—or even should be—the starting point of faith.  As faith unfolds, slowly, patiently, through a process of doubt, belief enters and begins to take root.  Faith becomes bound in love, in mystery (that is Mystery), in silence, in God’s painful hiddenness, in doubt, and, yes, in belief.  It is at this point that we can say: “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible…”

---

[1] I first encountered this phrase in the writings of the Czech Catholic priest Tomas Halik.  It rang with such truth to my ears that I knew it described my personal journey.  I am not saying that this is the only way to come through faith, but I do believe it is one of the best ways to ensure that faith is deep, and that it rings with the truth of classical theism.

[2] My parents are Baptists, and let me make this perfectly clear: they are two of the sweetest, most loving parents that a son could ever ask for.  Without them, I would not be the man that I am today—their goodness has forever affected me for the better.

[3] I can’t remember where I read this, but it has struck a chord with me ever since.

Faith as a Deep, Abiding Trust in God

     Today, I had several conversations with people that cemented my faith in a loving, personal God.  To be honest, none of the conversations are probably of the type that you may be thinking about when you read about cementing faith in God.  No one told me some kind of life affirming story.  No one gave me some clichéd line about how loving Christ is—words such as that turn me off more than anything else.

     God is not a cliché, although we do get clichéd versions of Him.

     God is not a caricature, although many of those proclaiming to be His followers often turn Him into one.

     God—the true God that is revealed through Christ—is not the kind of God that you believe in.  He is the God that you put your faith in.

     Now, back to those conversations.  The conversations, to varying degrees, all involved suffering, which is why I was reminded of God.  I am of the firm conviction that in suffering you find God, or you at least discover His presence, even if it’s an absent presence, which, in some odd way, makes His presence all the more real.

     A dear friend of mine told me this evening about how hard it is to live with his father.  His father has severe dementia, and is often quite violent.  He tries his best to take care of his father, but some days it feels as if it’s too much.  Immediately before this, we were discussing God, and I could sense my friend’s question, although he never really asked it.  Where is God in all of this?  Why does life have to always be so difficult?

     My wife called me at lunch-time today, to tell me about a friend of ours who is going through some very difficult times, and she doesn’t know what to do.  She recently lost her job, doesn’t have another one, and is going to have to move out of her house—along with her children—but has nowhere to go.  I wanted to tell her that it would be okay, that God has a plan for her life, as hard as that is to fathom at the moment, but I didn’t say it.  (I, after all, try my best to not represent God in any clichéd manner, either.)

     The third conversation, I won’t go into any detail over.  It was simply too personal, but let’s just say that a friend of mine feels as if his life is pointless.  God has taken away everything that matters to him—or, at least, that’s how it seems.

     I sat down at my computer with a cup of coffee this evening, and I had every intention to write something decidedly different than what you are currently reading, but then I thought about these conversations, and then I thought of a quote from the Romanian priest George Calciu: “Christ did not come to explain human suffering, or to eliminate it.  Rather, He came to fill human suffering with His presence.”

     This is the God we worship as Christians.  This is the God that we put our faith in, that we believe—if we want to talk about belief—illumines our lives in all of its messiness, and in all of its brokenness.  In all of its suffering.

     And this is why, I think, that we can talk of faith as a deep, abiding trust in God.  This is faith as trust, faith as assent.  In Latin, it would be translated as assensus.  If we are to talk about belief, then we must talk about this kind of belief.  The belief that Christ is good, that we can trust in Him, that we can assent to his path, to following his Way.

     This is the Christ spoken of in a well-known prayer from Celtic Christianity[1]:

     Christ under me

     Christ over me

     Christ beside me

     On my left and my right.

     This day, be within and

     Without me,

     Lowly and meek,

     Yet all powerful.

     Be in the heart

     Of each to whom I speak,

     In the mouth of each

     Who speaks to me.

     This day, be within and

     Without me.

     Lowly and meek,

     Yet all powerful.

     Christ as a light

     Christ as a shield

     Christ beside me

     On my left and my right.

     And it is this Christ that fills life’s suffering with His presence.

     Faith as a deep, abiding trust in God.  Faith as a deep, abiding trust.  Faith as deep abiding.

     I abide in Him.

     He abides in me.

     Together we abide in one another.

***

     My favorite living filmmaker is Terrence Malick.  I also happen to think he is the greatest Christian filmmaker working in cinema, a fact that, unfortunately, seems to be lost on both his critics and Christians alike.

     Suffering, and the presence that fills that suffering, is at the heart of his recent movies.  In his most recent work To the Wonder—his most critically maligned film, I might add, once again because not many seem to understand it—the main character Marina falls deeply in love with Neil, but he leaves her for another woman, comes back to her, but then leaves again later.  She loves him, but her life is primarily filled with suffering due to this love.  At the end of the film, she is still suffering.  It seems as if it won’t end.  And yet her final words are: “this love that loves us… thank you.”

     Life is suffering.  But He abides in us, and we in him, this Love that loves us.

     Thank you.

---

[1] This is only a portion of the full prayer, often attributed to Saint Patrick.

Being Church in the Snow

     The following is unlike anything else that I have put on this blog, or on my other blogs.  It is a personal essay written as much for myself as anyone else, but something I thought may be of interest to some.  I have long wanted to write a book of such essays.  I will try to write more similar essays if there is interest.

Being Church in the Snow

     These twelve Jesus sent out, charging them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.  And preach as you go, saying ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’  Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.”

Matthew 10:5-8

     “Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.”

Matthew 25:40

     I left work yesterday when the snow started to fall quite hard, then began to stick to the ground.  At first it fell slowly, then a little faster.   But it didn’t matter the amount.  It was so cold that many roads became impassible.  It took me about three hours to get home, give or take a few minutes one-way or the other.  I was lucky.  It took some of my co-workers who live close to me 4, 5, or even 6 hours before they made it home.  Others didn’t make it home.  They slept in hotels, or, worse, in their cars on the side of the road, trying their best to stay warm before help could arrive.

     I only got home faster because I drive a GMC truck, a large one, the type that goes where few others can who don’t drive something similar.  I took back roads, where pavement often ends, but where the snow and the ice had accumulated much quicker than in other places.  At first, I thought it was a good idea, but wasn’t so sure once I had traveled a few miles in a little less than an hour.  There were very few people—a few trucks about the same size as mine passed me, a house scattered here or there.  I knew roughly where I was going and my plan for getting to my house.  But I became quite nervous at one point.

     I have at varying time throughout my life suffered from an almost neurotic anxiety.  I still suffer, and it was acute yesterday, crossing over steep, icy hills where my truck—large and powerful as it may be—slid this way and that, but, thank God, still managed to make it over each one.

     I practice the Jesus Prayer as much as possible.  One of my prayer ropes typically resides in my left hand, or when I’m not using it, on my right wrist.  I always fancy that it makes me more still, more calm, more loving, but then I get in situations like yesterday, and I wonder if that’s the case.  I prayed to God, begged God, to get me home safely; I prayed for my co-workers and others, ones who I didn’t know to make it home safely, for God to give them peace, to comfort them.  But I didn’t feel comfortable.  I was anxious and tense.  I kept thinking that maybe it was better if I had taken a more conventional route home, the interstate or one of the large highways.  I feared my truck was going to get stuck in a ditch or cease making it up snow-covered hills.  My cell phone was only working intermittently, and I had a brief vision of freezing to death—or coming damn close—in the Alabama backwoods, where no one knew where I was, and where no state safety crews would be able to reach me.

     The thoughts came to me: I shouldn’t feel this way.  I should trust in the loving care of God, ever-present and filling all things, even mud-drenched and ice-clad pick-up trucks.  But I did feel that way.  Nervous.  Anxious beyond what should be reasonable.  Frightened.

     But then another thought came to me for some reason: Christ’s twelve disciples.  They’ve gotten, it seems to me at least, quite a bit of bad press over the centuries.  But they also seem to deserve it.  Rarely do they seem to get the message that Jesus is giving them.  And when they actually do get it, they either seem incapable of living out its teachings, or they just forget about it altogether in a relatively brief amount of time.  Here I have in mind Peter, who in one breath, when Jesus asks him, “Who do you say that I am?” replies, without thinking but with utter certainty, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  But then, within moments, Jesus tells him, “Get thee behind me, Satan!”

     Which makes Peter, makes the other disciples, amazingly like us, amazingly like me.  We know, but we forget.  We have peace, but we have anxiety.  And, yet, these are the people that Jesus calls, not just to be his disciples, but to be his Church.

     I crossed to the top of another hill.  Now the snow was coming down with more ferocity.  The road was little more than a sheet of ice.  A car was in front of me.  It was stopped.  The hill in front of the car, in front of me, was of a very steep decline, followed by another steep incline.

     After about 5 minutes of waiting on the car in front—another truck had pulled up behind me—I stepped out of my truck, and walked up to the car.  A young girl was driving, 17 or 18 years old, another girl in the passenger seat.  They were crying.  They needed to turn their car around, knowing they weren’t going to make it up the next hill, but were too afraid to attempt to do so.  They didn’t want to end up in one of the ditches to either side of the road.

     The man in the truck behind me got out of it and approached.  He was amicable, even seemed to be in a good mood, though concerned for the upset girls.  He and I helped the girls get their car turned around.  They were thankful, wiped their tears, smiled a little, then slowly drove away.

     He asked me where I was trying to go.  I told him.  He gave me some general directions and a few tips for navigating the roads ahead.  I thanked him, but he followed me just to make sure I made it down and up the next set of hills, then he turned into what I guess was his driveway.

     The twelve that were chosen—broken men in many ways before coming to Jesus—continued to be broken men after becoming disciples.  They knew Christ as their friend who they dearly loved, and certainly dearly loved them.  They ate with him.  They sat next to him while he spoke all that he speaks in the Gospels (and more).  They walked the length and breadth of the vast countryside with him.  Yet they continued to be broken human beings.

     As we continue to be broken human beings.  Their primary calling seemed to be that they were to heal.  It seems as if that is still their primary calling, for we are now them, healing in whatever ways are possible, however large, however small.  On roads.  In the snow.

Maxims for the Spiritual Life

Maxims for the Spiritual Life

     For those few of you who enjoy reading my Orthodox blogs—a lot of folks read my strength-training blog; not so many my other two—please forgive my long delay in Orthodox blogging.

     One of the reasons for my lack of posts on Blue Jean Theosis is because I want to make sure that I actually have something to say.  I love Orthodox spirituality—and the great joy of my life has been my entrance into the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church—and I would love to do more writing on Orthodox hesychastic spirituality and its intersection with modern life, but I have often felt that my writing fails to capture the essence of my thoughts, and not just the essence of my personal thoughts, but also the “fragrance” or mindset of the Holy Fathers of the Church.  (Along a similar vein, I must confess “despondency” as my greatest sin, or at least the one I’m most frequently aware of, for we must confess our sins committed not just in “knowledge” but in “ignorance” as well, as the Divine Liturgy so often reminds us.)

     Having said that, I hope this is the first of what will be a more continual line of posts, even if the posts are rather short.  Although I often feel as if I don’t have much to write about from a unique perspective, perhaps there are those of you who will find some comfort and solace from what I have to say, even though it comes from such a broken person such as myself.  (For more on “brokenness” see my previous post “Paradox and Mystery”.)

     Earlier this morning—I’m currently “snowed in” from work even though I live in Alabama, which means I’ve had the luxury this morning of surfing the internet—I came across these 55 “maxims for the spiritual life” from Father Thomas Hopko.  Father Hopko is the Dean Emeritus of Saint Vladimir’s Seminary, and apparently this is a much-published, much-read series of maxims, but I had never seen them before until I came across them on Father Stephen Freeman’s “Glory to God for All Things” blog, so perhaps others have not read them either.

     If we were to focus on these basics each year, each week, each day of our lives, we would surely be on the road to salvation.  With that being said, here they are:

1. Be always with Christ.


2. Pray as you can, not as you want.


3. Have a keepable rule of prayer that you do by discipline.


4. Say the Lord’s Prayer several times a day.


5. Have a short prayer that you constantly repeat when your mind is not occupied with other things.


6. Make some prostrations when you pray.


7. Eat good foods in moderation.


8. Keep the Church’s fasting rules.


9. Spend some time in silence every day.


10. Do acts of mercy in secret.


11. Go to liturgical services regularly.


12. Go to confession and communion regularly.


13. Do not engage intrusive thoughts and feelings. Cut them off at the start.


14. Reveal all your thoughts and feelings regularly to a trusted person.


15. Read the scriptures regularly.


16. Read good books a little at a time.


17. Cultivate communion with the saints.


18. Be an ordinary person.


19. Be polite with everyone.


20. Maintain cleanliness and order in your home.


21. Have a healthy, wholesome hobby.


22. Exercise regularly.


23. Live a day, and a part of a day, at a time.


24. Be totally honest, first of all, with yourself.


25. Be faithful in little things.


26. Do your work, and then forget it.


27. Do the most difficult and painful things first.


28. Face reality.


29. Be grateful in all things.


30. Be cheerful.


31. Be simple, hidden, quiet and small.


32. Never bring attention to yourself.


33. Listen when people talk to you.


34. Be awake and be attentive.


35. Think and talk about things no more than necessary.


36. Speak simply, clearly, firmly and directly.


37. Flee imagination, analysis, figuring things out.


38. Flee carnal, sexual things at their first appearance.


39. Don’t complain, mumble, murmur or whine.


40. Don’t compare yourself with anyone.


41. Don’t seek or expect praise or pity from anyone.


42. We don’t judge anyone for anything.


43. Don’t try to convince anyone of anything.


44. Don’t defend or justify yourself.


45. Be defined and bound by God alone.


46. Accept criticism gratefully but test it critically.


47. Give advice to others only when asked or obligated to do so.


48. Do nothing for anyone that they can and should do for themselves.


49. Have a daily schedule of activities, avoiding whim and caprice.


50. Be merciful with yourself and with others.


51. Have no expectations except to be fiercely tempted to your last breath.


52. Focus exclusively on God and light, not on sin and darkness.


53. Endure the trial of yourself and your own faults and sins peacefully, serenely, because you know that God’s mercy is greater than your wretchedness.


54. When you fall, get up immediately and start over.


55. Get help when you need it, without fear and without shame.