Dana sent me a letter on Monday. I have not seen Dana in about fifteen years and the transformation in her voice is remarkable. I wasn't sure what was different at first but I wanted to know because Dana wasn't the kind of friend you lose touch with because you stop caring or become too different to remain close. I just somehow lost her. I think it was when she had a baby and moved back home with her parents, and I went off to university thinking I was the one who knew what I was doing.
Dana's voice has changed, it turns out, because she joined a seminary after her son's father committed suicide. She studied theology and counselling and now she has the same degree that I am working on, Masters of Counselling, except that hers has a theological grounding and mine will not. She has a theological grounding and I do not.
Sometimes I find my own lack of faith really depressing. And I do not know if I have no faith because I actually actively disbelieve or if it's just because I do not know that which I do not know. I haven't been taught, I'm a heathen.
Too much of what little I know makes me disdainful and mistrustful of organized religion. But compare that with the emptiness and I understand, still, why so many people pursue it.
There are other things to fill up that hole and most of the time that works for me. I believe in wonder, I am easily awed by my world. I like to watch letters go backward in the mirror and then reflect those back and forth repeatedly to see how small they can grow. I like kaleidoscopes, and birds, and fresh air.
But sometimes when things are bleak the hole grows too big for it to be closed up with these things and I wonder what else I am supposed to put in there to make it safe. Maybe I'm just supposed to put one of those orange cones in front of it and hope that not too many of the relationships that Matter to me will fall in.
Dana invited me to go to Rwanda with her in April or May. She goes twice a year to teach and counsel AIDS patients and children who have suffered sexual abuse. I am thinking about this now.
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8 comments:
I can't allow myself to have the comfort of faith in some higher power just because i want it to be true.
I want Hogwarts to be true too, but it isn't.
I hope you can find a way to go with her, that would be amazing.
Wow, I am impressed by your friend taking an unimaginable sorrow and turning it to help others. I don't know that I would have that in me.
I find my lack of faith freeing.
I know. I'm too old for a spiritual crisis and I do not have enough drama in me to work up to a proper crisis anyway. I just wonder if my rejection of religion to this point is akin to my self-righteous near-certainty that people who use apostrophes to make plurals are stupid. It's not so simple, it can't be so simple, as true or untrue. Can it? Why can't we believe in what brings us comfort? I want to say it's because we're too smart, but that seems so smug. Lack of faith *is* freeing to me too, in that it encourages me to have faith in myself instead. But when things happen that shake my faith in me... then what? I think this is the kind of shaky ground that lands people back in Africa trying to save humanity because God seems to have pulled up stakes and left. God.
That's it exactly. "God seems to have pulled up stakes and left." I believe in an orderly universe but don't endorse any organized religion. I think we come back many times to perfect ourselves, that we have specific lessons to learn in each lifetime. And yet, Rwanda and all the many other Rwandas make me sure that there cannot possibly be a God who would allow innocent people to suffer so greatly. And being told that life is not fair is no answer -- it just pisses me off.
I'm glad you've found your friend Dana again. She's clearly a keeper, like you.
All this stuff is a bit over my head, especially the bit about the plurals. Sometimes I can't keep up with all this stuff. I think some of us are better than others.
I think faith is about thinking less and feeling more. I don't have a faith as such but I feel a need to believe, so for the most part, I do. It's a comfort to me. If I believe in something other than myself for me that's enough. It makes sense. I would say out loud I believe in angels without ever knowing one, but I believe in my friends and when they die they never really leave me, because I knew them and in that sense they are still real to me. Once I lived in a house with friends that had photos of their dead friend who they helped comfort while she died of cancer. The photos were all around the place. I moved in and was there for a year shortly after she died. I feel like she is part of me even though I never met her. I really liked her. Her name was Emma. I guess we find our own peace through time when our beliefs are shaken if we can't find it straight away. The Dalai Lama laughs that he may come back as a mosquito, I like his laugh. He seems peaceful. If you were to go to Rwanda that would be amazing. A friend of mine lives in Africa who works for world vision. She loves the country and her job. I hope you are well. P.S. I couldn't help noticing you are getting close to a thousand posts, sorry, i couldn't stop myself from counting and then commenting.
An odd thought perhaps -- but have you ever considered studying theology as an intellectual pursuit rather then a religious one?
Susan, I like the idea of there being order to our world and I wish I was clear enough to see it more consistently. Sometimes I feel like I'm always on the edge of understanding things with just enough to both tantalize and frustrate me.
Paul,I am fascinated by the Dalai Lama too and I know exactly what you mean about his laugh. When he laughs I laugh too because his laugh is so true. He also gives me faith because he is so happy even with the world exactly as it is, just in hoping we can do better and teaching a few people how. (A thousand posts, really?)
Jerry, that's an interesting thought. In university both during my undergraduate years and now, I have taken a lot of courses about culture and religion (but usually primarily on culture) and been really interested in what I have learned. I do like the idea, very much, of studying world religions and coming to at least know what it is that I do not know. In fact I started reading the Qur'an awhile in an attempt to understand Muslims better... but I did not have the dedication to finish it. I have not read the Christian bible either. I am interested though and if I ever finish my Masters degree I am determined to read things that I want to read for myself.
...regarding your note on my blog. I am very pleased to be your Referring URL, and although I don't know what it means -- I will strive to do the best job possible.
Just think -- your very own Referring URL. I wonder how I get one of those.
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