When all I can see is darkness, and all I can feel is nothing, they tell me that I can't focus on my sin, because then I can't see grace. I can't focus on my doubt, because then I can't see God. And I wonder why we are so afraid to touch reality. How often we lean on our preferred side of a paradoxical faith.
I suppose, my hope in writing this, is less for encouragement, and affirmation in my faith. It is not to church bash, or to definitively say that God doesn't exist. It is simply to tell how I feel. For the sake of openness. Because maybe other people might feel this way too sometimes, but are afraid to say it. Because the truth is, more often than not, when I am sitting in church and I look around, I think to myself, 'do these people really believe all this? Is everybody faking it? Have we all longed for something more so much that we have delusioned ourselves into an endless charade?' Dismal thoughts I know, but they are there.
And the reason they are there is because I have felt all of those things in myself. I feel them now. On March 26th I am scheduled to give my testimony during the service and then become a member of the Mennonite faith. And I am in the moment wondering why I said that I wanted this? I know why I wanted it. Because I love these people. And I love the way that they attempt to live out their faith. It seems more in step with scripture than most practical implementation of faith than I have seen in other spaces. Because I see the beauty in how diversity colors a church and how different gifts and talents illuminate a dull white washed community with brilliance. But I am wondering if these reasons are enough.
If I'm honest a lot of brain power these days goes into simply trying to cling to my faith. Most of the time I feel unsuccessful. I have a hard time believing that God exists let alone that he loves me as a member of the LGBT community. It may not even be fair to bring the topic of the LGBT community into this equation. Were I to be straight would I feel any more lovable? I can't say that I would. I don't know. Having had the majority of my faith experience as a celibate gay woman, God's love was no more palpable then than it is now. Or was it? Even my memory is fickle. On some days I seem to remember significant moments of belief as mere imagination and longing. While other days I wonder why I was able to believe before so passionately and now struggle so fundamentally.
And with this fickle and transient heart I walk. And I wonder if this heart longing for authenticity will ever find it. In truth I have longed to believe far more than I have ever been near enough to claim it as my own. This understanding of my own heart and mind is what lead me to bible college in pursuit of student ministry. Because in my longing for Christ I pursued Christian culture and it has never satisfied that thirst. And I believe there are a lot of people like me in the church. Longing for intimacy with Jesus to no avail. And I wanted to minister to the lost within our congregations. Much in the same way that those with mental diagnosis pursue counseling degrees, because they know the need.
I suppose it is this longing for Jesus that has kept me within church walls. Not necessarily the fulfillment of that longing, but the longing itself. And because of this longing it doesn't seem true to myself to disengage completely or label myself something other than Christian. C.S. Lewis reasons that if humanity has such a deep longing for other than what is in this world, it may very well be because we were not created for this world. And while this may be circular reasoning...that longing in me tells me that maybe he is on to something. So I persist.
What is worse is that my participation in the church feeds a desperate need for affirmation, and my interests and skillsets have the capability of benefiting the church. But the more that I am praised and appreciated in this regard, the more my ego is stroked. So I'm left with the question, is it right to serve, and offer my gifts when my heart is so out of tune with the message? Do I not continue to pursue service when I am struggling because all believers struggle, but that doesn't mean we stop moving and practicing our faith? But is it my faith? And if affirmation is what is keeping me in the church, do I stop serving to rid myself of the white noise?
Some would credit such doubt with my grief. And in truth my grief has lead me to this doorstep full of question. Not just because I wonder where is my brother. I do. I long for God partially because I long for Stephen's life more abundantly lived in the 'on.' But his death did not create the questions, merely brought them back into focus. For they were there just as much in the celebration of life's joys as they are now in its pain.
In "A Grief Observed" Lewis talks about his faith as being a house of cards.
"Is this last note a sign that I'm incurable, that when reality smashes my dreams to bits, I mope and snarl while the first shock lasts, and then patiently, idiotically, start putting it together again? And so always? However often the house of cards falls, shall I set about rebuilding it? Is that what I am doing now?"
This is what I have been doing, is it not? And not absentmindedly, but painstakingly. Pursuing, digging, crawling to cling to even a hair of this God of the Bible. It is painstaking if it is done with any true acknowledgment of the whole of scripture. God does not paint himself an easy deity. And we can follow each character of him down until it bleeds with some maddening question. How does a good God create evil? Why does an all powerful being create for himself an adversary? We cannot say that evil is the absence of God, because God introduces the serpent into being. Some may say, but I don't believe in the devil! But then what is your basis for believing in God as revealed in the Bible? Are they not from the same book? Can you so willingly embrace Heaven and easily dismiss Hell?
Death surely has nothing to do with that particular question, though my anger in the wake of death draws me more readily to grapple with it. Death more has numbed me. It is easier now than ever to believe in the chaos of everything, in a lack of meaning. That the darkness of the world never resolves, and that the future is an endless dissonance, which is followed by nothing.
The modern world tells me to shed the bindings of youth and all that an oppressive church culture forces on me. "Be yourself!" But who is myself? I feel as confident in a life without Christ as I do in a life in pursuit of him. Who then am I? Why do I cling to this man? And why do I fear to let him go? Am I so caught up in my identity within the church culture that I am afraid to break free of it even though we do not know how to fully embrace one another? I am restless.
Calling, falling, slipping tides
I am the leaky, dripping pipes
The endless aching drops of light
I am the raindrop falling down,
Always longing for the deeper ground
I am the broken, breaking seas
Even my blood finds ways to bleed
Even the rivers ways to run
Even the rain to reach the sun
Even my thirsty streams,
Even in my dreams
I am restless, I am restless
I am restless, looking for you
I am restless, I run like the ocean to find your shore
I’m looking for you
I am the thorn stuck in your side,
I am the one that you left behind,
I am the dried up doubting eyes
Looking for the well that won’t run dry
Running hard for the other side
The world that I’ve always been denied
Running hard for the infinite
With the tears of the saints and hypocrites
Oh blood of black and white and gray
Death and life and night and day
One by one by one
We let our rivers run
I am restless, I am restless
I am restless, looking for you
I am restless, I run like the ocean to find your shore
Looking for you
I can hear you breathing,
I can hear you leading
More than just a feeling
More than just a feeling
I can feel you reaching
Pushing through the ceiling
'til the final healing
I'm looking for you
Until the sea of glass we meet
At last completed and complete
The tide of tear and pain subside
Laughter drinks them dry
I’ll be waiting
Anticipating
All that I aim for
What I was made for
With every heartbeat
All of my blood bleeds
Running inside me
Looking for you
I am restless, I am restless
I am restless, looking for you
I am restless, I run like the ocean to find your shore
I'm looking for you
I can feel you breathing
I can feel you leading
More than just a feeling
More than just a feeling
I can feel you reaching
Pushing through the ceiling
'til the final healing
I'm looking for you
I'm looking for you
-Switchfoot
