I can remember the beginning. The early days with Jesus, and even before that, when I was simply curious about God, without knowing anything about Him. There is an idea, or set of ideas, that gets a bum rap in Christian circles these days; it's called, "moral therapeutic deism". The basic idea is that God exists, but he exists to make us feel better about ourselves. Religion itself exists in this conception as the atheist says it does: to provide us comfort and sustenance through the hardship of this life. You can see how bunch of Christian leaders could get all bent out of shape about this, when they realize that their sheep know nothing about doctrine, or endurance, or obedience. On the other hand, I may be the only person who has been helped by the prevailing culture of moral therapeutic deism. I knew that God existed, and I knew that he had to be good. I knew that the multiple tragedies of my young life made God sad, if there is such a thing. [There is. Jesus wept.--ed.] In short, I knew that God loved me, and that there was an answer to the suffering I experienced. I didn't understand that I needed him, and that I myself needed forgiveness. I didn't understand that Jesus was Lord and Savior.
A Rabbi Kushner wrote a book called, "Why Bad Things Happen to Good People". I read that, and I was ripe for the picking, in terms of conversion. It's because the good Rabbi deals with the problem of pain and Providence by sacrificing the notion that God is all-powerful. I definitely understand the appeal of wanting to do this, because the pain of this world is not theoretical. In fact, if the terrors and degradations against Jewish people don't cause you to have moments of doubt about the plan of Providence, I can't help you. Sometimes we demand an answer, and we're not going to get one, at least not in this life. I don't know how or why this recognition kept me from agnosticism, or even atheism, but I would have said that somehow Goodness was protecting me. My best answer to the sorrow of the world is still, "I don't understand," and I don't need to investigate it further. In my experience, getting through the suffering is more important than demanding an explanation.
If we know that we are loved, even in simply human terms, we can endure almost anything. On the supernatural level, this is still true. However, this is why particular kinds of abuse and trauma are so damaging: because they cause people to misunderstand love, or even to doubt that they have received it from still others. I could have been irretrievably broken many times, or so it seems. Nevertheless, it also seems as though Love Himself has been chasing me, as long as I have been able to understand anything. I suppose therefore that I am in the right business, so to speak.
I suppose the gift of knowing more about God is to take the opportunity to allow Him to love me, to stop running away, hopefully to stop trying to find my completion in other things.
I think the best thing about religion properly understood, is that it is not some weirdly inhuman thing that is superimposed upon my life, and its relationships. Rather, God revealing himself is the explanation for all that you and I seek, the personal articulation of everything we hope for. I have felt God chasing me, precisely because he is chasing all of us. We know that it is not meaningless, this life, because so many of us refuse to surrender--at least completely--to our more selfish instincts, or to the bitterness that could so easily consume us in the face of all this suffering. Some people claim that I simply make a meaning out of essentially nothing. A person who truly believed this would encourage me to kill his mother. We know better, and we even ought to know that any "society" which encouraged people to kill their mothers would be a defective society. On the other hand, we accept and tolerate so many things that ought to be similarly outrageous, probably by endless repetition and acceptance.
I digress.
In the end, I don't know too much more than I knew at the beginning. What I know I know more deeply, more personally, more intimately. It is a journey of self-discovery, but it is also in a unique way the true reality of the world outside.
A Rabbi Kushner wrote a book called, "Why Bad Things Happen to Good People". I read that, and I was ripe for the picking, in terms of conversion. It's because the good Rabbi deals with the problem of pain and Providence by sacrificing the notion that God is all-powerful. I definitely understand the appeal of wanting to do this, because the pain of this world is not theoretical. In fact, if the terrors and degradations against Jewish people don't cause you to have moments of doubt about the plan of Providence, I can't help you. Sometimes we demand an answer, and we're not going to get one, at least not in this life. I don't know how or why this recognition kept me from agnosticism, or even atheism, but I would have said that somehow Goodness was protecting me. My best answer to the sorrow of the world is still, "I don't understand," and I don't need to investigate it further. In my experience, getting through the suffering is more important than demanding an explanation.
If we know that we are loved, even in simply human terms, we can endure almost anything. On the supernatural level, this is still true. However, this is why particular kinds of abuse and trauma are so damaging: because they cause people to misunderstand love, or even to doubt that they have received it from still others. I could have been irretrievably broken many times, or so it seems. Nevertheless, it also seems as though Love Himself has been chasing me, as long as I have been able to understand anything. I suppose therefore that I am in the right business, so to speak.
I suppose the gift of knowing more about God is to take the opportunity to allow Him to love me, to stop running away, hopefully to stop trying to find my completion in other things.
I think the best thing about religion properly understood, is that it is not some weirdly inhuman thing that is superimposed upon my life, and its relationships. Rather, God revealing himself is the explanation for all that you and I seek, the personal articulation of everything we hope for. I have felt God chasing me, precisely because he is chasing all of us. We know that it is not meaningless, this life, because so many of us refuse to surrender--at least completely--to our more selfish instincts, or to the bitterness that could so easily consume us in the face of all this suffering. Some people claim that I simply make a meaning out of essentially nothing. A person who truly believed this would encourage me to kill his mother. We know better, and we even ought to know that any "society" which encouraged people to kill their mothers would be a defective society. On the other hand, we accept and tolerate so many things that ought to be similarly outrageous, probably by endless repetition and acceptance.
I digress.
In the end, I don't know too much more than I knew at the beginning. What I know I know more deeply, more personally, more intimately. It is a journey of self-discovery, but it is also in a unique way the true reality of the world outside.
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