A conversation on faith and doubt...

How I envy those who worship God and attend mass with seeming impunity.  I fear the homily is always directed at me, confirmed by my involuntary blushing. As there is no blood spurting from their ears, I also realize the other parishioners do not hear the coloratura's amazingly flat C.  Perhaps they are less observant than they seem or merely more generous of nature than I.

I also presume others would not challenge the priest's authenticity, however, as I sit stiffly in the pew, I fiendishly ponder the question of his intelligence.  His proclaimed belief in a deity diminishes him in my judgment, hence the stirrings of a conflict.  I admire him and he has been regarded as brilliant by others in my church. 

This is one of the days when I find it impossible to imagine a Being so powerful, He effortlessly keeps track of six billion people's individual hopes, dreams and crises.  This presents my newest quandary.
As my brain adamantly refuses to grasp more than the basics of Physics, it experiences difficulty with concepts that include infinity and omnipotence.  Ergo, my Roman Catholic God is truly beyond my personal understanding, but I am in the unenviable position of having found no other with which to replace Him.

My spirit continues to yearn for true faith, but while longing for the rewards and satisfactions which include spiritual acceptance, my humanity betrays me.  I continue to doubt and question, and my old priest friend is no help. To my utter dismay he dubs my doubts 'normal' and a part of faith, further confusing my already addled concept of the hidden costs of seeking spirituality. 

Of course, the mainframe has made the concept of God much more palatable.  I don't really understand how millions of pieces of data are harnessed by a computer chip, but I know it happens.  The electricity analogy works well for me too, but I do not want a 'God of the Gaps' as Collins has so aptly described this. 

A busy, over-whelmed God equipped with a quirky hard-drive could explain much about weather, war, pestilence, sickness and great human tragedy.  On the other hand, if everything were hunky-dory between God and Man, one would have to assume He was a She, as only a pre-menopausal woman could multi-task to that extent and still maintain good relationships. 

Of course, any God who was unselfishly struggling to save the planet from the devil and/or the threat of global warming for the benefit of six billion people might become justifiably annoyed.  With His hands so full, he would certainly feel under-appreciated when confronted with our collective behavior.  We are obviously not working with Him. 

Let's face it.  Rapists, murderers, ethnic cleansers, racists, politicians, oil men, domestic abusers and thieves might not inspire a Great Being to think we were truly worth saving.  Add in teenage angst, preschooler tantrums, corporate fraud, apathy and adult selfishness and greed?  Righting things is quite an undertaking and would require an enormous amount of dedication.  It would be exhausting.

Free will or not, I simply cannot conceive of a cognizant, focused God who would willingly have allowed Adolf Hitler or George W. Bush to rise to power without sending up some sort of black cloud or lightening bolt for us to reconsider.  But that assumes He could. 

Legitimate Godly distraction might also explain why a two-year-old drowns in a backyard fishpond, a tsunami kills thousands of people and a tragedy of the proportion of that in the Darfur region of Sudan is allowed to develop unimpeded. 

If one believes that we are indeed formed in the image of God, is it sacrilegious to suspect He would be fallible? Is this what we are promised we will understand on that day when our bodies return to dust and our souls are liberated from our youthfully delicious temples turned aged, imperfect corporal prisons?

Like the teenager who knows it all - until she experiences a taste of the misery of which she's been duly warned - I often rebel until I am reminded of my chronic vulnerability.  Weak, desperate or in misery, my faith rises from the ashes and becomes the accessible, easy and plentiful source of strength that has lifted me up countless times before. 

Having survived a difficult childhood, the struggles of an impoverished runaway, and a successful but horrifically prolonged medical treatment, I know without a doubt there is a God.  A mere human could not have lived through those times without spiritual assistance, but still I encourage and feed my doubt.  To believe is to trust, and to trust is to risk being hurt and disappointed.

I drop my wobbly beliefs on the floor like discarded galoshes when the wind is at my back. When I am once again tested by the newest struggles, I grit my teeth, squint my eyes and clutch my palms together.  Fervently praying I will not be abandoned, I send this plea to the same God whose existence I dared to glibly question the day before.

Faith is not easy for some.  My granddaughter is learning to pray and discussions of God and heaven have arisen in connection with the death of our puggle.  She talks to me with concern about the dog's physical whereabouts, as I again explain she is now like the old grandfather tree in our woods.  The little one likes the story about how the giant tree has fallen down and died in order to provide homes to little woodsie creatures as it enriches the ground for new seedlings.

 "Is Chuck in the woods?" 

 "No, Chuck's in dog heaven."

 "Is she in the vegetable garden?"

 She asks this quite seriously but something in this concept makes her laugh.  Before I can decide how to respond appropriately, she continues.

 "Can I see Chuck's body?  Is it under the dirt?  Can I dig it up?"  There is no guile in a five-year-old.  Everything is true except for make-believe, which she sometimes understands but just as often confuses with truth.

The wonder God and fairy Godmothers generate in children is now present on her face.  She seems to understand the concept of the supernatural better than I, demonstrated as she confides with excitement that there is a ghost living in her old house. 

My daughter, a highly intelligent and possibly brilliant young woman, overhears and insists this is true.  I remind her that this will not help her teach the child to sleep in her own bed.  She is laughing, but claims not even her husband wanted to retrieve their laundry from the basement and insists there were evil spirits down there.  She involuntarily shivers and provides dramatic punctuation to her words. 

Personally I thought it was a mold problem.  If you've ever had this issue, you will agree its resistance to treatment is actually quite surreal.  Perhaps God is an easier concept for the two of them than mold, as they seem to believe with ease in other body-less beings. 

I'm still having a conflict with my personal Guardian Angel, as I think she's been sleeping on the job.  I'm not doing as well as I would like, and the financial markets are under her control, not mine.  Or am I just feeling guilty to be alive, cured but knowing others have not been so lucky and disgusted with myself for feeling dissatisfied?

You see, when I recovered from cancer years ago, I made a promise to be grateful for everything.  Lately, in spite of Survivors' Guilt, I've done what any ingrate might.  I've relegated God back to the Cosmos and continued reaping the many perks available in a blessed life, as if I were one of the great 'entitled'.  Yes, I've given back, as I am above all a guilt-ridden person like many Catholics, but I judge myself almost as harshly as I judge others. We are a collective disappointment more times than not.

Having stooped to 'tisk-tisking' over an answering machine message that ends with a cheerful "God Bless", I tell myself it doesn't matter if it is sincere.  It hurts no one.  Blessings are wonderful, so what's my problem?  Have I become so cynical that I resent strangers who feel compelled to bless anyone who inadvertently calls them or am I jealous of their seemingly effortless faith?

Reminiscing this afternoon about how comforted I have felt by the notion of a higher being, my wobbling faith is re-shored and gives me strength and inspiration.  I feel like painting or sculpting but I cannot get comfortable with myself.  My intellect remains in direct conflict with my emotional need for some spiritual relief and reassurance about nothing and everything. I feel something between justly terrified and freshly alarmed and wonder what the heck is going to happen to our country over the next ten years.  The media, the politicians, the bloggers, my co-workers and my friends will not stop sounding the alarm.  We all feel the ever-present lack of financial, material, emotional, and national security.  I know they do not exist, but spiritual security does.

With little warning I begin to under-value my survival.  Some have suffered more and others less, but none of us are spared.  We are lucky in the way winning gamblers are.  I remain self-centered and rigid on this point and angry at whoever is to blame. 

Perhaps I am disappointed in God and his seemingly poor judgment on the free will thing.  Then again, this is blasphemy for an American.  We believe in the sanctity of the individual and the right of all to their pursuit of happiness.  There is nothing that says we must be spiritually fit or compassionate towards others as long as we are not criminal in our endeavors.

When life is good, of course, I lose touch and forget.  When I sink, my arms reach up seeking reassurance and immediate relief from my burgeoning fears, proliferating as I lose site of my old mantra, things always happen for a reason. I no longer trust the reason is in my best interest.

A wise friend once likened the benefit of habitual spiritual worship to calling your parents once a week, even though things were going well.

"When you eventually do have a problem", he said, "You not only remember the telephone number, but the lines of communication are wide open."

Maybe he was right.  If I visit more often I may even learn how to ignore that wobbly soprano.  After all, if so many people believe... and there really is an omnipotent God... anything is possible.

© 2008 Elizabeth Madrigal