Some Reflections on Part III of
Naked Spirituality by Brian McLaren
Perplexity: the Season of Spiritual Surviving
Some reflections on doubts, fears, and questions which affect many of us on our faith journeys. Brian McLaren gives us a starting point for what I hope will be an ongoing conversation about these important aspects of faith.
McLaren suggests that in this season (of perplexity), “what matters most to us—more than being right, more than being effective—is being honest, authentic, even brutally so. . . .Life itself is no longer the simple war or the complex game it used to be for us. On our bad days it’s a joke, on our good days it’s a quest and on most days it’s a bit of both.”(p. 142)
“We’ve grown beyond being dependent infants who look to their leaders for everything, and beyond being somewhat independent children who boast. ‘I can do it myself!’. . . . We will probably come to doubt (our faith) now and may even abandon it for awhile. At the very least we will need to add a margin for mystery and unbolt some of the structural elements of our faith that have been until now tightly fitted together. Our faith becomes less the nest and more the quest at this stage, and mention of God evokes feelings of ambivalence. It’s a great season for honesty and for digging deeper, but not so great for commitment, energy or enthusiasm.”(p. 142)
The longer we live with our faith and study the scriptures the more likely it is for us to ask questions of others, of our faith organizations and of ourselves. We want to live with our beliefs or lack of beliefs as they are developing and evolving. We question others, we question scripture and we question ourselves and what we once believed. At this point in my faith journey, I want to be honest with others, and mostly with myself, about who I am and what I believe and why this is important to how I live. For me this was and still is an important part of my life’s journey. It is not always easy, it never gives simple answers, but when I have experienced faith, it is an exciting and life giving faith. It is during these times in our lives that McLaren believes we begin to ask the questions of God: When did you leave, where are you, are you coming back, when? (p. 149)
“Hold your when or how long or where before God. Make space for your disappointment, frustration, and unfulfillment to come out of hiding and present themselves in the light. Don’t rush (through these times of) spiritual dryness. The spirit wants to join you. . . .” (p. 155)
McLaren entitles Chapter 18: “NO: The Void Expands.” He heads the chapter with a quote from William Temple, former Archbishop of Canterbury, “If you have a false idea of God, the more religious you are, the worse it is for you—it were better for you to be an atheist.” (p. 157)
This time of doubt and questioning and ‘wandering in the wilderness,’ can be very difficult for those of us who have had a strong faith in God and want more than anything else to maintain or reclaim that faith. The struggle is to find a way to believe what we want to believe and still be honest with ourselves. This can often be a time of “the dark night of the soul,” spoken about by St. John of the Cross. We know what we had, we know what we want, but we do not know how to get it. “Perhaps by raging against the failed image of God, it will fall, and behind it the true God will appear, the true God to whom Meister Eckhart prayed, ‘save me from god.’” (p.158)
“This is why doubters, atheists, and skeptics have an important place in the community of faith. The acid of their critique flows—even though they may not realize it—from their sadness that a truer, brighter, bigger better God isn’t showing up, but only a second rate imposter god. And their no is a dual rejection. First, it is a refusal to accept the second-rate imposter god’s presence, and second, it is a refusal to accept the true and living God’s absence.” (p. 159)
“. . . .We have kept these questions at bay for months, years, even decades.
· Why wouldn’t God have chosen to aid a needy person without my intercession
· How could God create a world where lovers are separated, little girls raped, mothers send sons off to war to be killed or kill sons of other mothers
· Where we have to nurse children with severe diseases or parents through years of mental illness or dementia” (p. 159)
When my belief in God was unshakeable, I had a difficult time understanding how a person could doubt or be a skeptic, much less be an atheist. Now that I have traveled through more than one of my own “dark nights of the soul,” I understand completely. Several years ago I attended a conference led by Fr. Andrew Greeley. He was asked “why, with as much proof as there is for God, some people just do not believe.” Acknowledging the existence of proof for God’s existence, Greeley then said, “the reason some do not believe is that there is just as much proof that that there is no God as there is that God exists.” I found this extremely helpful for me at the point I was in on my spiritual journey.
“You can’t have faith without doubt. Give up the business of suppressing doubt. Doubt and faith are two sides of the same thing. Faith will grow out of doubt, the real doubt. We don’t pray right because we evade doubt.”(Thomas Merton)(p. 163)
Our doubts are very real and a very important part of our journey. Trying to pretend like they do not exist and then acting as if they do not does not change how we feel or how we believe. I have known ordained ministers who have doubts but do not express them because they believe the colleagues do not doubt. Interestingly, some of those some colleges have the same doubts but do not dare express them for the same reasons. Better to be open and honest with yourself and others than to pretend for each other. It is important that we not condemn each other for our doubts and beliefs, because none of us is able to walk in the other’s shoes. We are called to be companions on the journey, not judges of “right belief.”
“I often feel that the deep middle of Job has been betrayed by the addition of a shallow preface and dishonest epilogue.”. . . .Human beings have a right to question the divine, but they cannot expect answers—and that even without answers, faith in God endures (p. 163). . . .Learn to live without answers.”(p. 165) . . . . The voice of the Lord comes not with answers, but with a tornado of questions.”(p. 167)
Job is the quintessential parable about “why bad things happen to good people.” It attempts to explain that good life can fall apart for anyone and that the strength of the faith or the orthodoxy of their belief does not affect this. Job’s friends are stuck in the old way of seeing life and try to bring him back to their reality. Job knew what kind of life he has led and intends to take it directly to God. He is allowed to do so and questions God and God answers his questions with questions: “who are you to question God? where were you when I made the great leviathan?
Too many Christians have been afraid to question God or doubt God. We have been told that God will solve all of our problems and answer all of our questions and when that does not happen, then the first thought most of us have is that something is wrong with us. If we do not have this thought, than many of us have friends or even preachers like Job’s friends who are more than happy to let us know that, in fact, something is wrong with us. Our faith is not simple with easy answers for every occasion. Our faith is dynamic and evolving and exciting and life giving. This means we have to live with ambiguity and doubts and fears, but these are the very things that open us up to the mystery and mystical life in relationship with creation, with other human beings, and if we are fortunate, with God. As Jimmy Buffett says in one of his newer songs, “life is not over, it’s just simply complicated.” And hopefully this discussion is not over either. I invite you to become followers and to continue this discussion on this blog.
The Journey continues,
Ben
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