I’ve been thinking about God a lot lately. I know that seems kind of out of character for me but really it isn’t that far out in left field. Having a relationship with the spiritual has always been important to me. It is the religion part that I have a hard time with in all honesty.
First a little background. I grew up in a family that was (is) very involved with church. We attended and were members of a small rural Presbyterian church that my family has been an integral part of for generations. I went to Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, Youth Group and was baptized and confirmed there. I was also married there. (Technically we were married in the “town” church as our sanctuary was too small to hold everyone, but the two churches are “yolked” and share a pastor, etc.) This congregation still is an important part of my life and who I am. They are family in the literal and spiritual sense. I’ve read the entire Bible all the way from Genesis through Revelations at least twice in my life. I’m not a Bible scholar by any stretch of the imagination but I know from whence I came.
In college I didn’t attend church at all except when I got home and even then it was mostly for holidays. When we got married we didn’t seek out a church in Detroit. It just wasn’t a priority. When we moved to Illinois and were starting to plan a family I wanted a church. I felt very isolated and alone here. We found a Presbyterian congregation and jumped in with both feet. I got very involved and made a lot of friends and connections. Then things changed. For one reason or another we felt increasingly dissatisfied there, mainly because of internal drama within the church itself (church politics gah!) At the same time I was having what could best be described as a crisis of faith. We also moved across town at this time and the girls were very young. It was very difficult to get them up and out the door on Sunday mornings. Because of the changes going on within the church we found it a good time to leave and look elsewhere. I had ideas of what I was looking for and Steve had different ideas. It came down to finding someplace that worked for all of us. For me I compromised and went where we were the most comfortable, was close to home, and had good youth programs. I wanted the girls to grow up with a church family much like I had and to make connections. We were also homeschooling at the time so making social connections for them was important. It has been over 10 years and I still don’t feel “at home” there. I’m comfortable most of the time but still feel like an outsider. I’m not going to say much more about it because I do have friends there and don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings in case someone from our church happens to read this. It’s me, not them.
Back to the God thoughts. I recently was invited to join a group with a friend who attends another protestant church in the area. She and I had talked about my dissatisfaction and desire for something more and she invited me to join her in a small discussion group. It’s not a Bible study, which is good because I have issues with the Bible. I know that may be why I have a hard time finding a church that I feel like I belong in! This group has been good for me because it helps me to find ways to bring God into my life on a weekly and daily basis.
A week and a half ago Emma and I were in Starved Rock State Park for our annual Spring Break getaway. This is a little trip that she and I started two years ago when Sarah started going on the Youth Group Work Tour for Spring Break. It gives us time together to reconnect and bond. This is the second year in a row that we’ve gone to Starved Rock. We love it there. We eat out, hike, play card games, and go shopping.
Being in such a place of natural wonder it is easy to sense God the creator. Wonder and awe at the beauty of creation is a given. Seeing small signs of spring’s awakening are everywhere. During this hike I also began to contemplate the other aspects of God as well. In the Christian church we are taught that God is Three in One; Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Let’s break this down.
The Father: Lots of Christians relate with this aspect. “He” is the angry, disciplinarian God of the Old Testament. He is the father figure that we are all trying to please and make proud of us. “See Daddy. I followed all your rules and did as you told me. Do I get a gold star?” Like all rebellious teenagers, I have a hard time towing the line and not wanting to back talk. I love my earthly Dad with all my heart and soul but even so I had my moments of rebellion and dislike for what he was trying to teach me when I was younger. I consider myself a teenager spiritually. Hopefully someday I will mature enough to the point that I can look back and realize that “Dad” was right all along. It’s also one of those, “that old generation doesn’t understand what it’s like nowadays” things. I think most of the rules written in the Old Testament are ridiculous when viewed through a modern lens. The Big Ten are still pretty useful but I do have a hard time not coveting my neighbor’s ass. Plus Jesus came and made a new covenant with God’s people and made all that old crap a moot point.
The Son: Obviously Christians love this part, the Jesus part. This is also the part that has given me the most difficulty over the years. At the most basic aspect I love this part. Jesus was a rabbi, a teacher. The parables and parts of the New Testament that are directly attributable to him are great lessons in how to live our lives. I get that, I agree with that. It’s all the other stuff that came after that that I have problems with personally. First of all I don’t know if I really believe that he was literally God’s son in the way we are taught to believe. I think the Christmas story is a fable constructed to embellish the story and make him more of a god than a man. I’ve read a lot of fables and myths from many cultures and there is a similarity to all of them. I think that this aspect of Jesus was added to appeal to the pagans of the time to get them on board with the growing Christian movement. Pretty blasphemous stuff there! There are elements of the Easter/Passion story that are also very mythical and stolen from other, much older, belief systems. Even the placement of these two events on our current calendar are clearly pagan in origin. How I prefer to regard Jesus is as a metaphor to show us that we ALL are God’s children and need to look to his teachings to learn how to live our lives in a fashion befitting a holy person. When you get into all the extraneous stuff and requiring “believers” to blindly declare a faith and take it all as gospel truth (forgive the pun) then you lose something.
The Holy Spirit: This aspect has been a problem for many people I know. It is so vague and unclear. This is the really woo-woo New Age part in my mind. Modern Christians seem to have a hard time with it because it seems so esoteric and mystical. Probably not surprisingly this is the part I’ve always felt the most relation to personally. To me the Holy Spirit is the creator part and even more blasphemy, the feminine aspect of God. Yep, I said it, God is a girl! Forget virgin birth and immaculate conception. To have a son, you need a mother. Having a triune God is pretty common across cultures. When I went through my pagan phase (which I’m not completely out of by the way.) one of the most attractive parts of the beliefs was the notion of a Goddess, a divine feminine. There is no denying that over the two thousand years of the Christian faith the feminine has been all but erased. Being pregnant and giving birth were for me very deeply spiritual experiences. I created life. That’s some powerful stuff there!
It was then that I had a “Holy Mathematics” moment. Three is a powerful number. Things with three EQUAL sides are very strong and stable. Think about a 3-legged stool. If one leg is weaker or shorter than the other two it will wobble and probably break if you put any pressure on it. Churches and people that put more or less emphasis on any of the three parts of God are not going to have a very strong or stable basis of belief. Call this an epiphany if you will. I am now working to find balance in my spiritual (okay religious if you must!) life. Hey, maybe God the Father is more like one of those Dads that still sends you emails and newspaper clippings with articles that he thinks you will find interesting or useful and sometimes have a less than subtle “message” in them because he’s still trying to teach you lessons. I can deal with that kind of Holy Father. Thanks Dad for the mental email, I think I might have gotten the message!
I’ll leave you with this:
Losing my Religion by R.E.M
Oh life is bigger
It's bigger than you
And you are not me
The lengths that I will go to
The distance in your eyes
Oh no I've said too much
I set it up
That's me in the corner
That's me in the spotlight
Losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don't know if I can do it
Oh no I've said too much
I haven't said enough
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try
Every whisper
Of every waking hour I'm
Choosing my confessions
Trying to keep an eye on you
Like a hurt lost and blinded fool
Oh no I've said too much
I set it up
Consider this
The hint of the century
Consider this
The slip that brought me
To my knees failed
What if all these fantasies
Come flailing around
Now I've said too much
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try
But that was just a dream
That was just a dream
**Even though this song is actually more of a love song than about religion it is one of my all time favorites and can be interpreted many ways.
