St. Francis

If I had a blog, today I would write about the reason I struggle with faith.

While I was doing chores this morning, it occurred to me that it might be useful to give you some insight into the reason I am just now getting on board with the concept of faith and the answer is, in some ways, simple: I have long-standing trust issues with God.

I grew up attending the Episcopal church and was exposed to all the basic tenets of Christianity from an early age. I was taught that God was all-seeing and all-powerful and that the basis of our worship was love for Him and for one another. I was comfortable with that for about seven years or, put more succinctly, until my mother started having migraines.

Mom didn’t just have daily headaches. She had crippling pain that came with nausea and vomiting. It incapacitated her for days at a time and frequently ended in a period of hospitalization, all of which terrified me. I was afraid Mom was going to die from the pain and that the center of my universe would collapse, leaving me alone in a life of unending grief.

A Light in Dark Places

During that time, I prayed for hours each night but the Mom’s headaches still came. It didn’t take long for my pleas to turn to anger and I raged against God. I challenged His existence, begged him for a sign that He was there, and even cursed His name. I expected lightning to strike me down, but even my fury brought no response.

Table in the Wilderness

As I matured, I began to look for other paths that might lead me to an understanding of The Divine and I found connections in the tenets of Buddhism, Native American spirituality, and eventually in the nature-based worship of pantheists. I didn’t find a solution to Mom’s pain, but I did find comfort in these other paths, in worship that came more naturally to my wilderness-loving soul.

As a young adult, I made several abortive attempts to return to the Christian faith, once going so far as to pursue a career in the priesthood. A disastrous confluence of events derailed that pursuit and left me feeling betrayed; as much by Christians as by their God, and so I left the church behind. This time, I thought, for good.

The Rose Window

To say I was surprised when I started having synchronicities with a Christian tone (see my blog The Evidence of Things Not Seen), would be a vast understatement. This time I didn’t see it as a call to go rushing back to the church, but rather as The Divine speaking in one of its many voices; a voice that came just as I found myself in need of the gift of faith.

And so it goes. Each day I remind myself that I can put my worries in the care of The Divine and all will go according to plan. My desire is to integrate the concept of faith into my spirituality, which exists outside any one religion. Ironically, the challenge exists not because I am unfamiliar with Christianity, but because I know it well. It is harder to gain new a perspective on the familiar than it is to start anew. I will have to take to heart the words of Margaret Wheatly, in her work A Simpler Way:

Land Ho

“Healing waters will cover the land, giving birth to new life, burying forever the ancient, rusting machines of my past understandings. And on those waters I will set sail to places I now only imagine. There I will be blessed with new visions and new magic. I will feel once again like a creative contributor to this mysterious world. But for now, I wait. An act of faith. Land ho.”