I honestly don’t know what to think about God.
I don’t mean what to think about the things that He does or doesn’t allow to happen in the world.
Although heaven knows (no pun intended) there’s a whole big long list of things we could get into there.
I mean I honestly don’t what to think about his existence.
This is nothing new for me. And it’s not the result of any sudden change of mind or heart, no knee jerk reaction to my latest trials and tribulations.
I’ve never known what to think.
I was brought up in a household that didn’t worship or participate in any faith-based activities. As I recall, I was eight or nine years old before I even set foot in a church and, then, it was as the “guest” of the parents of the neighbor kids I ran with, invited along for the Sunday ride, as it were, my own parents maintaining a “uh, sure, whatever” response to the neighbors invitation.
It’s occurred to me only in recent years that maybe those neighbors were trying to pick up the family slack by getting that little kid into the good graces for future use.
I was baptized at the age of 19 and, then, only because the girl I was marrying wanted to marry in the church. It was her loving, well intended desire that we be a church going family and I figured, what the hey, one church is as good as the next when it comes to being a “member”.
And I’ve had a pretty in and out relationship with the church through the years, sometimes the regular and religious (pun intended this time) weekly church goer, sometimes the guy who had more recreational priorities every Sunday, back to “committed” church guy (knowing me, if you do, or having read my work for any length of time, would it surprise you to learn that for a period of several years in the 70’s, I was actually a lay priest in the Episcopal Church?), back to feeling no urge on Sundays to be in that number, when the choir comes marching in.
Through it all, I have maintained that while I might not be a religious man, per se, I do think of myself as a spiritual one.
I may not be a God man. But I don’t feel like I’m godless.
I believe in the amazing and healing power of love, the miracle and grace of forgiveness, I know the difference between right and wrong and feel pride at my efforts to do the former while experiencing applicable amounts of shame and regret when I do the latter and I do genuinely keep the mind that pulses away inside this incredibly hard head open to the idea that God is there and loves me and wants me to do His will and that these things, and all the other things that my friends who have “found” it tell me are true…are true.
And I have been on my knees more than just a few times in my life.
And not just lately when everything in my life is in the crapper.
Although I will admit that I’m guilty of banging on the door a whole lot more lately.
What the hell, it hurts. I want it to stop.
And it’s not like I’m not doing my bit here. I still haven’t started thinking about ways to rob a convenience store, haven’t turned my pain and anger and fear into some destructive lashing out at any and all around me (lost my cool a time or two?..,well, duhhh) and I haven’t yet purchased, let alone crack the seal, on a bottle of the whiskey that had me well gripped in both distilled hands for many years and which I put down and walked away from many years ago.
Come on, God, even if I didn’t do it all by myself, even if you were there and helped me kick the damn booze, I should be getting some kind of credit for it that I could cash in right now.
When I vent heart, soul and spleen to friends that I am, and have been for a long time, doing everything I know how to do to let God know that I want in, that I want to be told what it is He wants me to do with my life and that I hope to be given the strength, courage and humility to do all of those things, only to get either no answer I can discern or see things go from bad to worse, they, inevitably, invoke some variation of the “mysterious ways” clause.
Okay. I’m a tough sell, I admit. But I simply don’t know what to do with the logic of the idea that God’s plan to bring me into the loop is to continue keeping me out of the loop.
In times of frustration and hurt, the lyrics of John Lennon pop into my head.
“God is a concept / by which we measure our pain”
Then again, John got shot dead at 40, so I guess the lesson there might be don’t get glib about the boss.
Then, comes the praise part.
As in…love God and praise him for all things…whether good or evil, right or wrong, joyous or painful…open the heart and give thanks and praise, yada, yada…
What?
I’ve been debating this sticky point with friends and peers for years.
Thanks and praise, (i.e., credit) for all that is good and joyous and loving and giving, even miraculous in this world?
Absolutely. Thanks and praise and then some.
But if one of my children had been in their dorm room at Virginia Tech or sitting in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois, I am going to have to take a pass on that thanks and praise part, thanks.
I confess I am human, that I am flawed and weak, that I have learned much and, yet, know nothing compared to that which there is to know, that I have been selfish and greedy and have, in that selfishness, caused hurt and pain and heartache to people who loved me and deserved better. And, after all the witty, sardonic, satiric, cynical shit is seen for what it is and pushed aside, I am a loving, caring, giving man who wants, with all of his heart, mind and soul to believe in a loving, caring, giving God, A God that would not be so vain as to expect to be praised and thanked for that which causes immeasurable pain and suffering in his children. A God who rightly expects his children to tow the line or expect some form of loving, but firm, discipline as a consequence, but who exercises the compassion that insures the punishment always most assuredly fits, but never exceeds, the crime. A God who, when faced with a child who just isn’t getting it, revises the plan as every good mortal teacher does, not by continuing to teach the lesson in a way that isn’t getting through, driving the child to a point of frustration where they no longer want to listen and give up, but by finding a way to get through to that child, encouraging, nurturing, supporting and inspiring them.
In the great scheme of things, the bottom line is the golden rule.
He, who has the gold, makes the rules.
In this life, that would be God.
So, the fact that I’m not seeing those things, that I am that child who just isn’t getting it, is, by default, my bad.
And the only answer I’m getting from friends and family is that mysterious ways thing.
Actually, it’s not much of a mystery to me at all. I’m pretty clear on one thing.
I honestly don’t know what to think about God.
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