FAITH UNRAVELED
HOW a GIRL WHO KNEW ALL the ANSWERS
LEARNED to ASK QUESTIONS
"If there's one thing I know for sure,
it's that faith can survive just about anything,
so long as it's able to evolve."
It's early morning on February 29, 2020 and I have to confess, today is the first time I have grieved at the end of a book. I grieved because I didn't want it to end. I wanted more. I got to the end and kept reading the Acknowledgments because I didn't want it to be over. Maybe I could still find some more gold in the gratitude that the author gave people for helping her compile this treasure of a story.
"It's not about the answers I found
but about the questions I asked." RHE
but about the questions I asked." RHE
Rachel Held Evans died last year: May 4, 2019. When she died, I didn't even know who she was. Only recently have I discovered who this beauty of a woman is, and the legacy that she left behind for doubters and strugglers like me. Maybe it is fitting that today I grieved... not only for the end of the book, but for her.
She is the author of four books and it made sense for me that I would first pick up the one entitled "Faith Unravelled" because that is what has happened to me. My faith has unravelled.
"Big questions have a sort of domino effect. Concerns about certain biblical texts led to questions about the Bible’s accuracy; questions about the Bible’s accuracy led to questions about how the canon was assembled; questions about how the canon was assembled led to questions about church authority; questions about church authority led to questions about the Holy Spirit; questions about the Holy Spirit led to questions about the Trinity; questions about the Trinity led to questions about how on earth I’d gone from worrying about the garden of Eden to worrying about three-leaf clover analogies.
Only this time, I wasn’t asking these questions rhetorically or in preparation for an imaginary debate with a skeptic. I was asking them because I didn’t know. This time, I was the skeptic." RHE
Have you ever had the experience of free falling... hoping something will slow you down, pull you back or envelop you so you don't die in the process. Whether it is a parachute, a set of bungee cords or an obstacle free pool of water... there is still an element of faith required in jumping. Faith in the guy that packed the chute, faith in the designer of the bungee cords and faith in the lifeguard to keep that pool of water free from obstacles and other swimmers.
Well that is what I am doing... free falling.
"What makes a faith crisis so scary is that once you allow yourself to ask one or two questions, more inevitably follow. Before you know it, everything looks suspicious." RHE
To be honest, I am scared, I feel alone. Maybe not totally alone now, that Rachel and a few others have come into my literary world. Sarah Bessey put it into words so well in the Forward...
“In these pages Rachel will do for you what she did for so many of us: she will give you permission. Permission to look your doubts right in the eye, to name them, and then to ask yourself a fateful question: “What if I’m wrong?” That question can be terrifying, but it can also be healing.” SB
That could be why I am on this journey.... for healing. Sarah is right... the questions are terrifying... like standing at the top of the high dive board (or the bungee platform) and looking down. It is much more scary to stand on the diving board and look down at the water, than it is to stand on the side of the pool and look up. But what is my other option... go back and climb down the ladder? Maybe I won't dive in head first, but I can still jump, tuck my legs in and hold on tight... and cannonball!!!
"If I’ve learned anything about what it’s like to be on the outside of Christianity looking in, it’s how awful it feels when your questions aren’t taken seriously. Sometimes I just want to hear someone say, 'You know, I’m not sure what to make of that either.'" RHE
On the outside looking in... that is feeling I understand. What I don't want right now is an invitation back into whatever club I came out of. Maybe it's scary out here, and maybe I feel alone many a time, but I am still healing and really not alone.
"My generation is perhaps more equipped than any other to defend the uniqueness of Christianity, but we are also the most capable of seeing things from a different perspective. So we began to deconstruct — to think more critically about our faith, pick it apart, examine all the pieces, and debate which parts are essential and which, for the sake of our survival, we might have to let go." RHE
Letting go.... There are some many things I have let go of, and so many things I have yet to let go of. I keep saying this is a journey. Living the journey has made me not so destination focused. "What can I do today?" is the question I ask now. I breathe now, so I need to live now. Tomorrow doesn't exist for me. Today is what I have been given. Tomorrow is that train I will never board, because when I make it to the platform, the train I climb on is Today. I may make plans for the future... but having had enough experience in failing plans... I prefer to look forward to today and what I can do in the daylight hours I have been given.
I hope I haven't spoiled the book, by including some amazing quotes. There is so much more gold in the pages of this outstanding and valuable read. I only shared a few coins worth. I am grateful to Rachel Held Evans and other authors I've been reading with this train of thought. Who in giving me the freedom to doubt, might just be saving my faith.
"...many of us entered the world with both an unparalleled level of conviction and a crippling lack of curiosity. So ready with the answers, we didn’t know what the questions were anymore. So prepared to defend the faith, we missed the thrill of discovering it for ourselves. So convinced we had God right, it never occurred to us that we might be wrong.
In short, we never learned to doubt.
Doubt is a difficult animal to master because it requires that we learn the difference between doubting God and doubting what we believe about God.
The former has the potential to destroy faith; the latter has the power to enrich and refine it. The former is a vice; the latter a virtue." RHE