It is possible!... FAITH AFTER DOUBT by Brian McLaren (Part 2)

"Blessed are the curious, for their curiosity honors reality.

Blessed are the uncertain and those with second thoughts, 

    for their minds are still open.

Blessed are the wonderers, for they shall find what is wonderful.

Blessed are those who question their answers, 

    for their horizons will expand forever.

Blessed are those who often feel foolish, 

    for they are wiser than those who always think themselves wise.

Blessed are those who are scolded, suspected, 

    and labeled as heretics by the gatekeepers, 

    for the prophets and mystics were treated in the same way 

    by the gatekeepers of their day.

Blessed are those who know their unknowing,

    for they shall have the last laugh.

Blessed are the perplexed, 

    for they have reached the frontiers of contemplation.

Blessed are they who become cynical about their cynicism

    and suspicious of their suspicion,

    for they will enter the second innocence.

Blessed are the doubters, for they shall see through false gods.

Blessed are the lovers, for they shall see God everywhere." BM

I finished the book on November 11.  I have enjoyed journalling through this book.  Brian takes us on a journey that in a way is just reminding us that we are all on a journey already.  He is just helping us move forward as is the design of nature.  We were not meant to stay still but to continue and to discover beyond what we were given and handed down from our ancestors.  As we grow as humans we have our own story that needs to be incorporated into the story of life.  I started this journey in Simplicity, moved through Complexity and find myself somewhat lost in Perplexity and yet longing for Harmony.  

Brian shares this "benediction" modelled after the Beatitudes and it was such an encouragement for me.  I want to print it off and hang it on my office wall.  

At the end of each chapter, Brian gave some questions that helped make this journey personal for me and that helped me to process where I was and gave me some hope that I could find some "Faith after Doubt" and it didn't have to look like what I had, but in fact was a beautiful new space where I could rest with the unknown and yet embrace the Creator that seems to still be there though the tumultuous journey.  

I will pick three questions and my responses to those questions.  This book became personal because I was invited to delve into my own soul as learn from not just Brian McLaren but others that he invited along on the journey.  

How did you relate to Rob’s and Hannah’s stories? BM

The following quotes from Rob and Hannah I resonate with.  

Rob: “It’s strange,” he said. “But to the degree I stare into the abyss and accept the inevitability that I will someday die and the possibility that humanity will eventually go extinct and our little human DNA story will be over forever, to the degree I face this without trying to suppress it, candy-coat it with some beliefs, or fix it with some dogma, something happens. I stop trying to explain away all the pain in the universe and my life. I stop having some ironclad explanation for everything, and I admit that I don’t know. I feel less and less like I’m trying to play God and have all the answers, and I feel more and more like the tiny human being I actually am.”

Hannah: “I feel like I’ve lost faith,” she said, protest sign raised high. “Faith in God, faith in humanity, faith in government, faith in markets … it’s all gone.” She made a gesture with her free hand to indicate her faith had vanished in a puff of smoke. “I’ve even lost faith that my research will make any difference, or that marching and protesting will make any difference. I’ve reached the depressing conclusion that the world runs on money, not wisdom or common sense or justice.”

"How do you respond to my conviction that, in spite of all their problems, faith communities still have a vital role to play in our world?" BM

I agree with the premise that we can't get rid of religious communities and organizations… but not for a lack of wishing we could one day.  But that is just my perspective.  I wish we could see all walls down, but that doesn't mean we have to stop with how we process the world.  Can we still hold our beliefs and perspectives of how this planet operates and not have the borders that separate us? 

"Do your best to put the ideas of dualism and non-dual or post-dual consciousness into your own words." BM

I like jigsaw puzzles.  They come in all different sizes, but I have never seen a puzzle with just two pieces.  The smallest children's puzzle I have seen still had four pieces.  Life is a puzzle and to imagine it being less complex than a toddler's jigsaw… that doesn't make a lot of sense.  Right now I am working on a 2000 piecer… and that doesn't seem as complex as life.  Maybe some things in life can appear simple and dualistic, but even looking at the simple things, one can find more than one way to address them. 

For example:  I am thirsty.   Dualism says either drink this or die.  Non dualism asks "What do you want to drink… there are countless ways to quench your thirst."  

Thank you Brian McLaren for taking me and so many others on this journey of understanding and hope.  I don't think I ever wanted to abandon the idea of faith or the hope of what is beyond me to see and know and comprehend in this world.  I just wanted it to make sense.  I just wanted it to be real. 

Like you, I am an Enneagram 4.  I want my journey to be authentic and I want to matter for who I am as me.  The biggest struggle I have is that my journey of discovery will hurt the people I love.  I grieve when that happens.  You have opened up the world of possibilities to me.  I can continue on and discover who I am and discover a faith beyond what I was given that is real to me and still embrace the Creator that gives me air to breathe, people to love and a beautiful world to play in.  I don't have to know everything, or even know anything to embrace a "Faith beyond Doubt".  Faith doesn't require knowledge, it gives hope.  What a beautiful thing.   Thank you so much.  

"The road to faith after doubt is often lonely. But beyond the loneliness, you discover a place of solidarity where everything is sacred and everything belongs, including your doubts and including you. " BM

 

Is it really possible?... FAITH AFTER DOUBT by Brian McLaren (Part 1)

The “me” I saw in that bathroom mirror had been formed by my faith. God sat at the top of the pyramid of my conceptual universe, like that weird eye on the back of the U.S. dollar bill. If I lost faith in God, if I lost faith in Christianity, what would be left of me?... Yes, there were other complications, practical matters like the question of how I would make a living if I lost faith. But the deepest question that stared me in the face was not financial or professional. It was existential: who would I be without God, without Jesus, without the Holy Spirit, without Christian faith? Would there even be a recognizable me left if I lost my faith?  BM

Some books, like this one, cross my path and invite me into the story. It's those books that stay with me.  I have yet to decide if this one is yet transformational or "life-changing".  I'm not as quick to label my books that way so soon after reading them.  But they stay with me... whether that means they take up space on my bookshelf or megabytes in my iPhone storage.  

I am still on a quest.  I want to feel good about myself for where I am on my journey.  I want to feel that who I am and who I am becoming and what I think about both of those things actually matters. I am still not there.  I still think I am flawed.  I still look to others to validate my existence.  I still need authors like Brian McLaren to remind me that I am okay.  

Something in us wants to belong. But something in us also wants to be free, to be authentic, to be the truest, most genuine version of ourselves that we can. Those two desires can be in tension.

Something in us wants to be honest. But something in us also wants to be liked by those around us. And those two desires can be in tension.

Something in us wants to be good. But something in us also wants to be thought of as good by others. And those two desires are often in tension.

Something in us wants to be consistent. But something in us also wants to keep growing, and growing often means changing. So those two desires often conflict." BM

There it is... the desire to be authentic.  Brian McLaren, like me, values authenticity... (Enneagram 4).  I figure I have a choice in life... and it's not in choosing what I believe.  I agree with Bart Campolo on that premise... I don't choose what I believe, I just believe or I don't believe.  But I think my choice come in what I do as a response to myself and to others.  I think I chose to feel like I don't matter.  I think I could chose to feel like I do matter.  I chose to let others opinions dictate my worth.  I think I could chose to have faith in my own opinions.   Wow... that is a revelation.  

"If we dare take a first step, we discover that faith can be a road, a doorway out of the fortress prison of certainty and into the adventure of living.

Before us lies the unknown, which is our life." BM

This book is an invitation to anyone who has been feeling the tremors beneath their feet.  The ground they stand on is shaking and there seems like nothing to hold on to that makes any sense.  What Brian McLaren offers is not something concrete to hold onto, but a dance lesson to learn how to move one's feet with the tremors. 

For the first time, it dawned on me: there’s a difference between doubting God and doubting my understanding of God, just as there’s a difference between trusting God and trusting my understanding of God. Would I be able to doubt my understanding of God while simultaneously trusting God beyond my understanding? In a strange way, that question for the first time in my life allowed me to see God as a mystery distinct from my concepts of God. BM

As one can see from my other blog posts... labels have been easier for me to let go of.  Especially the label of "God"... but even in letting go of the label because of what it has come to define in my culture, I long to have a connection with that which gave me breath.  So maybe it is the same concept... I could let go of the understanding and just embrace that which I fail to understand but long to still embrace.  

"I was a very loyal person, respectful of authority and always ready to give the benefit of the doubt to my tradition and its spokespeople. But over time, I not only lost confidence in many of the beliefs that gatekeepers required: I lost faith in the gatekeepers themselves and their whole system of using beliefs as markers of belonging. If I was going to be a person of faith, it couldn’t be in a community that was obsessed with policing my beliefs. I needed a different understanding of faith entirely, as something beyond beliefs."BM

I get this... I have been disillusioned with the gatekeepers, and yet scared of them, but conflicted because of the admiration and love I have for some of those gatekeepers.   I don't blame them for holding tight to their beliefs.  I held tight to my beliefs because it was the only security I was given.  I think security is a human need.  So where do we go when that which was secure for us becomes an earthquake.  Maybe we start dancing with the tremors.  

"In that light, the word doubt can mean two very different things. When it is applied to faith that expresses itself in beliefs, it means one thing. When it is applied to faith that expresses itself in revolutionary love, it means something very different. Sometimes, it is only by doubting a religion that expresses itself in beliefs that we can discover a faith that expresses itself in revolutionary love.

That is what I mean by faith after doubt.

To some, that will sound like heresy. To others, it sounds like liberation." BM

I have taken up colouring.  I like the guide lines and creative pictures that have been given me, but I get to fill in the colours.  And lately,  I discovered that I also get to decide how much gets coloured in and how much stays black and white.  I don't need to have all the holes filled in.  It takes the stress out of "completing" something that is so intricate and detailed in design.  I colour what I can and then it becomes something beautiful in its "unfinishedness".  That is my journey.  Life offers me a black and white picture and gives me a bucket of pencil crayons and says "Have at it, be creative, but remember that this is a journey not a destination.  Your picture will still be beautiful even if there are parts of the picture not filled in with your pencil crayons. "

"Faith was about love all along. We just didn’t realize it, and it took doubt to help us see it. " BM

(here is where I get honest... I am only two thirds of the way through the book... so when I get done reading the book, I will do a follow up blog post with my conclusions.  I just got so much already from reading that I wanted to post something. ) 

TO BE CONTINUED...