Over the years, from time to time, I’ve surprised people when they find out that not only was I raised in a Christian family, but I still count many of my core beliefs as Christian. Apparently, I don’t “come across that way,” as one friend put it in high school. My primary color scheme is generally black. I listen to a lot of dark music. I’ve always run around with the alternative/gothic crowd. One of my favorite artists is H. R. Giger who’s work is extremely dark and disturbing. I have never had any problems with people believing in ghosts, magic (or majick), Gaea, or any form of “paganism” (popularly described as anything that’s not one of the major forms of religion).
On top of it all, I count my beliefs as mine, and other people’s beliefs as theirs. If they want to talk about it fine — but I’m not about to attempt to convince them that I’m “right” and they’re “wrong”, and I expect the same respect from them.
At the same time, while the base of my personal belief system is rooted in the Christian church (specifically, the Episcopal church), I certainly have my times when I struggle with it. The existance of any type of god is not always something that’s easy to hold on to, when faced with the things that go on in the world all the time. Some days I see sunbeams cutting through trees and making the golds and reds of the fallen leaves glow against the mossy ground, and it’s hard not to believe in God. I have a friend studying massage therapy and kinesthesiology, and for her, the more she learns about how the body works, how all the systems interact with each other to keep us moving, it convinces her more and more that there must be an intelligence behind it all, and helps to keep her faith in God intact. At other times, I see the atrocities committed by man upon other men, upon the world we live on, and find it very hard to believe that there can be anything “keeping an eye on us.”
It’s all part. It happens. It’s how you deal with it, and what decisions you come to, that help make up who you are — and I personally think that there aren’t necessarily any “right” or “wrong” answers to any of it.
Trains of thought like that are part of what makes finding a weblog like Real Live Preacher such a joy. Written by a Protestant minister in Texas, it’s not what most people would come to expect when reading something written from a religious point of view — funny, sometimes profane, full of both faith and doubt, very honest, and a joy to read.
I received an email from someone puzzled about the grief I experienced when I gave up on God. This person felt liberated when she left Christianity.
I understand how some would feel that way. Many of you only know Christianity from bad books, TV preachers, and the people who watch them. If that were all I knew of Christianity I would celebrate my liberation from it all the days of my life.
But I was exposed early to the real stuff — Top Shelf Christianity — Deep and Old Christianity. This kind is practiced by people who work until they stink and take life in great draughts. Their hands are as rough as their hides, and they DO their faith in secret, hiding their good works in obedience to Christ. They know how to love and be loved in return. Their laughter is loud and has its roots in joy.
These Christians don’t want your money and they don’t advertise. You will only find them if you MUST find them. These are the ones who took me to Mexico as a boy and showed me pain and joy. They hid nothing from me.
I was also blessed by being exposed to the right kind of Christian thinkers. C.S Lewis and his friend J.R.R. Tolkein. Frederick Buechner, Carlyle Marney, and Thomas Merton. Will Campbell who wrote “Brother to a Dragonfly” and Eberhard Arnold. Frederick Dale Bruner and Martin Luther King Jr.
You did understand there was more to this than religious TV and the drivel they sell in those awful Christian bookstores, right? After all, Christianity didn’t sustain itself for twenty centuries by shitting Hallmark cards before a live studio audience.
Many thanks to Boing Boing for the link.