Saturday, January 28, 2012

Browsing in British Isles, one of my favorite shops in Rice Village in Houston, I wound my way over to the corner where the Wild Goose plaques and Celtic crosses are displayed.

My mind was preoccupied with an on-going dialogue I'd been having with some friends about the difference between living with questions, managing ambivalence, irony, paradox and the need to have the answers.   I had just written the first post from David Dark's book The Sacredness of Questioning Everything, and I was deep in thought, pondering the process of questioning.   Suddenly, my eyes fell on one of those Wild Goose plaques that made me stop in my tracks.  I almost laughed out loud.  I could hardly believe my eyes, the synchronicity was so strong.

Wisdom  begins with Wonder

Indeed it does.

I'd learned that wise statement as a child in a Sunday School class when I memorized Psalm 111:7.  The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,  the psalmist said and of course the meaning of fear in that context is awe and wonder.

In the second chapter "Questioning Religion", on p. 31, Dark writes, "Kafka said a good book should be like an ice ax cracking away at the frozen sea inside all of us.  Jesus spoke of old wineskins that couldn't contain new wine and about losing your life to find it.  The apostle Paul talked about Christ-followers as having died to the old self.  In this sense, we should take advantage of every chance we have to lose our religion."

"I don't want to question my faith," a friend told me, and I shook my head in wonder.   Life had pounded her to pieces, but she didn't want to question her faith!

My response, when life flings yet another issue I cannot change or control into my path, is always to ask something like, "What is it that I need to unlearn?" or "What is it that this thing I don't want is asking of me?" -- and those are always questions about faith.  Always.

When was the last time your faith was challenged?

What was that like for you?

What kinds of God-questions begged for attention in those circumstances?

What did you learn about yourself, God or the world in that crisis of faith?

Being able to wonder about things -- even things that someone tells us we should just accept "by faith" seems to me to be one of the marks of a mature person.  Maintaining a spirit of curiosity, taking the risk to think new thoughts or integrate new ideas into your belief systems has to be evidence of a strong person.  Indeed, I've said that your religion isn't yours until you have questioned that which you brought into adulthood.  Being able to question indicates a strength at the core, doesn't it?

I've been leading retreats and teaching Bible studies for my entire adult life, and sometimes I've created a stir, introducing new ideas or calling into question old, cherished beliefs or mis-beliefs.  Having seen what the act of questioning sacred cows and favored biases and prejudices can do, I've become sensitive to the fact that some people don't like to hear anything but what they have always heard, and I've also come to understand that there are people who did not get a firm grounding in anything when they needed that -- particularly in childhood and early adolescence -- and so any challenge to their current belief system threatens their inner security.  I understand that.

When you, in your childhood, asked questions about faith that were threatening to the adults in your life, what did they say to you?

When was the last time you heard someone say something that you initially rejected, outright, only to come to the dawning of consciousness later that what you heard had profound truth in it, truth that challenged your old way of thinking?

What do you do when you hear something you don't understand or that causes you to have a kind of spiritual heartburn?  Do you attack the person bringing the message?

I have no need to stir things up just for the sake of stirring them up, and I deeply respect the fact that for some, clinging to old beliefs is necessary, particularly at certain times in life.   I want to be compassionate and respectful about others' beliefs, just as I want mine to be considered with respect.

Dark goes on to write "Southern writer Flannery O'Connor once remarked that people talk about religious faith as if it's an electric blanket, cozy and available for quick and easy reassurance, an every-present resource for avoiding the truth of the matter.  In response to religion-as-sentimentality, she argued that a Christian faith is always more like a cross, a costly engagement with the world.  The bearer of faith enters into the crisis of what's wrong with the world rather than glossing over it."

As I write this, I am reminded of the admonition not to be responsible for "letting a letting one stumble" that I heard when I was still a little one, and I do understand that the art and practice of questioning everything can be a dangerous thing.   I argue, though, if it's more dangerous to cling to one's own answers, even if they are inadequate or wrong, or launch out into the deep of larger questions, deeper explorations and broader perspectives.

When do you use religion as a spiritual electric blanket, a bromide or a transitional object that can soothe your wounded pride?

Does your religious faith mature your spiritual nature or retard it?

Do you religious practices make you more awake, aware and alive, or do they put you to sleep, numbing you from the realities of life?

My belief is that there is a big difference between the assurance I have of God's abiding presence within me and my practice of questioning religious practices or beliefs that are contrived and created by humans.  There is a difference between the sense of the Presence of God within that sustains me and my willingness to test the doctrine and dogma that has been handed down to me.   I believe that questioning religious practices is a part of my growth in faith.  In fact, I believe it is my obligation to do so.

Thomas Keating, creator of the practice of Centering Prayer, Benedictine monk and author -- and one of my most important teachers -- says that we cannot move to a deeper level of faith without having the current level challenged.

I differentiate spirituality as our natural way of being from religion as the things we do to nourish our spirituality.   I believe that we cannot not be spiritual and that at our core, we are inherently spiritual and inclined toward religious acts.   Carl Jung said that he was not worried about whether or not people would have a god.  What worried him was which  God they would choose!

Dark writes on p. 42, "It should be obvious that our sense of what is sacred is tragically deficient if it remains closed to all but the most familiar people, places, and ideas.  If we aren't reaching toward a fresh understanding of the world through the questions we ask, we remain pretty well zombied in the cold comfort of a dead religiosity.  Fresh questions and new acts of imagination are our primary means to encounter love and liveliness, to discover integrity and authenticity.  Without them, we're pretty well done for.  We have to exercise and exorcise our imagination with questions."

And on p. 43 he writes, "At their best, all living religious traditions in some fashion offer a challenge to become aware of what's going on in our minds.  They invite us to refuse to settle and to resist the reality-distorted media that perpetuate debilitating forms of self-satisfaction."

Strong words from Dark, aren't they?

Here's what I know for sure:   When I am bold enough to ask the questions of my soul, my mind and my heart, somehow I grow in understanding and in courage.  And when I dare to ask my questions and face my doubts, in some mysterious way or another, God draws near.

I can't prove that rationally, you know.  It's one of those things that the heart knows.

When I silence those questions that won't go away, my soul shrivels.

My hunch is that God likes us to question -- not as cynics trying to prove our own fear-based and egocentric assumptions -- but as curious seekers who wonder about just how it is that things work in this big, vast, glorious world.

I love the bumper sticker that declares that "all who wander are not lost."

What is it you wonder about?

And when has wondering or wandering led you to a deeper faith?

How has God met you at the point of your questioning?

When has your uncertainty led you to firm grounding?

When has going into the darkness of those questions you shouldn't even ask led you out into the light of understanding?

Grace to you- Jeanie