I hope I have that quote above right - it is from the "X-Files," a poster on Agent Mulder's office wall related to his obsession with extraterrestrials. If you were a fan of the show, it almost makes no sense - the evidence was so 'there' that you would have to try hard to NOT believe. But so it always hung pasted to the wall, a reminder to the viewers that they should not take this stuff too seriously. Mulder was on a quest for meaning, and the ET X-Factor gave that to him. He would try to believe, for his own sake, regardless.
So the book, "Therese of Lisieux" by Monica Furlong, has worked its way into my unconscious. Prodding here and there with psychological asides, we are (so far - we have not gotten to the visions yet) taken through a rather dreary life of a little girl who was raised a Catholic zealot, who lost her mother when she was 4, and then lost her beloved older sister to the Carmelite convent some 5 years later. She sees, we are led to believe, that the Calling is the only way left to complete her life. Adding to this, we are to understand that she has no other avenue to develop her great intelligence, anyway. Therese, we find, told her sisters at an early age that she was meant for "something big." For the Catholic hierarchy, this was understood as the calling to sainthood. For the author, Therese's draw to the religious life was driven by her desire for recognition channeled in the only direction a female of her time could take for a semblance of fame. Psychology and repression - so far, it has made a melancholy read. And, as said, it has burrowed into my own inner need to believe.
It started with a conversation about God and Jesus yesterday on a long walk. I mentioned my own belief that NOT believing in God (the mature God, not that of our early childhood indoctrination) was absurd - that It's presence was so profoundly obvious, from the existence of meaning to existence itself - that other's disbelief could only be equated to that of a fish in water - it is so immersed in water that it could not tell you (if it could) what water is. It just is. But Jesus? That he walked and lived and died as a man raises questions about belief. Yes, there were miracles, but religious myths of all cultures are filled with miracles. Yes, many of his time had seen or heard of the miracles and the Resurrection, and it is hard to doubt their sincerity. But we are a long way from the historical event, and we are a different people. Even the tough Romans believed in gods and spirits and miracles then. Now, the Romans among us, our tough scientists and cultural elite, find such ideas the epitome of ignorance.
I do not. This is an unfathomable universe. But that does not mean that all the things that we think of or believe are true. For me, I would like to believe in the divine Christ - but like Mulder's partner, Scully, I need more evidence. Just a little bit more. And Furlong's book makes that evidence (so far) that much harder to find.
Such it was that the book started the conversation on that walk, which either drove or was driven by the unconscious mind that developed a spooky dream last night. In it, I found myself climbing on the side of a rocky cliff, along with several others. With a sudden spasm of faith, I leaned back against the cliff in the posture of one crucified, and there, without nails or pain, became stuck to the rock. I then told the others, "See? This is how you are saved. Try it yourself." And so they did, but with that, I became unglued and returned to my 'normal' self, now seeking company. Looking up, I saw the others glued to the cliff, their eyes closed and bodies still, as if dead, and I called to them, "you can come down now. No need to be dead anymore," but they remained, encased in an aura of both restful peace and frightening death. Feeling the chill, I slid down the mountain into a tangle of forest and swamp, just as the sun set. It was then that I found myself surrounded by humans who were also demons, zombie-like phantoms who grabbed at me from the dark. "Voodoo!" I cried, identifying a religion I find to be filled with terror, and with that, others came forth from the dark, tearing at me with arms and religious beliefs (so it seemed) that I also found terrifying. I tried then to scale back up the mountain, back to the peaceful land of the crucified, but could not. The arms coming from the darkness were too strong. And so I woke.
Does fear drive belief? Certainly, and for someone raised Christian, a lack of belief in Christ means the ruination of the soul. "He" is the only way, and one must believe, unlike Thomas, without needing proof. One has to think with the heart, and to know Christ in the heart is to know that one is right. But that means that to NOT know Christ in one's heart means that one is wrong - not a good thing in a faith that postulates an unpleasant afterlife for the non-believer.
And so, Furlong would have us believe, we find fear and a psychological need to alleviate that fear - along with a need for fulfillment - at the base of the Little Saint's faith. More so than I, she would have needed and desired the company of even the dreariest of saints rather than be devoured by the demons from the dark swamp.
Fear is a strong whip, but there is something missing here. While God is obvious to everyone who has not determined to not believe, Its connection to us is not so obvious. We frequently feel apart from this presence, as if our very minds exclude us from the Kingdom that is present not only beyond death, but also here, within the natural world. What we seek, beyond even fear, is a connection to this obvious God - and what we have gotten, among many other religions, is Jesus. While we are told that it is essential for the Christian to believe in the historical Christ, one might also see it in another way - that Christ is the personification of our desire for a human connection. While it does not seem as satisfactory, it might be that the very notion of this connection is enough to justify faith - for it puts God into our own perspective, which otherwise could not grasped by our intellect.
This might not be enough for the believer, but it is enough for me to let the question go, at least when at my wisest, for the personification - that human connection to God - is OUR connection. It is what makes God relevant in our daily lives. And it may, however it is honestly fashioned, actually be what saves us from detachment and non-belief in general - from becoming the sad purveyor of reductionist psychology or ideology. Further, this connection is ultimately good. As dreary as the cross may be, the outstretched arms of sacrifice are not the flailing arms of Zombie demons. We are promised resurrection, as disconnected as we might feel ourselves to be. It might be an obvious fact to some, but for most of us, we are fish in water and need something- and somebody - to tell us that we live in water, and will always be in the living waters of being. FK
So the book, "Therese of Lisieux" by Monica Furlong, has worked its way into my unconscious. Prodding here and there with psychological asides, we are (so far - we have not gotten to the visions yet) taken through a rather dreary life of a little girl who was raised a Catholic zealot, who lost her mother when she was 4, and then lost her beloved older sister to the Carmelite convent some 5 years later. She sees, we are led to believe, that the Calling is the only way left to complete her life. Adding to this, we are to understand that she has no other avenue to develop her great intelligence, anyway. Therese, we find, told her sisters at an early age that she was meant for "something big." For the Catholic hierarchy, this was understood as the calling to sainthood. For the author, Therese's draw to the religious life was driven by her desire for recognition channeled in the only direction a female of her time could take for a semblance of fame. Psychology and repression - so far, it has made a melancholy read. And, as said, it has burrowed into my own inner need to believe.
It started with a conversation about God and Jesus yesterday on a long walk. I mentioned my own belief that NOT believing in God (the mature God, not that of our early childhood indoctrination) was absurd - that It's presence was so profoundly obvious, from the existence of meaning to existence itself - that other's disbelief could only be equated to that of a fish in water - it is so immersed in water that it could not tell you (if it could) what water is. It just is. But Jesus? That he walked and lived and died as a man raises questions about belief. Yes, there were miracles, but religious myths of all cultures are filled with miracles. Yes, many of his time had seen or heard of the miracles and the Resurrection, and it is hard to doubt their sincerity. But we are a long way from the historical event, and we are a different people. Even the tough Romans believed in gods and spirits and miracles then. Now, the Romans among us, our tough scientists and cultural elite, find such ideas the epitome of ignorance.
I do not. This is an unfathomable universe. But that does not mean that all the things that we think of or believe are true. For me, I would like to believe in the divine Christ - but like Mulder's partner, Scully, I need more evidence. Just a little bit more. And Furlong's book makes that evidence (so far) that much harder to find.
Such it was that the book started the conversation on that walk, which either drove or was driven by the unconscious mind that developed a spooky dream last night. In it, I found myself climbing on the side of a rocky cliff, along with several others. With a sudden spasm of faith, I leaned back against the cliff in the posture of one crucified, and there, without nails or pain, became stuck to the rock. I then told the others, "See? This is how you are saved. Try it yourself." And so they did, but with that, I became unglued and returned to my 'normal' self, now seeking company. Looking up, I saw the others glued to the cliff, their eyes closed and bodies still, as if dead, and I called to them, "you can come down now. No need to be dead anymore," but they remained, encased in an aura of both restful peace and frightening death. Feeling the chill, I slid down the mountain into a tangle of forest and swamp, just as the sun set. It was then that I found myself surrounded by humans who were also demons, zombie-like phantoms who grabbed at me from the dark. "Voodoo!" I cried, identifying a religion I find to be filled with terror, and with that, others came forth from the dark, tearing at me with arms and religious beliefs (so it seemed) that I also found terrifying. I tried then to scale back up the mountain, back to the peaceful land of the crucified, but could not. The arms coming from the darkness were too strong. And so I woke.
Does fear drive belief? Certainly, and for someone raised Christian, a lack of belief in Christ means the ruination of the soul. "He" is the only way, and one must believe, unlike Thomas, without needing proof. One has to think with the heart, and to know Christ in the heart is to know that one is right. But that means that to NOT know Christ in one's heart means that one is wrong - not a good thing in a faith that postulates an unpleasant afterlife for the non-believer.
And so, Furlong would have us believe, we find fear and a psychological need to alleviate that fear - along with a need for fulfillment - at the base of the Little Saint's faith. More so than I, she would have needed and desired the company of even the dreariest of saints rather than be devoured by the demons from the dark swamp.
Fear is a strong whip, but there is something missing here. While God is obvious to everyone who has not determined to not believe, Its connection to us is not so obvious. We frequently feel apart from this presence, as if our very minds exclude us from the Kingdom that is present not only beyond death, but also here, within the natural world. What we seek, beyond even fear, is a connection to this obvious God - and what we have gotten, among many other religions, is Jesus. While we are told that it is essential for the Christian to believe in the historical Christ, one might also see it in another way - that Christ is the personification of our desire for a human connection. While it does not seem as satisfactory, it might be that the very notion of this connection is enough to justify faith - for it puts God into our own perspective, which otherwise could not grasped by our intellect.
This might not be enough for the believer, but it is enough for me to let the question go, at least when at my wisest, for the personification - that human connection to God - is OUR connection. It is what makes God relevant in our daily lives. And it may, however it is honestly fashioned, actually be what saves us from detachment and non-belief in general - from becoming the sad purveyor of reductionist psychology or ideology. Further, this connection is ultimately good. As dreary as the cross may be, the outstretched arms of sacrifice are not the flailing arms of Zombie demons. We are promised resurrection, as disconnected as we might feel ourselves to be. It might be an obvious fact to some, but for most of us, we are fish in water and need something- and somebody - to tell us that we live in water, and will always be in the living waters of being. FK
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