Why Believe in God?

Then it seemed as if men must proceed from light to light, in the light of the Word,
Through the Passion and Sacrifices saved in spite of their negative being;
Bestial as always before, carnal, self-seeking as always before, selfish and purblind as ever before,
Yet always struggling, always reaffirming, always resuming their march on the way that was lit by the light;
Often halting, loitering, straying, delaying, returning, yet following no other way.
But it seems that something has happened that has never happened before: though we know not just when, or why, or how, or where.
Men have left GOD not for other gods, they say, but for no god; and this has never happened before
That men both deny gods and worship gods, professing first Reason,
And then Money, and Power, and what they call Life, or Race, or Dialectic.
The Church disowned, the tower overthrown, the bells upturned, what have we to do
But stand with empty hands and palms turned upwards
In an age which advances progressively backwards?
~T.S. Eliot, from The Rock 


I talk to myself quite regularly.  Sometimes in my head, sometimes out loud as I go about some daily chore, alone until my wife walks in unexpectedly to get a kick out of my 'conversation.'  I've often asked myself the question, 'Why do I believe in God?'  And in my mind I've reasoned and reflected a good deal in an attempt to answer that question.  The fact that I don't know if I've ever really had this conversation in response to a friend actually inquiring about my faith reflects rather poorly, I'm afraid, on my life as a witness to Christ.  But, in any event, despite the fact that I feel a Christian responsibility to be prepared always to give an account for the hope within me, what I believe is in fact of the utmost importance to me, and simply for that reason alone it is something I think about a lot.

However, as T.S. Eliot points out, ours is the Secular Age.  Increasingly, the Christian today is asked not, 'Why do you believe in Jesus?', but simply, 'Why believe in God at all?  Haven't we now moved beyond the need for all the superstitious fables and stifling oppression of religion?  We know so much more now; we can figure out the answers to all the questions on our own.  We don't need God anymore.'

Well, it is certainly true that many of the old mysteries that the ancients ascribed to God because they could do nothing else have now been answered by the incredible advances in human knowledge over the last few centuries in particular.  And it is also sadly true that institutions of religion have often been usurped by humans to enrich and empower themselves at the expense of others.  But I don't see how these facts discredit God, unless one is looking for reasons to not believe (in which case, any reason, no matter how poor or unbiased, will do).  And while I fully expect that human knowledge will continue to advance, I must be honest in stating that I also believe emphatically that we never will get it all figured out, this side of heaven.  I suppose one could view that as pessimism; I simply view it as an obvious truth (I'm also pretty optimistic, as regards our ultimate destiny; that's for another post).  For all the truly remarkable gains of the modern era, in science, medicine, and technology, I don't know that the human creature has really changed that much.  Modern Man may have it better than Ancient, or Medieval Man, but I think this is due to changes in the institutions and structures which are part and parcel of our modern world, and the comparatively favorable conditions in which so many of us now live.  I don't think Man has undergone a gradual, biological change, and is now fundamentally a better creature.  I think we are as selfish, conflicted, confused, and depraved as ever (well, I can at least speak for myself), it's simply easier to hide from these realities of our interior selves now, since the structures of our society generally satisfy our necessities and restrict our baser instincts (although note what barbarity inevitably results when enlightened Modern Man, even in the form of 'a good American boy', is forced to face the horror of a war zone).  And besides, now more than ever we can keep ourselves distracted with so many other things; reflection, not least of which over the state of one's own spirit, is not something we can afford to be bothered with at the speed with which we now move.

So, no, I don't think we will ever build heaven on earth.  And yet, here is the remarkable thing: we keep trying.  We have these ideas, these ideals: justice, peace, beauty, love, all in perfection.  And yet we never experience these things fully, so how did we come to conceive of them in this way at all?  And why do we continue to grasp for that which we have never been able to take hold of; for all we know we never will get there.  From whence springs this desire?

A while back I read a passage from Evelyn Underhill's book The Spiritual Life.  It's a great little book, and can be read in a sitting or two; I highly recommend it.  When I first read the passage below, I sat up, and my mouth dropped open.  Or maybe that's just how I felt; it made an impact.  Underhill is talking here about prayer, but I find in her words the ground of my belief in God.  At the risk of sounding presumptuous, I felt like I was reading my own thoughts.  But she states them with greater eloquence than I could hope for, so I'll close this post now with her words.  Peace.

"Prayer means turning to Reality, taking our part, however humble, tentative, and half-understood, in the continual conversation, the communion, of our spirits with the Eternal Spirit; the acknowledgement of our entire dependence, which is yet the partly free dependence of the child.  For prayer is really our whole life towards God: our longing for Him, our 'incurable God-sickness', as Barth calls it, our whole drive towards Him.  It is the humble correspondence of the human spirit with the Sum of all Perfection, the Fountain of Life.  No narrower definition than this is truly satisfactory, or covers all the ground.  Here we are, small half-real creatures of sense and spirit, haunted by the sense of a perfection ever calling to us, and yet ourselves so fundamentally imperfect, so hopelessly involved in an imperfect world; with a passionate desire for beauty, and more mysterious still, a knowledge of beauty, and yet unable here to realize perfect beauty; with a craving for truth and a deep reverence for truth, but only able to receive flashes of truth.  Yet we know that perfect goodness, perfect beauty, and perfect truth exist in God; and that our hearts will never rest in less than these.  This longing, this need for God, however dimly and vaguely we feel it, is the seed from which grows the strong, beautiful, and fruitful plant of prayer.  It is the first response of our deepest selves to the attraction of the Perfect; the recognition that He has made us for Himself, that we depend on Him and are meant to depend on Him, and that we shall not know the meaning of peace until our communion with Him is at the center of our lives."

         

Reflections After a Retreat

A few weeks ago, my family and I had the privilege of traveling to the motherhouse of the the Rivendell Community for a weekend retreat.  Rivendell is a religious community within the Episcopal Church.  The following is from their website:

"Rivendell’s professed members (called “Companions”—those who break bread and share the journey together) include women and men, lay and ordained, married and single. Some live together in residential community, while the majority live in private homes, coming together for worship, prayer, conversation, study, and active ministry. All follow a common Rule, or pattern of life and prayer, which sustains and nourishes us to live active lives of service in our particular and diverse ministries.
The work of the Rivendell Community is focused on prayer and hospitality: the constant offering of prayer and worship on behalf of the Church and the world, and hospitality both physical and spiritual. Through its life and work, the Community seeks to foster the contemplative dimension of Christian faith—not as self-seeking spirituality but as self-giving availability to the transformative power of the Gospel, and loving obedience to the purposes of God."

I became aware of the existence of the community some time ago, but this was my first experience of it. I had been particularly eager for the experience, as the idea of living according to a vowed common rule of life has held a great attraction for me as of late. Those who live by such a rule must, I think, be well disposed to grow deeper into God by virtue of the nearly constant mindfulness of God that the rule necessitates. There is also an invitation to community offered by such religious orders, even among a group of people who are dispersed geographically. Meaningful Christian fellowship in community is, as I've noted before, something I greatly desire.

My excitement before the retreat was tempered, however, by realism. As my wife and I were bringing our entire brood along, we both went into the weekend without high hopes for being able to participate in the rhythm of reflective study and worship to the extent that we would have sans children. That certainly turned out to be the right attitude for avoiding frustration, as our kids brought their own rhythms with them. Consequently, our participation throughout the retreat was haphazard, as is the entirety of our existence at this point in life's journey. We were blessed, nonetheless.

Our rector (who is also a professed companion of Rivendell) had graciously invited us for the weekend. The retreat was focused on the writings of the early twentieth century English mystic, Evelyn Underhill. I knew of Underhill, but had not previously read any of her works. Over the last several weeks I have been delving into her writings. Wholly apart from the blessings of the retreat itself, introduction to Underhill has been blessing enough for me. A theme of her work (at least as I have encountered it so far) is the living of the interior life of the Spirit in the midst of the daily responsibilities of life. Again and again she stresses this, as a selection of excerpts below demonstrates. From The School of Charity:

"The creative action of the Spirit penetrates the whole of life, and is felt by us in all sorts of ways. If our idea of that creative action is so restricted that we fail to recognize it working within the homely necessities and opportunities of our visible life, we may well suspect the quality of those invisible experiences to which we like to give spiritual status. 'I found Him very easily among the pots and pans,' said St. Teresa. 'The duties of my position take precedence of everything else,' said Elizabeth Leseur; pinned down by those duties to a life which was a constant check on the devotional practices she loved. She recognized the totality of God's creative action, penetrating and controlling the whole web of life."

and again,

"We see the child in the carpenter's workshop.  He does not go outside the frame of the homely life in which He appeared.  It did quite well for Him, and will do quite well for us; there is no need for peculiar conditions in order to grow in the spiritual life, for the pressure of God's Spirit is present everywhere and at all times.  Our environment itself, our home and job, is the medium through which we experience His moulding action and His besetting love.  It is not Christian to try to get out of our frame, or separate our outward life from our life of prayer, since both are the creation of one Charity.  The third-rate little town in the hills, with its limited social contacts and monotonous manual work, reproves us when we begin to fuss about our opportunities and our scope."

Finally, from The Spiritual Life:

"Therefore our favourite distinction between the spiritual life and the practical life is false.  We cannot divide them.  One affects the other all the time: for we are creatures of sense and spirit, and must live an amphibious life.  Christ's whole ministry was an exhibition, first in one way and then in another, of this mysterious truth.  It is through all the circumstances of existence, inward and outward, not only those we like to label spiritual, that we are pressed to our right position and given our supernatural food.  For a spiritual life is simply a life in which all that we do comes from the centre, where we are anchored in God: a life soaked through and through by a sense of His reality and claim, and self-given to the great movement of His will."

These are words that speak to me where I am. This is my struggle, not to balance family responsibilities with my spiritual life, but to understand that my duty as a father is currently my primary opportunity for the living out of the life I profess to walk in Christ. It is no good to devote myself to praying the Daily Office, to serious study of the Scriptures, to the composing of posts for a blog (oh, the bitter irony), if I do so at the cost of neglecting my family, even for a moment. My wife and I were discussing this the other night. I confessed that I felt that if I am to be the loving, involved father that I feel I should be (and that I want to be), I must commit to nothing else. To attempt to do anything other than be a devoted father seems futile, a guaranteed recipe for frustration. And while I want to be that father, I also want (perhaps need) to have other outlets as well; to read, to write, to work, to have adult conversation. I think there is much that could be interestingly developed here on the topic of parenting in the modern era, and gender roles and expectations, but that conversation will have to wait for another day. I really do believe parenthood is one of the greatest responsibilities and privileges life offers. It is certainly the prevailing responsibility of my life at this point in time. But it is so hard. As my wife said, "Supposedly, other people are going through the same thing." I guess, but why does it seem so much crazier for us? To say our life right now is controlled chaos gives us a bit too much credit. So, yes, this is my struggle, and I need grace anew every day.

Not incidentally, this is also one of my recurring concerns/questions about ordained ministry. How does one manage to be both a husband/father and priest/pastor? I mean, it's one thing to leave the business office early so you can see your kid's ball game; priorities seem pretty clear to me there. But what if it's a choice between your kid's game and attending the bedside of a dying parishioner? That's quite a tougher call. And if I'm not mistaken, having to make that type of decision is not an uncommon occurrence for those who have answered the call to a vocation in ordained ministry. I can see how being a young priest with a family could have its benefits (and I'm also not a believer in putting life on hold until the kids are all grown up), but I can also see how it would make sense to wait until life has slowed down a bit and one has had a chance to accumulate additional "life experience", and the wisdom that comes with the years. But then again, maybe life never does slow down.

Peace.