Possibly excruciatingly boring, possibly close to what you, dear reader, are feeling.
I've put a lot of effort into writing this, which is not to say "go easy on me" (heck, I invite comments), but is in way of an apology for its incoherence. If I had just written it in one fell swoop, sans interruptions and edits, it might have had a more "coherent incoherence" (i.e., still incoherent, but with a different, more unified, flavor).
As a child, my parents made me go to church. A Presbyterian, solid Republican, suburban church. (This was before the days of Ronald Reagan; the Republican choices were between Goldwater and Ivy League Republicans like Nelson Rockefeller.) If those folks in the church had any inkling of the existence of real evil in the world and what to do about it, they sure didn't tell us kids. There wasn't a whole lot of engagement, I felt. So I lost interest. Which made my parents push harder. Which made me lose interest more.
So, after a while (i.e., when I was about 15), I just stopped going; kinda put my foot down. Not a real long time after that, Joel Steinberg and Hedda Nussbaum beat their illegally-adopted daughter to death. (I just now tried to read that article, but it still upsets me too much, even today.)
That was it, the last straw (more like an eight-pound rock than a straw). My childhood church seemed totally disconnected from evil in this world, and so did God. How could he allow something this horrible to happen?
So began about 25 years of my separation from the church.
Part of that time, I was of the opinion that we were just totally random. The universe was endlessly cycling (oscillating universe theory), and we were just the natural consequence of some constants and behaviors of time, energy, matter and whatever else is in this here universe with us (string theory, anyone?).
I didn't hold on to that theory for more than a few years, if I recall, because that much infinity is hard to grasp. Really? The universe has no beginning (and no end)? Really? All this observable complexity, order from chaos, is just the natural consequence of a handful of random natural laws? We get from there to DNA, paramecium, primates, Charlemagne, Sylvia Plath and suicide borne of despair? Is it really possible to measure human misery? It's just a bunch of electrical signals? The agony we feel is nothing, really?
No, I disbelieve (...I said to myself after a few years of that). There must have been a Prime Mover, an initial impetus. God the Clockmaker. What a marvellous creation he has made. And now it's running on its own, self-winding, self-maintaining, perfectly balanced. He may be off on some other project now, or he may be simply sitting and admiring the beauty of it all, like I do after I write something I'm proud of (code, English text, whatever).
So, I came to believe that there is (or at least was) a God. If "was", where is he now? Did he die? Did he wander off to start a new project? If he died, he wouldn't be the all-powerful, omniscient deity we're thinking of. (Instead, there would be another deity above that one, and that one would be God, knowwhutimean?)
This is not a question one comes to a conclusion about and then stops considering, so my thoughts continued to develop, as time went by. If we accept that God is just watching, then we have to question His benevolence. How can He take a hands-off attitude and be counted benevolent? That would make him a cold God, like the ones the ancient Greeks and Romans seemed to believe in. Mount Olympus, deity politics, Hera, Zeus, eating babies, hey look at all those people down there they look like ants from here let's squash some and watch them run around no don't squash them let's just watch them they look so interesting.
So... why are we so interesting to God? We have free will. We have intelligence (as far as I know). Are we going to make endless interesting patterns for Him?
I've played with a fractal-generating program. Mandelbrot and Julia sets. (Remember those days?) Fascinating. All that chaos and complexity from a simple equation.
After a while, it's excruciatingly boring. Nothing really new comes out. Nothing really engages my mind.
What would engage my mind? Human conversation. An equal intellect.
Does the same thing apply to God? Is he waiting for us to grow up and join him? I honestly thought so, and maybe still do today. (Although, the more I come to understand him and us, the more I realize just how far we have to go to "grow up.")
What does it mean to join God as an equal? We'd have to be rilly powerful. Powerful enough to create a universe and beings w/intelligence and free will. But, we'd have to be Godlike in our personalities and behaviors, too. What does that imply?
What would it be like to join God as an equal? Some happy gathering in which we slap each others' backs (if we're masculine) or exchange hugs (if we're feminine) or both ('cause we'd be both :)? ) Then what? Would we start having arguments, like all independent, free-willed, intelligent beings do? That can't be, because then there'd be more than one God. After the happyfest, would one of us wander off to create a universe of his own? Hmm, my thoughts lead me to strange conclusions.
So, rather than think about that happy day when we "grow up", I just decided that it was good enough to be "spiritual," meaning: I accepted that God exists, is at least mildy interested in us, has some sort of mission for us and I would meet him when I die.
I had, earlier, read some articles about near-death experiences being the same across many different cultures and times. So, I do accept it as a given that we will meet our Maker when we die, and there will be a final judgement as to how worthy our lives were. Even if this is an illusion we experience during our last few seconds of consciousness, God could still be in that illusion. It could seem like an eternity to us, of either regret for a wasted life, or joy and peace. Maybe we'll be a heartless person who feels nothing while they're dying, but... the human subconscious is a powerful thing. Who wants to take the risk of getting a conscience when it's too late to do anything about it?
During this time (very approximately), I went to college and took a class in Quantum Mechanics. In that class, I ran across the mind-opening concept of non-Newtonian physics. At the quantum level, reality doesn't consist of little billiard balls bouncing around off each other. Electrons, neutrons, protons and photons are little packets of probability. The electron is probably right here [points to a nearby spot], but it could be over here [points to a different nearby spot], or even w-a-a-a-y-y over there [points down the street]. The milk stays in the glass because the particles of milk are moving in random directions, but, on average, downward, under the gentle influence of gravity. However, there is no fundamental reason why the milk shouldn't jump out of the glass in a graceful arc and land on my shoes, or tunnel through the glass about eight inches to the right, and then act under the "gentle influence of gravity" again. ("Tunnelling", incidentally, is another interesting concept, in which a particle is first here, then there, but without actually travelling through the intervening space.) All of which is a way of saying that there is no "must" in reality. If you drop an egg, it doesn't "must" break. If God acts to perform a miracle, it is not a violation of any scientific principle. Holy shit. A little knowledge is dangerous, I guess, especially if you're a sophomore. Quantum mechanics is the first (and only, in my experience) branch of science that allows God. So, now the possibility of miracles begins to stew in my mind, in the background, while the rest of my life is going on.
I also decided, around that time, or maybe a little later, that even if Jesus isn't divine, he was still a very wise person and what he said is worth studying. Even if he never lived, what he is said to have said is worth studying. I existed in that happy "spiritual but not church-going" state for quite a while, but one's mind never stops turning over, and more things occurred to me:
First, one of the easiest places to get involved in good works (conscience into action) is in a church. Churches frequently seem to be interested in getting "boots on the ground". So, if you're spiritual but not church-going, you still might want to be involved in a church just to get involved w/community service. One might consider that (empty) worship is actually less important than action.
Second, the measure of one's commitment to spiritual things is one's willingness to show that commitment in public or otherwise turn that commitment into action. Sure, one can read religious works in the home on a Sunday morning, while others go to church. One can take walks in the woods and commune w/God, expressing appreciation for his work in creating nature and human senses to enjoy it, and admission of one's own imperfection. But, it's kind of all for naught if you're too embarrassed to show it in public.
Third, one could mix and match elements of different religious systems, but I think there's a problem with that: given freedom, we might choose only the parts we're comfortable with and ignore the parts we're not comfortable with, so we'd wind up with this sort of self-validating religion. Even if one accepts that various advanced world religions (e.g., Hinduism, Shinto, Confucianism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam [as opposed to animism and shamanism, which seem to be more concerned with power than with ethics]) are artifices created by very wise humans, it's still reasonable, I think, to assume that they're self-consistent and well-thought-out, at least to a large degree. So, one could just pick one, and go with it, taking it seriously. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, actually preached a sermon (and thank you, Justin, for showing me this sermon) in which he said, basically, that it's not so important which particular flavor of Christianity we pick, but that we stick with what we picked while warmly embracing others who have chosen differently. In other words: no browsing. Pick one and stick with it, but recognize the validity of others' different choices. Wesley was speaking of different flavors of Christianity (and he was certainly aware of Judaism and Islam), but I'm willing to extend that to many of the world's other major religions (at least, until I get to know them better :) ).
I actually, some years ago, read a book on Buddhism by William Theodore de Bary while I was thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail, and I toyed with the idea of becoming Buddhist. In the end, though, I didn't make the leap because it felt like too much of a gimmicky move to me. I felt I should go back and face the demons of Christianity, as it were.
(Another incidental note: de Bary delivered a two-day lecture on Confucianism that looks interesting me, but I have yet to read it.)
In my experience in life, I had noticed that there were people who had a serene, quiet assurance about these sorts of matters. I always wished I could do that: be assured, and not be persecuted by doubts. I eventually came to the conclusion that it's useless to wait for proof, or for someone to reason it all out for you. The definition of "faith" is that we believe without evidence. I took that to mean that there's nothing wrong with simply believing, and since I had chosen Christianity, I only had to make two leaps of faith: (1) God exists and cares about us. Easy, already done. (2) Jesus was divine, both God's only son and God himself. That wasn't so hard, either. All of us, at some point, have had some transporting experience, something really blissful, a sense of being in the groove, in tune with the universe. Suppose you could feel that permanently? I wonder if maybe Jesus was like that: totally in tune, all the time. That would pretty much be divine, so, sure, I could accept point (2). The rest is just icing on the cake.
(Is this just some sort of group psychosis, a mass self-delusion? Hmm. How can I support the "no" position? Maybe life itself supports the position that there must be Something More.)
However, I still didn't actually do anything until an external trigger occurred: my wife decided her son (my stepson) should achieve the rank of Eagle Scout, in order to make his college applications look good. In order to do so, he needed the recommendation of a religious figure, so she ordered me to pick a church and she would join me in it (and he would, too, obviously). (We had previously discussed starting to go to church, but had never done anything about it.)
So, I scouted around a bit for a church to join. I wanted a traditional sort of church, sort of picking up where I left off (unresolved issues and all). I had a bad taste in my mouth from my childhood church (predestination, "Jesus is Lord", a smidgeon of racism [which certainly isn't restricted to Presbyterians, but which I was disappointed to find in my church]), so I was a little biased against Presbyterianism. I was definitely biased against Baptists because of all the shenanigans of the Southern Baptist Convention. I had always been sort of favorably impressed by Methodism, for one, because they sort of had a systematic, "methodical" air about them, and also because of their "Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors" slogan (it's right on their website, umc.org). It turns out that Methodism is actually pretty similar to Presbyterianism in the standard worship practices ("liturgy"), which I liked. (I actually like it more than I did when I was a child, including all the standing up and sitting down and standing up to sing a hymn and sitting down again).
There was this one church where the minister (Bill Gattis) preached these really impassioned, thought-provoking sermons with little razor blades of blackness in them. Definitely not the normal saccharine sermon, but neither was it all hellfire and brimstone and "sinners in the hands of an angry God" type stuff, either. It was stuff that made you think and appreciate. I was hooked. (The other Methodist church I looked at also had a good, thought-provoking minister, but the physical building was't austere enough for me. I like that hardwood floor, hardwood pew kind of traditional sanctuary.)
Side note: the minister that "hooked" me got promoted out of the church a year later. But one shouldn't really commit to church life solely on the basis of a charismatic minister, right? Pick a place and dig in. So, I actually officially joined the church immediately after he announced his departure, because I wanted him to be the one who "inducted" me (basically, it involved me standing in front of the congregation along w/some other folks, promising to be a good Christian in this call-and-response sort of deal).
That's when I started going to church, about four years ago (2001?). It was only the most trivial, mundane of external triggers, but sometimes, we all need some external "push" to do something, even if we're already ready to do it. My stepson and wife have long since stopped going to that church with me (they only lasted about six months, and he did get the Eagle), but I regarded that "push" as having come from God, and I'm grateful for it. (Remember that "possibility of miracles" thing I discovered in my Quantum Mechanics class?)
When I spoke to our minister about officially joining the church, he asked me a bit about my background and what I was interested in, and I said I went to Davidson College and was interested in learning more about the Bible, as I had in classes at Davidson. (They have some relatively serious Bible-as-literature classes.) His response was that I might be interested in a Bible study class called Disciple. (It's kind of a high-commitment class, right up the alley of a bookworm like me.)
So, I took it (am taking it, still). I'm in my third year, almost done with the year. (There's one more year to go.) The first year was really interesting, and it has changed me. Well, maybe I was ready to change, but it was certainly influential. I can't recommend this class enough, to all people.
While taking this class, I made the discovery that the Bible is not at all about narrow-mindedness or hellfire and brimstone (hmm, I've used that phrase three times now). It is a pretty clear call to compassion for all while following a not-entirely-unreasonable code for behavior. (Um... about that stoning adulterers thing... we can talk about that later.)
I have gained a deeper appreciation (deeper than what I had before) of... the messages in the Bible, in their various nuanced presentations. There's a fair degree of subtlety and sophistication in some of that stuff. Some of the text is cryptic enough to require study; it's pretty easy (in my opinion) to walk away with the wrong message.
And, somewhere along the line, between the examples of good folk in church and over the years, good sermons and bible reading, I have come to Believe. No dramatic born-again moment required (although there have been some little flickers). Exactly what I Believe is always up for debate, but I believe there is Something More, that we have a Calling, and it's detailed in the Bible (and maybe some other places, too, but I have chosen to study the Bible) and in communion with God (you could call that "prayer" or "meditation" or "thought" or something along those lines).
I would say, "wow, look at all those capital letters," but you know what? That would be just too self-deprecating, and not the right thing to do with the Message.
:)
* * *
By the way, Joel Steinberg was released from prison a few years ago (2004), about the same time I was getting back into religion, but after I was fairly well on the way. Is this a message from God to me? Is it a kind of test of my faith? Of course not, that would be way too solipsistic. But, how is it that we become aware of some things but not of others? Or we become aware of things a long time after they occurred? Is that just random?
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