Have We Been Here Before?
"I have spent most of my life in recovery from the church" Philip Yancey Soul Survivor Doubleday, 2001.A friend recently gave me a copy of Soul Survivor (a gesture which I find amazing although it was incredibly simple) with the scrawled inscription in it of "here's to the ultimate search of letting go and finally getting it". Over the years I have seen this guy grow from a new christian to where he is now, which is in the same place as me. We have sat many times and tried to work through various issues in our faith. He knows I am in a dry place of questioning, because he is there right now himself. I think his inscription speaks volumes to where I am at.
letting go...
I have been trying to figure out for some time now why it is that I have this existential angst. Why do I feel this way? I have not been able to put my finger on it. The only thing I come up with is that I am trying to deconstruct my religious upbringing; trying to dismantle, scrutinize, hold it up to the light, and buff or discard those things that are rusty and/or don't belong (this blog is, in a way, the textual ranting of this process). Yancey says ' Unavoidably, and by instinct, I question and re-evaluate my faith all the time' (7). Reading this gives me some comfort. I am not some kind of spiritual deviant; I am not alone in this arid place of questioning. I have always looked up to Yancey as a christian 'literary' writer, ever since I read 'The Jesus I Never Knew' in my first year of University. (As an aside, I was very happy to read that many of Yancey's heroes are not, in fact, christians. I take comfort in this, as I admire aspects of people like the Dali Lama. )
Back to the whole idea of deconstruction...I guess part of this is I have heard of the great mistakes of the various churches we grew up in (mainly one), but these are churches that laid the foundations of my faith. It is disheartening to me to see some glaring places where they 'got it horribly wrong'. It causes me to question the rest of what I was taught.
I am thinking right now of that suitcase we have all carried our whole life, adding to it the teachings and heresies we have accepted over the years. There comes a point when you need to pull it out and sort through that thing before it gets too heavy and starts dragging you down.
MJM and I were aiming to summit a mountain a few weeks ago. The problem slowing us down was that when we hit the alpine landscape (rocks, no trees) all landmarks became lost. What we were left with were these rock cairns, sort of like inukshuks the Inuit use to mark their path. No problem, right? Well, when there are multiple routes to the peak, with many, many cairns marking each route, it becomes incredibly hard to stay on route and on track. We spent a lot of time trying to decipher which markers were the 'right' ones to follow.
It's that scene in Lord of the Rings where Sam and Frodo are wandering in the mist, circling, looping, thinking they are going somewhere when in fact that is the same rock they just passed a few minutes ago. If you don't stop and realize it, you will continually be lost and be content with that.
I am wondering now, which cairns I followed in walking out my faith. How much heresy and legalism did I un-knowingly swallow as the true path?
getting it...
That is what I am aiming for. Getting it.
I am tired of the stale 'western' christianity which is a shell of the original.
I am tired of being given formulas for how to cure what ails your christian soul and keep you on the straight and narrow.
I am wondering (as I chatted with Aaron this came out)--Jesus says he is the 'cornerstone'. What if what we have been taught over the years has been tainted and warped. What if that 'cornerstone' has been taught in a twisted way, then the whole foundation of my faith is warped. You cannot build a solid building on a warped cornerstone.
That is where I am at.
-j.m
posted by J.M @ 9:25 AM
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