Pressure Points

This is part 2 of 3 of a sort of essay I wrote 2 years ago. My questioning of Catholicism is more of a questioning of the beliefs that one grows up with but never really comes to grips with than an actual rant against the Church.

It is between the crossroads of committing to religion and needing fellowship that I find myself. It seems to me that religion often wedges itself between Christian living and God. Each church has its own doctrine, but not every believer can adhere to that in completeness. I love the Catholic Church, I cannot imagine myself following a different faith, yet I must reconcile myself to its dogmas and doctrines. I don’t agree with everything, I don’t believe everything, therefore, if choosing Catholicism is choosing all, then I cannot commit. Yet, I love Mass, and I love it more and more as I learn about it. The Eucharist is the soul of Mass; the Bread of Life made physically present. It is through that we not only remember Christ’s sacrifice, but we are joined as one throughout the world as a faith community and Church of Christ. Granted, my knowledge about the Catholic Church and religion in general is about equivalent to that of a Kindergartner’s knowledge of the alphabet; they know it, but do not understand how all the letters fit together to create this crazy thing called language.  There are other things that draw me to it, though, other things that make me painfully aware that outside the Church, no other religion offers what it does. In what other church can I go and say the scripted words and prayers that have been spoken for hundreds of years and will continue to be spoken? What other church can I go in and feel the majesty and the antiquity of God?

Yet if Christ is my cornerstone, on what shall I base the entirety of my life and beliefs? The very foundation of my faith, identity and beliefs have been shaken and cracked by the conflicting messages society and religion have sent me. Perhaps the cornerstone holds everything together, yet what is everything? I choose Christ, so I don’t care what material my house is built out of, only that it resembles Christ’s original intentions. That question has proven catalyst of my Jesus quest. Unluckily for me, he is the most written about figure in history, so this quest assures me of lasting a lifetime.

But how do we live in face of today’s issues of sex, drugs, war, love, and justice, to mention a few? How do we balance this society in which we were born and must live in with the ideals of Christianity? I have been condemned by one group of Christians and condoned by another on the same issues. It is into this mess that we wade, whether consciously or unconsciously; trying to choose the right path while people on either side of us equally judge us wrong or right. We must have boundaries. Sadly, these boundaries don’t fit easily into doctrine or system; people are too unique, too subjective for that. We must battle it out on our own, choosing to rely on God to lead us down the right path, knowing that one person’s path is not identical to another.

But still, this living needs to be inside some standard, else the Christian message will mutate into something unrecognizable. But what is the standard? Each person has their own interpretation of the Bible, so that alone is too volatile to rely on. So what about church doctrine? That is based on the Bible, but it’s also based on an individual’s beliefs. The path to Christ may seem easy at first glance, believe and you shall be saved, but in putting that to the test, the road proves to be strewn with rocks and bends, maybe even disappearing from view.  I think doctrine is meant to be an outlet to living as much as it explains theology. But there’s that chance that doctrine is not always right according to our own life experiences and thoughts. Perhaps the balance is between three things: the Bible, doctrine, and fellowship?

This is 1 of 3 installments of the struggle I faced when deciding to renew my faith in God two years ago. I’m happy to say that some things have changed since then, but sadly, some things never do.

Oftentimes in our lives, we are disillusioned and left to struggle out of the darkness into the light of truth. Yet, if we are the standards on which to base ourselves, what does that mean in terms of living a Christian life? Having spent the first 20 years of my life as a Catholic in ignorance, I am now striving to understand what the Catholic Church believes and find someway to translate that into my daily life. Not only am I torn between the conflicting messages of religion, faith, society, but in addition, while taking a class called History of Christianity, I have come face to face with the corruption of the Catholic Church in the past centuries. Looking around me, I see cruel acts done in the name of God by “godly” people. At the heart of all this must lie Jesus Christ, but somehow he has gotten lost in the tangle of ideas and actions. Without looking at the man and message of Christ, we have nothing to guide our translation of faith into living. That is the crux of my Jesus Quest, to find the man, understand the message and then choose how to live.

The questions that accompany every thought and action are; “What should I believe?” “How should I behave?” We have the luxury to avoid suffering in America. Even at our worst, we still have it better than so many others do. Although we may not have the luxury to be innocent, we have the luxury to be ignorant. Ignorance may be easy, but it causes a whole lot of problems. As a result, nominalism thrives and the time has come for assessing the conflicting messages we’re sending about Christianity to the rest of the world. Nominalism is believing in name only. It is a false storefront right out of the old west, pretending to be more than it really is.  As I travel on my sojourn through college and consequently, the rest of my life, I’m finding it impossible to believe and live in the same vein as I have been. Christianity and Christians wear so many faces, must I chose one? Through the decades and centuries, Christianity has split so many times that it is nearly unrecognizable from that of the Christians in the first centuries.

Still, we must choose how to live.  For without something firm to stand on, we cannot hope to stand at all.  In all my short life, I have never so clearly felt the clash of culture and faith. We are called to be different, to live as aliens in a strange land, but we cannot seclude ourselves from the rest of the world, for that risks excluding everyone not Christian. So we walk this line between faith and culture, right and wrong, but right and wrong has mixed together so it lies as one big blob of gray. Is it in that, we must pick out right? What if in choosing right, we unintentionally choose wrong instead? I could rail in frustration at the lines I cross, much to the chagrin of society and culture, but those invisible cries that arise are heard only in my head; cries resulting from those dormant expectations we each face in our quotidian lives.

I could wish it weren’t about choosing a religion, but rather choosing to live like Christ. God may be an objective truth, but that objectivity only exists outside each person. Everything I do, see, think, hear, even taste, is tainted by my own prejudices. I find myself toying with the idea of forgoing church all together for the rest of my life, but fellowship is an integral part of what it means to be Christian. We need fellowship to learn, encourage, and even rebuke. I cannot claim my relationship with God is enough to stand on its own strength; I need the Bible and other Christians to help me formulate and keep my commitment to God. However, Sunday church service, while important, is not everything about being Christian. It is good, but sometimes it becomes an obligation more than a chance to hear the word of God preached. That hour or two every Sunday does not cover the other 167 hours of each week of our lives, but it is in those 167 hours that true Christian living occurs and is tested.

My heart broke today

It bled all over my chest

and I was afraid

It would run down my leg

to trail behind me on the ground

Honestly, it’s embarrassing

For everyone to see me bleed

It’s much more comfortable to stay inside

Otherwise, what do you say to someone?

“Hey, here’s my shoe, why don’t you try it on?

I’m sorry there’s blood all over it.”

I could have gone to the heart hospital but

they ask too many questions

I’d rather not say what it was

that broke my heart.

No, I’d rather just bleed

bleed bleed bleed

until all the blood is gone.

Then when my heart is a dry,

crumpled newsletter, I’ll

throw it away and make myself another

paper heart.

It’s not you, it’s me.  I’m sorry, I just can’t seem to see eye to eye with you. You’re a rock and I’m a bird; you’re lichen on the north side of tree and I’m a tulip dancing on sunny south side of sun. No matter how hard I try, we always seem to clash, like you’re jamming out to death metal and I just want to flow with George Harrison. You’re a landlocked canoe and I’m floating kelp, tossed back and forth by the tide, while you rot on the beach.

You’re so heavy and I haven’t been to the gym enough lately to work up the muscle to lift you. I think it’s better if I just let you be instead of throwing my back out trying to get you into the air.

Besides, why do you have to be facing away from me all the time? It’s like I look at you and you’re looking behind me. It doesn’t jive; it’s an awkward country-dance, clunking cowboy boots and all.

Or clogging.

Sheesh. Please, please, take me to a ballet!

Don’t you get it? You’re positively terrestrial! I’m aquatic, aerial. Ethereal. You’re too damn sublunary. I’d much rather dance among the milky way, except you, all you want to do is stay home, night after night after ordinary night. You say it’s better to be unassuming, conventional. Why can’t you understand that sometimes I need to laugh loud, to yell, to air my ignorance like my lacy lingerie I hang on the line and our neighbors stare at. Hell, you don’t even like my lingerie!

Don’t you see, there are such things as biting the bullet and kicking a dead horse. And my friend, we are kicking a dead horse. Kicking it and kicking it and kicking it until it resembles something more like dog food than an actual horse. Disgusting.

No.

It is you.

100 percent, no doubt about it.

You.

But I’m the one leaving. So I’ll say it’s me, when really it’s only because I can’t stand you.

I am currently reading The Call to Create: Celebrating Acts of Imagination, which I unintentionally checked out while looking for Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink. In it the author explores the subject of creativity and the creative process through the lens of archetypes. One quotation that has particularly stuck out is as follows,

“As humans, our creative challenge is to learn to live with the ambiguity of not knowing and to balance on the tightrope stretched between our longing for the infinite and the limitations of our finite modes of perception and expression.” (64).

Today, I read about the Cynic, who makes it his duty to trip us up with negativity at the beginning of the creative journey and who breeds doubt, skepticism, and resentment, etc. He is the creature of our disillusionment and the bearer of death to our idealism.

I find this ironic because I am in the midst of exploring the world of freelance writing and the whole process seems so daunting since I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. No idea. If there were straws to be grasped, you can bet I’d be grasping them, desperately. As it is, I am a virgin backpacker breaking in my boots and pack on the trail; assaulting the mountain for the first time to see if I can come out, victorious, at its peak, or if I will break myself on its bloody trail.

In a flurry of activity this week, I wrote a writer’s resume, my objective being, “to become pupil and teacher to the world through freelance writing,” gathered some samples, and applied for some Web content writing jobs. Now, I never pretended to be tech savvy or even to really want to become tech savvy despite its importance and obvious advantages, but I have to be.

The Cynic in me is pointing out all the times I’ve started things and failed to see them through, scoffing at me for thinking I can actually make this work, and pointing out the fact that I have to make an effort to be dedicated if I am to see results and that’s just bothersome. Which along with that comes the doubt that it’s all even worth it.

But I don’t have a choice.

I don’t have a job, well, I’ve only been looking for about six weeks, but I’ve definitely sent out my resume at least 15 times to the melody of silence and I’m definitely trying not to count the days until I have no money. On the upside, I’m getting good at writing a mean cover letter and getting a close up, (of pore quality, I might add) of what it might be like to, actually, live as if I trust in the goodness of God.

Anyway, I find it funny that my face-off with my inner cynic is a forced battle, a veritable tug-a-war between me and circumstance, leaving me with no choice but to fight.

I just hope I win.

Community.

Spontaneous. Intentional. All of the above. We are all multi-colored threads woven into one big tapestry. I wonder if we realize the picture we create as we wind in and out in our interactions with each other. I wonder if it is something we can see as it is made or if we must wait until the end.

What if it’s ugly?

Can it be ugly? Or is it always beautiful, always bright, continually recreating itself as an eternal butterfly.

Or is it ephemeral, destined to die even as it is born?

I wonder, if community ever gets snagged as people fight and if threads get torn out as we refuse to forgive; cursed to shrivel and fray alone. Outcast.

Who holds the needle to re-tuck the loose threads back into the weave? Some giant metal object held by an invisible hand catching us as we stray and putting us back right where we belong. It’s kind of nice to know that when we wander of our own volition, there’s someone waiting to take us back home.

When I look for you, I cannot find you.

my hands grasp vapor and slice

through air as if nothing ever existed.

Oh silent one,

faun of the forest running,

breaking neither leaves nor twigs

in your flight against daybreak.

You color my dreams black,

black as the night that conceals you,

black as water standing stagnant in a cave.

When I call for you, you do not answer.

Why do you hide from me!

Why do you abandon me to the place of nothing?

My bird of air,

You have already flown far away

through skies that shudder with cold

into a canvas boiling from the heat of the sun.

You fly across my mind scattering

thought to the corners of the earth,

sterile fragments that do not become trees.

What a day. It feels like one of those days where you do nothing all day but still end up exhausted. I constantly find myself struggling with the need for purpose, the need to know.

But I don’t know.

Everything is this twisted metaphor like real life pulled a doppelganger with dream time and I keep getting lost in the warp. It’s like I had this bright idea to go cliff diving without first checking for rocks. Or maybe I’m still standing on the edge of the cliff, overanalyzing where the rocks might be until I forget the point of jumping in the first place.

I think trust is the first one.

And getting distracted is the second.

But it’s absurd to have tunnel vision! To be single-minded. It’s too hard not to doubt. Yes, I take this faith stuff seriously, but my mind is hanging out, saying everything looks a little shady. So then I want to say “screw that, I’m going to…” do what? Besides, isn’t swearing a bad thing?

I’m two miles in carrying a loaded pack thinking I’m ready to be done, but there’re still fifteen miles to go. The excitement of the journey has worn off and I’m already feeling jaded. Frustrated. But maybe this is just a day in the life and maybe the tunnel is littered with peek holes, lighting the way.

So, I didn’t post yesterday, which blows my intention to post every day for a month totally out of the water. Luckily, what goes up must come back down and I’m still going to post.

Today marks the end of week 3 of unemployment for me. So far, week 1 was spent packing, week 2, unpacking and this week…well, let me put it this way: if someone gave you $100 dollars and you went to the mall, you would probably walk out wondering what you spent it on.

I started this week with 168 hours and I’m walking out wondering what I did with it. Although, I did get to hang out with 14 ADHD first graders at the Boys and Girls Club on Wednesday and then Thursday, I got to chill with some random aged kids in a nursery. A conversation with a 5 year old is as follows:

little boy: He’s a bad man. (pointing at picture of Jesus)

Me: What! Jesus is bad?

boy: Yes (now sticking thumb tack through Jesus’ face)

Me: Who told you that?

boy: My teacher.

His attempt to fall off a chair then ended our discussion, but it made me laugh (albeit incredulously) on the inside.

For the most part, I ended up playing a lot of guitar and doing a lot of nothing. My goal for this next week is to structure my time better, read 2 books (which I have unintentionally checked 4 out and paid a $2 fine from 2 years ago…), play guitar till my fingers bleed, and maybe find a job.

So here’s to another week, another gift of time. Nazdravi!

I feel too strung out to focus today. My words are supposed to be rocks; heavy and steady. But they’re not. Instead, they are confetti, paper pieces that get lost in the atmosphere.

“Come back!” I cry, but they are dispassionate jelly fish and swim away from me, cutting through the air to become lights like stars; pinpoints in the dark water and too far away for me to reach.

It’s not fair, I think. I thought they were mine, but they left. Why did they leave? Now I am empty and I don’t want to be empty. Bad things crawl around in the dark; monster catfish lying in wait at the bottom of my childhood pond. Lying in wait to bite my toes and sting my ankles the instant I go wading into that muddy water.

No

I’d rather have a boat to rest on. That way I don’t have to get wet. That way I don’t have to challenge my fear for a race and lose.