Search for Faith

This blog has not served the purpose I created it for. First it was supposed to be some kind of a diary of my post-NZ life. Then it became a channel for me to voice out my spiritual doubts. My spiritual seeking has been (and will be) a long process. Somehow I just haven't managed to record the process here like my intention was. It has been such a personal journey that I doubted whether it would've been possible to write about it in a way that would be of interest to others. Certainly I was also wondering what purpose sharing my thoughts would serve and why on Earth would anyone be interested to read about them. For some reason, however, now I feel like I would like to share some of the answers my quest has given me.

Due to experiences at NZ churches and lots of other religious disappointments, last Autumn I got fed up with Christianity and decided to step away from everything it represented me. I was fed up with the church services that only managed to make me more and more anxious, I was fed up with constantly feeling inadequate, I was fed up with this God who had never answered me. Hearing people talk about "a loving Father" just made me feel sick, for I had never known that Father. That Father had never given me the peace I had desperately been looking for. How could a judgmental God somewhere in heavens above ever have anything to do with my life?

Sure I had lived my life as a Christian, gone to church, youth groups, Bible studies, talked to other people about God and told them how much He loves them. I never had any doubt God loved them more than anything, but I was just as sure that He failed to love me.

Stepping away from Christianity was a scary thing to do. What would define me if not the fact that I was a Christian? Who would I be if not someone "swimming against the stream"? Disappointments with my faith were so huge that in the end I was relieved to let it go. (I've written about that earlier.) For several months I hardly ever thought about faith. Sometimes old thoughts and feelings about being inadequate for that God crept upon me, but I was able to let go of them. I felt free for not being responsible for anyone but myself and had no interest in faith whatsoever.

It was not until I went to Marita Liulia's exhibition "Choosing my religion" (about the world religions, www.maritaliulia.com/cmr) that I realised how much I needed faith. In that exhibition I was touched by something that was holy. Something that is beyond what we usually call life but at the same time an essential part of it. I don't feel like I have the ability to explain that any further. Something of a new kind of faith started to open up to me. It had nothing to do with what I used to think of as faith.

I started (for the loss of a better word) meditating. I guess you could also call it praying without words. Finally(!) I felt some of that peace I'd been looking for. Last month I went to Taizé (a Christian village community in the French countryside). Taizé is a lot about silence and prayer and faith being true today. I realised that I will never find faith until I'm able to admit what I'm longing for. I was able to do that and realised that finding an answer to my longing was just about opening my eyes. It was just about choosing to believe the answer. My faith and my image of God are both conscious choices, not something that fell upon me from heavens above. (Trust me I waited for that for quite a long time before I realised how naive I'd been.)

Now I have found faith (or at least something about faith) that is true to me today. Honestly, I do not care about Jesus or the Bible, eternity, heaven or hell. All I need now and have chosen to believe in is a loving Father who is here and true to me in this moment.

After having realised the deeply personal way faith has opened up to me, I cannot understand how anyone could claim their truth to be the only one. I believe we all have our own ones. What makes them true to us is not that they can be rationally justified or made into universal truths, but that they work, that right here and right now they give us something we need.

Seek for your truth. I found mine from silence.