This Princess Leia wig makes it quite tempting to pick up my needles again, especially now that I have 8 hours of sitting in class with my hands free every week again...

Faith, doubt, and several other cans of worms

So, mostly this blog has been a collection of thoughts on life and God, often intertwining because God influences how I understand life, and life influences how I understand God, and for better or for worse I don't see any end to that in sight. And most of you out there read it because we used to sit around having these conversations in the middle of the night, in some other city or state or country... anyhow, more of the same ensues.

In her splendiferous memoir, Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott claims that there are only two prayers she ever prays: "Help me, Help me, Help me," and "Thank you, Thank you, Thank you." (This from a woman who recounts that she fought becoming a Christian for awhile, until she realized God wasn't going anywhere, so she said, "Alright, f*** it, you can come in.") I am, technically, at a seminary, but despite (or, because of) some of my theology classes, Lamott's take on addressing the Almighty is about all I can handle these days - on the days when I believe someone's listening.

Let's just say that somehow I am slowly learning to be OK being a person who harbors growing amounts of doubt alongside a still-deeply entrenched faith, and who realizes that it's a much better option to go learn how to go forward holding both than to sit still, waiting for one to finally win out over the other. Quite surprising for a person who has always considered consistency to be a primary virtue.

Becoming a therapist at a seminary will mess with your head. I came home one weekend, having been assigned a client suffering from PTSD, in his 5th foster placement, who had watched his mother burn and blind his sister when he was 7. I cried all weekend. The next Tuesday, I had to sit through a lecture on the finer points of the doctrine of the trinity and the difference between ontic and ontological. At that point, a much harsher form of the thought "who cares? Does this really matter?" goes through my head and probably comes out my mouth, and I want to swear off the triviality of theology forever (this from a person who had a year-long running discussion on the difference between hope and optimism, you remember). And yes, I realize there is a difference between faith and theology, but being surrounded by theology students will blur the distinction.

I know at this moment I sound like I'm on the down-side of faith. Actually, I'm not, really, although it fluctuates daily. Because on the flip side, even on the days when the whole Jesus story starts to sound a little absurd, the churches that have filled a role of "home" in my past are places where things that feel really deeply true to me are deeply valued. Where community (dysfunctional though it is) is formed around the (admittedly idealized) tenets of grace, generosity, mercy, gratitude, and justice. If following faith to its tangible ends produces these things, then must tracing these ends back to their roots lead me, necessarily, back to my faith? I want it to, although I don't know anymore. But in any case, I miss being part of a community that actively and intentionally holds onto those ideals, and I need to be part of one again, if they'll have me, doubts and all.

But even in the middle of two extremes, trying to figure out how to live with faith when doubts won't shut up these days, all of me resounds with Jon Krakauer, as he writes in the author's note to his book about the Fundamental Mormon church, Under the Banner of Heaven:

"I've come to terms with the fact that uncertainty is an inescapable corollary of life. An abundance of mystery is simply part of the bargain - which doesn't strike me as something to lament.... And if I remain in the dark about our purpose here, and the meaning of eternity, I have nevertheless arrived at an understanding of a few more modest truths: ... Most of us yearn to comprehend how we got here, and why - which is to say, most of us ache to know the love of our creator. And we will no doubt feel that ache, most of us, for as long as we happen to be alive."

Grrr

I don't really like ranting about politics in a blog but today I can't resist.

President Bush, stating the oh-so-obvious, recently declared that "America is safer but we are not yet safe." Well, duh. And we're never going to be. If anything pissed me off after September 11, it was that America's response was to insinuate that we could throw enough money at "homeland security" and the "war on terror" to make ourselves supremely, completely, 100% safe. Anything short of that was viewed as failure.

Well, get over it. We will never be safe. Especially not if we never have the humility to admit that we cannot be in control of the entire world. I'm not saying we should dismantle the CIA and let people walk on planes with AK-47s, but what we're doing now is kind of like playing that wack-a-mole game at Chuck-E-Cheese... you hit one mole and another one pops up somewhere else, and they never really go away, and you throw a lot of money and energy into trying to continue life as usual when maybe life isn't usual anymore. The world is a messy, complicated, place with a lot of crazy shit going on, and have we been sheltered from the reality of that for so long that we think we can be immune? It's as if we've extended our personal obsession with immortality to the national level. It won't happen to us. It can't happen to us. And if it happens to us, we're going to sue someone and buy a lot of duct tape so it never happens again.

Kitchen Table 30

I turned 30 last weekend. I was kind of anticipating it being a more emotionally challenging birthday, and had spent most of the last year curious about when I would have my breakdown, but I love 30. I was actually so excited about 30 that in a way, I feel like I arrived a year early, because the moment I turned 29 I started referring to myself as "almost 30".

I've been noticing the 30 come out in me more this year. My knees always hurt. I listen to NPR while I'm driving. I spend more time with a smaller number of people, and more time alone. I started thinking some of the clothes at JCPenney are cute. I want a five-year plan.

I like 30 because it gives me an excuse to be a grownup. For a while, I've been feeling that transitional pull between worlds, like I'm on the fence between an old stage of life and a new one. And some people have families, or own homes, or have other outside influences speeding them along on the way to greater responsibility. But in the absence of those things, 30 has been the first tangible mental marker that helps me live into the next stage. I keep asking myself questions like, "what would a 30-year-old do in this situation?" That's how I bought my kitchen table. I was wandering around the flea market and saw one I liked and didn't want to spend the money. Now, the old me, the one who was still in her 20s, she would have been OK with eating on the couch for a year. But I was about to be in my 30s, and that's what 30-year-olds do, right? Even when they're in grad school, they buy furniture so they have something to eat on.

I like 30 because it fits with those things. I've never really been one for plans, but looking back, making a decision to come to grad school was already a step towards something approximating a long-range goal. Then I moved here, and, as noted above, my life looks really different than it did in Berkeley. It was becoming clear here that I was outgrowing my 20s, but I was still wearing them. Being "in my 30s" is like finally getting new shoes that are 2 sizes larger - they don't fit perfectly yet, and I'm still figuring out how to walk in them, but instead of busting at the seams, I feel like I've got room to grow into them.