In reviewing the books I listed I've found it difficult to distinguish. Many or all of them seemed to speak equally to both organs; let's say the intellect and the spirit.
The first and preeminent one for me must be the door to spiritual life-- N.V.Peale; it was simplistic, but a little child doesn't have a highly developed intellect or critical faculty.
In midlife I think George MacDonald: he had an incisive intellect, but what does most for me is the spiritual nurture- the manna that sustains me through the journey.
In later years there was C.G.Jung: he had special gifts for the many professional religionists who had lost much of the theological underpining for their vocation.
He continually spoke of God as a psychic fact, which no one can really deny. His Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, published posthumously, confirmed my suspicion that he was one of the few outstanding prophets of our age; he looked at religion in the way scientists do, open to whatever truth unfolds.
But much bigger than Jung was William Blake (Frye was my door to him). Blake's art is fraught with spiritual truth with a depth that perhaps no one else has achieved in our age. He is still waiting on us reaching a level of consciousness when we can comprehend. Just read The Little Black Boy, and tell me if that doesn't tug at your heart strings. Or the Monk of Charlemayne, or the "Quaker sacrament", where Blake speaks of his relationship to God:
Throughout Eternity I forgive you,
You forgive me.
As the dear Redeemer said,
This the wine and this the bread.
November 17, 2004
My (un)Faith Walk
When I was a child a picture hung on my wall. A young black boy and his pet cocker-spaniel kneeling at the foot of his bed praying. The caption read Lead Us.
I hated that picture. Mostly I hated it because it was cute. But increasingly I hated it because my connections to religion as an organized human construct was coming a part at the seams.
I remember somewhere around the age 8 or 9 saying if God was real he's show up in my room to prove it. I would then hide under the covers just in case. Slowly I would realize the Big Kahuna was not going to take me up on the challenge.
Two of us filled out our application forms for Boy Scouts. Under "religion" one of us put Druid and the other put Atheist. I can't for the life of me recall which was which. But I do recall getting a dressing down from the scout leader. Scouting is a Christian organization. Could have fooled me. One the lousiest bullies in my grade was in the troop. And since then my old neighbourhood has formed a Raja Cub Pack for Hindi boy scouts.
Somewhere around the same time -- or maybe a tad later I made a pact with God. This Christianity thing wasn't doing it for me. I wasn't even certain God existed -- in fact I was getting increasingly convinced he didn't. So I was going to try and figure things out for myself. Only thing I asked, was that if I got it wrong, then when the time of judgment came -- show me what I did wrong. Show me what I missed.
I read a lot of occult, philosophy and religious stuff through my teen years and into my 20s. If there had been a Goth movement I likely would have been a part of it. But there wasn't so I wore blue jeans and T-shirts like everyone else in the 70s/80s. And I was alone with my searchings.
November 10th of 1982. Matters came to a head. I was suddenly weighed down with the realization I could not live up to my own ideals and principles. The issue was harboring anger towards someone who had disappointed me. Add to this mix that I had recently been to my first Quaker meeting and felt like God has spoken to me -- so I was also wrestling with my metaphysics. I turned my life over to God.
You have to appreciate that the Quaker Meeting I was attending was not one to encourage born-again religion. My wrestling was not going to stop nor was it going to get easier. It was just going to move in a slightly new direction.
From this you will see that the gonna-go-to-heaven notion of salvation wasn't on my agenda. The salvation I sought and continue to seek was the wisdom to know the morally right path and the empowerment to walk it. That's all I have really ever wanted from God and faith. Sometimes I pray for other stuff -- like an end to a migraine or healing of cancer for a friend or a new job (yes God!). But at its heart -- my faith is about right action -- knowing what to do and then doing it.
I often mess up.
I hated that picture. Mostly I hated it because it was cute. But increasingly I hated it because my connections to religion as an organized human construct was coming a part at the seams.
I remember somewhere around the age 8 or 9 saying if God was real he's show up in my room to prove it. I would then hide under the covers just in case. Slowly I would realize the Big Kahuna was not going to take me up on the challenge.
Two of us filled out our application forms for Boy Scouts. Under "religion" one of us put Druid and the other put Atheist. I can't for the life of me recall which was which. But I do recall getting a dressing down from the scout leader. Scouting is a Christian organization. Could have fooled me. One the lousiest bullies in my grade was in the troop. And since then my old neighbourhood has formed a Raja Cub Pack for Hindi boy scouts.
Somewhere around the same time -- or maybe a tad later I made a pact with God. This Christianity thing wasn't doing it for me. I wasn't even certain God existed -- in fact I was getting increasingly convinced he didn't. So I was going to try and figure things out for myself. Only thing I asked, was that if I got it wrong, then when the time of judgment came -- show me what I did wrong. Show me what I missed.
I read a lot of occult, philosophy and religious stuff through my teen years and into my 20s. If there had been a Goth movement I likely would have been a part of it. But there wasn't so I wore blue jeans and T-shirts like everyone else in the 70s/80s. And I was alone with my searchings.
November 10th of 1982. Matters came to a head. I was suddenly weighed down with the realization I could not live up to my own ideals and principles. The issue was harboring anger towards someone who had disappointed me. Add to this mix that I had recently been to my first Quaker meeting and felt like God has spoken to me -- so I was also wrestling with my metaphysics. I turned my life over to God.
You have to appreciate that the Quaker Meeting I was attending was not one to encourage born-again religion. My wrestling was not going to stop nor was it going to get easier. It was just going to move in a slightly new direction.
From this you will see that the gonna-go-to-heaven notion of salvation wasn't on my agenda. The salvation I sought and continue to seek was the wisdom to know the morally right path and the empowerment to walk it. That's all I have really ever wanted from God and faith. Sometimes I pray for other stuff -- like an end to a migraine or healing of cancer for a friend or a new job (yes God!). But at its heart -- my faith is about right action -- knowing what to do and then doing it.
I often mess up.
November 16, 2004
My faith history
Hi. I hope nobody minds if I take a leaf from Marjorie's book and post this - I already did a couple of days ago, but deleted it ... if you've already read it, please ignore this :-)
I wasn't raised in any religion, didn't go to church as a child except for a couple of visits.
In high school my sister and I got interested in eastern religions, took yoga classes. She still really likes the Dalai Lama and Tich Nat Han (sp?).
In college, I majored in art and later added philosophy - Socrates and the existentialists were my favorites. I thought religion was for those rationally challenged :-)
Things in my life started going badly - was diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease, got married and then divorced just a couple of years later. Money problems. I joined the Catholic church, not because I believed in God, but because I was lonely and hoped to make friends. Spent 3 years there and learned a lot about church but nothing really about Jesus/God.
Took up writing. When writing a story with a Jesuit character, I did research and met a Jesuit priest online. His website had his posted homilies and they were amazing to me - showed a possibility of relationship with Jesus/God I had never imagined. He was reluctant to talk to me about this stuff so I decided to take the online retreat at Creighton U. and asked him to help me. He agreed and the rest is history :-)
Sorry this was so long.
I wasn't raised in any religion, didn't go to church as a child except for a couple of visits.
In high school my sister and I got interested in eastern religions, took yoga classes. She still really likes the Dalai Lama and Tich Nat Han (sp?).
In college, I majored in art and later added philosophy - Socrates and the existentialists were my favorites. I thought religion was for those rationally challenged :-)
Things in my life started going badly - was diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease, got married and then divorced just a couple of years later. Money problems. I joined the Catholic church, not because I believed in God, but because I was lonely and hoped to make friends. Spent 3 years there and learned a lot about church but nothing really about Jesus/God.
Took up writing. When writing a story with a Jesuit character, I did research and met a Jesuit priest online. His website had his posted homilies and they were amazing to me - showed a possibility of relationship with Jesus/God I had never imagined. He was reluctant to talk to me about this stuff so I decided to take the online retreat at Creighton U. and asked him to help me. He agreed and the rest is history :-)
Sorry this was so long.
Marjorie's Faith
This is hard for me to write and I don't know why -- perhaps its because I feel I don't have anything important or interesting to say about my faith.
I'm a lifelong Episcopalian. Both my parents are lifelong Episcopalians and my mother's father was an Episcopal priest. So being an Episcopalian is part of my upbringing and my family.
My faith is simple. I believe what is stated in the Nicence and Apostle's Creeds -- God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit; Jesus as the incarnate God, crucified as a substitutionary atonement for our sins and his resurrection. I view the Bible as mostly literal, wholly metaphorical and God's inspired Word. I don't know whether the Word is inerrant but I know man is not, so I'm not an inerrantist. Even if the Bible is without error, I imagine we humans have gotten the message jumbled here and there again and again. As to anything that doesn't make sense or seems improbable, I simply shrug my shoulders and say "mystery of faith" and I'm satisfied with that. Perhaps I don't view my faith critically enough, but I'll spin that to be that I have the faith of a child.
I have had a negative view of the church since childhood as a result of attending a church that was caught up in the charismatic movement, of which my family was not part. I don't have much to say about the substance of the charismatic movement (e.g. I don't believe or disbelieve in the gift of tongues, I don't know anything about it). What I do know is that my parents were treated cruelly by friends of theirs who judged them because they weren't interested in being charasmatic. They were even told at one point that they didn't have a Christian marriage because they weren't interested in attending some couples Bible Study. My view of the church was that it was filled with cruel hypocrites and that church was a dangerous place. I was pulled out of Sunday School at an early age because the teacher (a former Baptist) was focussing a bit too much on resisting the devil and it was scaring the hell out of me (pun intended). Thus, I always felt I had missed out on some important religious guidance. Confirmation was a joke, we were made to buy some insipid book written by the power hungry rector -- I only read the part on sex, don't do it if you're not married to the person. I did learn the Nicene Creed, which is handy and I think we might have looked at the 10 Commandments. My mother couldn't believe we didn't cover the catechism (and its pretty short).
Basically, I wasn't interested in church. I always believed in God and Jesus and the whole shebang, but not church. I always felt one could find God more easily during a walk in the woods than in a pew. Interestingly, I had a boyfriend in college (Baptist) who made an off-hand remark that always stuck with me. He said that when you move to a new town, the best way to establish community contacts was to go to church.
I was never involved with the church while I was in school, but after I got married and moved to a new town, I joined the local Episcopal church. This was probably partly because I wanted to establish community contacts and partly because I married a lapsed Catholic and was hoping to have priority on church should he revive. We moved after a couple of years and lived in an apartment in D.C. -- during the year we lived there, we did not join a church. After we bought a house and moved again, we joined a local Episcopal church. Both my children were baptized as infants and I am an active member of the church (I'm lay reader and on the Altar Guild).
The turning point for me to pay attention to my faith were the September 11, 2001 attacks. I was scared -- the attacks were very salient to me because I worked in the World Trade Center for a year and I live near the Pentagon now. I feared future terrorist attacks. I was concerned that I would start having panic attacks if I didn't do something. Interestingly, a week earlier, a friend invited me to a Bible study, which I had declined. After the attacks, I took her up on the offer and began Bible study.
I took the Bible study for 3 years and really enjoyed it. The reason I gave up this class is because its a bit conservative and fundamentalist. As a result of my interest in homeschooling, specifically unschooling, my philosophy of life was becoming more liberal. I knew I was in for an inevitable clash if I continued with the Bible study class.
Where am I now? I am still interested in Bible study, though I no longer take that particular class. I am still an Episcopalian and am comforable enough at my church. While I recognize that I may need to move on at some point, its such a part of my background that I don't want to move on unless I have a clearer view of where I'm going. Also, I'd be taking my husband and children with me and thats no light matter to me. My husband is satisfied with our church and my daughter's do well with the childcare and Sunday School.
[This is a long post; I don't know if this blog has established the ability to truncate posts, but if and when it does, this should be truncated]
I'm a lifelong Episcopalian. Both my parents are lifelong Episcopalians and my mother's father was an Episcopal priest. So being an Episcopalian is part of my upbringing and my family.
My faith is simple. I believe what is stated in the Nicence and Apostle's Creeds -- God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit; Jesus as the incarnate God, crucified as a substitutionary atonement for our sins and his resurrection. I view the Bible as mostly literal, wholly metaphorical and God's inspired Word. I don't know whether the Word is inerrant but I know man is not, so I'm not an inerrantist. Even if the Bible is without error, I imagine we humans have gotten the message jumbled here and there again and again. As to anything that doesn't make sense or seems improbable, I simply shrug my shoulders and say "mystery of faith" and I'm satisfied with that. Perhaps I don't view my faith critically enough, but I'll spin that to be that I have the faith of a child.
I have had a negative view of the church since childhood as a result of attending a church that was caught up in the charismatic movement, of which my family was not part. I don't have much to say about the substance of the charismatic movement (e.g. I don't believe or disbelieve in the gift of tongues, I don't know anything about it). What I do know is that my parents were treated cruelly by friends of theirs who judged them because they weren't interested in being charasmatic. They were even told at one point that they didn't have a Christian marriage because they weren't interested in attending some couples Bible Study. My view of the church was that it was filled with cruel hypocrites and that church was a dangerous place. I was pulled out of Sunday School at an early age because the teacher (a former Baptist) was focussing a bit too much on resisting the devil and it was scaring the hell out of me (pun intended). Thus, I always felt I had missed out on some important religious guidance. Confirmation was a joke, we were made to buy some insipid book written by the power hungry rector -- I only read the part on sex, don't do it if you're not married to the person. I did learn the Nicene Creed, which is handy and I think we might have looked at the 10 Commandments. My mother couldn't believe we didn't cover the catechism (and its pretty short).
Basically, I wasn't interested in church. I always believed in God and Jesus and the whole shebang, but not church. I always felt one could find God more easily during a walk in the woods than in a pew. Interestingly, I had a boyfriend in college (Baptist) who made an off-hand remark that always stuck with me. He said that when you move to a new town, the best way to establish community contacts was to go to church.
I was never involved with the church while I was in school, but after I got married and moved to a new town, I joined the local Episcopal church. This was probably partly because I wanted to establish community contacts and partly because I married a lapsed Catholic and was hoping to have priority on church should he revive. We moved after a couple of years and lived in an apartment in D.C. -- during the year we lived there, we did not join a church. After we bought a house and moved again, we joined a local Episcopal church. Both my children were baptized as infants and I am an active member of the church (I'm lay reader and on the Altar Guild).
The turning point for me to pay attention to my faith were the September 11, 2001 attacks. I was scared -- the attacks were very salient to me because I worked in the World Trade Center for a year and I live near the Pentagon now. I feared future terrorist attacks. I was concerned that I would start having panic attacks if I didn't do something. Interestingly, a week earlier, a friend invited me to a Bible study, which I had declined. After the attacks, I took her up on the offer and began Bible study.
I took the Bible study for 3 years and really enjoyed it. The reason I gave up this class is because its a bit conservative and fundamentalist. As a result of my interest in homeschooling, specifically unschooling, my philosophy of life was becoming more liberal. I knew I was in for an inevitable clash if I continued with the Bible study class.
Where am I now? I am still interested in Bible study, though I no longer take that particular class. I am still an Episcopalian and am comforable enough at my church. While I recognize that I may need to move on at some point, its such a part of my background that I don't want to move on unless I have a clearer view of where I'm going. Also, I'd be taking my husband and children with me and thats no light matter to me. My husband is satisfied with our church and my daughter's do well with the childcare and Sunday School.
[This is a long post; I don't know if this blog has established the ability to truncate posts, but if and when it does, this should be truncated]
November 14, 2004
Even the Demons Believe -- and Shudder
But someone will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe-- and shudder. Do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith apart from works is barren? Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works. Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness," and he was called the friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. Likewise, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another road? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.--James 2:18-26 (NRSV)
Note that the NIV comes pretty close to the NRSV here but instead of works reads deeds. I actually think the word deeds comes closer to the sense of this passage. But by keeping works we retain the echoes of Paul. James I feel is railing against an overly simplified interpretation of Paul and keeping that active in our minds as we read can be helpful. The NIV readership, like my IVCF friend, is committed to justification by faith not works, even as they turn belief into another work. So NIV's deeds helps make the lesson go down better for them.
Paul I think was a mixed blessing for our faith. He certainly was successful in his missionary activities. But the so-called catholic epistles are a bit testy about him. There's James here. Then there's 2 Peter:
So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. You therefore, beloved, since you are forewarned, beware that you are not carried away with the error of the lawless and lose your own stability.-- II Peter 3:15a-17(NRSV)
So we're stuck with the faith/works things again. Crystal's link is helpful here. Just remember that even Paul agrees, the only thing that counts is faith working through love (Galatians 5:6).
Peace be with you, Friends.
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