Questions, questions and more questions. I keep finding more things to ask. I feel sorry now for the people around me as they are all getting bombarded with questions, queries, challenged and all manner of other things from me.
However some more answers for me from talking and listening to people. The first thing is it is OK for me to keep questionning and asking things. That is who I am and I shouldn't hide away behind that and not ask. The second is not everyone has the answers to everything all the time. The third is I am not the only person who wants to understand all these things. It does feel like sometimes you are the only person who is challenging all these things and asking and questionning, especially when there are a lot of people around you who believe and have faith.
Faith, there is a word that is going to come into this soon enough. This goes back to my supernatural statement from Friday, I am not going to ever see any evidence of some of these things for myself. Eventually I am going if I want to believe I must have faith, a belief that transcends all of these worries and concerns and accepts God and Jesus and all these things. I have been told I can't put this in a box, and analyse it under the microscope as an intellectual argument. I will analyse this as much as I can but people tell me it will have to be more than accepting what is written, but accepting what is written even though it may contradict what I believe I know.
Then we get back to the brain in a blender idea. Here I am now much more confused about everything than I was when I started the Alpha Course, how many questions I had before doesn't compare with how many I have now. I figured this wouldn't be particularly difficult but I feel like it is around me all day every day. When I sit still I mull over something that someone says or something I have seen. It doesn't seem to end and is quite hard.
I have been to church this morning which has helped liquidise my brain some more.. The sermon was short and had a phrase "Theologists either experience God or turn to religion" which is something that rang true. I don't want to be someone who turns up on a Sunday because it's Sunday or because they are supposed to. I want to be there to experience it.
I have had some wonderful emails from friends answering all sorts of questions I have posted and asked people and I am very grateful for everything that people are doing for me as they are all putting themselves out to answer questions and be challenged. I am amazed at how open people will be when I come out with things that almost openly challenge the things they hold dear. I just hope they don't think I am being horrible. I am just looking for answers.
Also today I discovered you don't necessarily do Alpha once, often you can do it multiple times to get the answers to everything. (Although no-one knows everything as I have been told!).
I have heard some great metaphors for the whole thing today including a brilliant one about a boat. My journey was likened to me in a rowing boat and I am rowing like crazy doing things my way and fighting and keeping going no matter how tired I get. God then comes up in an ocean liner and says... Are you OK? Kind of makes you think...
The last thing I am thinking at the moment is about the breaking of bread. It happened today in the service and I was probably just about the only person that didn't take part. I decided that whilst I was doing my journey and i am not sure that it would be hypocritical to be accepting that without being absolutely sure in my own mind. I am not going to lie and pretend to be sure when I am not.
Anyway loads of bits and pieces today but no questions. Just a lot of thoughts... Ciao for now..
Hi again. Like me, you probably won't find it (by which I mean faith) all plain sailing. I have found it a very rocky road indeed and I have drifted away from the Church and my church several times because I could no longer swallow some aspects of doctrine and felt like a hypocrite at times. But I keep going back to church because something inside me tells me that despite all the churchianity that goes on in churches there is something that resonates about Christianity even if there are some aspects of church which I don't feel comfortable with. If one can accept the idea that this world is fallen then I think one can then accept that this fallenness affects its institutions including even its churches because it is made up of imperfect people. Even our theology is probably imperfect and most theologians will admit that there are just some things that we can't know in our present state of knowledge and will say 'its a mystery'. I too, like you have a problem with Holy Communion. At our church, we have it on the first Sunday of the month and I sometimes give those services a miss or if I do go give the breaking of bread itself a miss, as it is not something I feel entirely comfortable with. But there is no obligation to do it. I think the thing to do is just to take part in what you are comfortable with and leave what you are not comfortable with. If Jesus is present in our churches I feel sure that he would understand that some people may be uncomfortable with some aspects of church ritual and should not take part just for show. I too feel on the margins of the church and don't take responsibility for anything, such as the teamaking, Sunday school, collecting the money or reading the Bible or taking prayers. It seems to be a minority that does those things so I don't feel pressurised into doing anything like that. I too asked a lot of questions in the Alpha course when I did it in January 2009 and because most of the people in my weekly group were already church-goers they asked less questions than newcomers like me. And the facilitator really didn't mind. After all, that is what Alpha is for, isn't it? If you have not already read it, there is a really good book on theology, called Cafe Theology, by Michael Lloyd, which makes theology very accessible.
ReplyDeleteBye for now.
Pete F.
Thanks again for your comment onto my blog. I am certainly going to be looking a lot at the sources that you quote at me. I would say I am much more involved with the people within the church than you. The questions though don't go away. I think the way the alpha course is run is good to allow lots of people from different backgrounds to come together and ask questions. Who knows what i am going to find next. To be fair I enjoy being involved although it is quite hard to do Sunday whilst wrestling with the stuff I find out on the Alpha...
ReplyDeleteLook forward to any other insights you have
Alex