franota
I want to believe, but.......
Posted on: 12/04/2009 20:37
This evening, driving home from work, I came up behind a Christmas-red car at a stop light. The licence plate read "IWNT2BLV". Wow! I thought - now there's the Christmas Eve sermon...title and all. I wanted to get the driver to pull over, and ask "What do you want to believe? Why? What do you believe?" But the light changed to green, and we were off in the home-going traffic.
The questions remain. Was this person looking for some kind of faith? Not Christian, just faith. What did she want to believe? Why? Did she have any beliefs?
It reminded me of the movie "Polar Express", where the boy is on top of the train talking to a mysterious hobo/ghost, and they get around to belief in Santa. The boy says "I *want* to believe, but......", and the *BUT* lies large and heavy in the air. "*But*, you don't want to get taken down the primrose path.." says the hobo, and then asks "Do you believe in ghosts?"
Isn't this the statement we all make, in the Advent and Christmas season? We want to believe, but we aren't always sure what. The birth of Jesus was so long ago; much of the story is embellished myth from another culture and time. There is a mystical aura around the Christmas story that makes us feel good - but in reality we have trouble believing. Too much of the story is fairy-tale. Too little offers something believable. We often feel like we are getting taken down the primrose path - being *told* what we should believe, instead of being given the tools and oppportunity to think it through.
So many people are in this space. Looking, seeking, wanting to believe.
What is your experience?
Search
Comments
Warriorcleric
Posted on: 12/05/2009 18:34
That's really it in a nutshell, isn't it? And by 'it' I mean the big IT. I often find that my generation is disillusioned, but more than that we are aware of our disillusionment and find it painful. Many people are able to live comfortably in that place, but those that think deeper find ourselves questioning the validity of just going on without meaning. And those of us that feel deeply seem only to be able to express despair because all of our joy is tainted with that "but..." For me it comes down to the question that Religion is supposed to answer, "Why am I here? And what am I supposed to do about it?" The problem is that as I've pulled the strings of my conservative Evangelical faith it's come apart to nothing. I've been trying to rebuild something from within the framework of Liberalism but not getting very far. I'm left knowing that the answer to that question that Confessional Christianity gave me was weak and problematic at best... But at least from that place I had some answer. Even if it was false, it was an answer. I sometimes find myself envying those people that I fight so hard to liberate. They know what they believe. They know they're right. And even if they're wrong, it doesn't matter because they live their lives as though they have a purpose. Is a fictional purpose better than no purpose?