It started with a small slight nudge by God during a conversation with my two friends Anna and Amanda, one whom would not call herself religious, and the other whom would recognize as a Christian. We had a discussion about religion, and guilt, and faith, and our different opinions about it. I respect these friendships so much because although we don't have the same opinions we all are willing to discuss it, learn from one another, and disagree but still love each other for being who we are and what we believe. Anyway, the small nudges started with that conversation and grew stronger with an unsettling questioning feeling about my own faith and beliefs.
It then grew stronger with a realization that although I am volunteering for a church and living a year in an intentional Christian household, and supposedly growing stronger in my faith, it isn't easy. Over the last few months my relationship with God has felt extremely distant and strained. I don't pray as much as I used to, and although I go to church twice a weekend, once to the presbyterian church I work at, and once to Mass, I am not really listening and am not growing stronger in my faith. So tonight in Mass when the priest talked about knowing your faith and being able to answer questions from people about your faith I realized I am not great at that. I am not confident in my faith and the ins and outs of the Catholic faith. If I want to call myself a Catholic I should be able to answer the simple and the difficult questions from people or at least be interested in researching the answers and get back to them. I think I have been using this year as an excuse to let my relationship with God slip away.
Another slightly stronger nudge from God about my relationship with him has been through a book I have been reading called The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller; and if you have never read it I highly encourage everyone, religious or not, to read it. It has shaken my understanding of the gospel and of Christianity. I wish I could quote the whole book for you all here but that would be terribly long and you would probably stop reading so I will just share a few quotes that really hit home for me.
The book talks about the "Prodigal Sons" parable and how there are two sons. Keller explains that both sons are lost and that both are loved by the father and he tells us that "everyone is dedicated to a project of self-salvation, to using God and others in order to get power and control for themselves. We are just going about it in different ways" (44). He also says "the gospel of Jesus is not religion or irreligion, morality or immorality, moralism or relativism, conservatism or liberalism. It says that everyone is wrong, everyone is loved, and everyone is called to recognize this and change. He also says the prerequisite for receiving God's grace is to know you need it" (45).
These quotes illustrate to me that whether we are religious or not, the gospel is still the same; it is that everyone is loved and we just have to accept God's love. Unfortunately, many people don't hear that gospel because there are too many "elder brother" types in the church that are scaring the rest of the people away trying to fulfill that project of self-salvation.
And the final nudge so far from God, which has been more of a shove in the side lately was a conversation I had at dinner on Friday with my minister Ian, 4 other Americans who currently go to Gorbals Parish Church, Noel a friend and mentor, and another minister that is friends with Ian. We were talking at dinner about how you find like minded people who are your community if you don't find them in the church. Sue, one of the Americans was asking because her and Jim's church was an important place where they found their community but I answered and said I was lucky but mine was through college. I was lucky to meet my best friends from college within the first two weeks of my freshman year. But we are all different. Some of us have a faith, most of us do not. But we are all amazing, loving people who want the same things for the world. We all want peace, and love, and equality. There are a lot of terrible people that would consider themselves Christian and there are just as many amazing people that are not affiliated with a religion but still have the same values as those that are religious.
And so when I read this quote in the book I just smiled and was at peace. The quote said: "In his parable, Jesus deconstructs the religiosity that is one of the main problems with the world. In this parable Jesus says to us 'Would you please be open to the possibility that the gospel, real Christianity, is something very different from religion?" (69). I don't think it is coincidence that as I was thinking all these thoughts and questioning religion that God led me to read this book that lays it out so plainly.
I have to make a confession that I have not finished the book but reading this and feeling those nudges from God has encouraged me to strengthen my relationship with him, to research and question my Catholic faith in order to make it stronger, and to always remember to live a life that Jesus would rather than what religion might tell me to.
Blessings,
Julie
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