Faith Journey, Part Two

Okay, so I finished my faith Journey text that I'm supposed to read in church tomorrow. It's not the exact text, and it's not finished. But it's as close as I can come right now. Thanks to my friend Joe, for the joke.

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I thought hard about how to start this. I thought of talking about being a kid going to Baptist church in Springfield, on occasion, and falling asleep, waking up for the same main reason I went there in the first place—for the donuts at the end of the service. Because that was the deal I made—church for donuts. Because that’s what church, and my journey, has been—about making a deal with God.

Then I thought of a better way to start. With a joke.

…

Okay, so there’s this guy driving to work for the most important presentation of his life. And he’s late. When he pulls into the parking lot of the building he needs to get to, he figures he has just enough time to park and get in the building. The problem is, the parking lot is entirely full. So he’s driving around, looking for a spot, and he starts to pray. ”God, “ he says, “I’ve got to get to this presentation on time. If you get me a parking spot, I swear, I’ll give up drinking and smoking and the party life, and I will go to church every Sunday!” Suddenly he pulls around a corner, and lo and behold, there’s an empty space.

He says, “Oh, nevermind, I found one!”
…

My journey has seemed so much about making a deal with God. But the stakes were never really clear. Until the stakes were clear, until I really needed that parking space, being a human being, I never really saw the need.

I remember we had an album of Jesus Christ Superstar, the Broadway play, that I played it for my nephew when I was about eight. He was only a year younger than me, and I knew more about Christianity than he did. I knew Christs story, at least. More specifically, I knew that Christ died for us, and how. So, with the soundtrack, I took the opportunity to impress that on him, in slow and excrutiating detail, not unlike what Mel Gibson made a movie of a couple of years ago. He was horrified. In time, I felt bad about it how I’d done that. Not a good deal.

Years later, after I met my wife, and when we were about to get married, that’s when I started to go to church in earnest. The main reason was to avoid hypocrisy. See, I’m the kind of person who thinks ahead. I plan ahead a week or two, sometimes a year or two. I have goals that are far out, twenty, thirty years forward. I didn’t want to get married and then have kids and then start going to church, because of them, because that felt hypocritical. I wanted to go with them, because I was sharing a faith with them. So, my desire for church was to establish a connection that we didn’t yet have, that I knew was important. A connection of my unborn kids to Gods Unconditional Love.

See, in the Book of Virtues, edited by William J. Bennett (good book by the way), there’s an allegory of a man who says that he wants to raise his kids without religion, until they’re old enough to make their own choices on what to believe. In that story, the analogy is made to a garden, that is left to grow to its own devices, along its own inclinations, until it’s mature enough to decide what kind of garden it wants to be. As a result, in several years it’s overgrown and out of control, lost, and irreclaimable. It’s an extreme analogy, but one that has some basis. Kids need guidance. Kids need love. Kids need faith, and a belief in Truth, and an understanding that can support them when nothing else does. Kids need that, because adults need that, and adults often don’t get that, unless they get it as kids. It’s like vitamins, or good nutrition—it’s essential for kids to get so that they can grow into a faith. But it’s just as easy for adults to get sick from the lack of it. It’s just as important, for those kids, for that adult, for the world around him or her, that they have that faith, because without it, “things fall apart; the center cannot hold.”

So that’s when I made my deal. I would follow the best that I could, the teachings of love, and belief, and trust, and sacrifice, in the name of the sacrifice that was made for me. For Love, I made a bargain with God, not for a parking space, but for Trust, and Faith. Because that’s what I think the ultimate deal is, all the deal that I hear God constantly asking—to exchange Will with a capital W for Trust, and Faith. That’s the only marker I can really say has come out of my journey, the willingness to follow something larger than myself.

I mean, maybe I could say, oh, nevermind, I found a way myself— I have the Will, I don’t need to follow. Thanks anyway! But I don’t have that level of faith in myself. I need that level of faith, and can find that level of faith, only in something larger than myself. I made the deal, because I need God. I remember a cartoon that showed graffitti on a wall, reading: "God is Dead —Nietzsche." Next to it was written "Nietzsche is dead —God." I guess I need to believe in God, in a God, in a Higher Power, a Being more powerful than muself, because I know Myself isn't going to be here forever.

And maybe at the end of the day, maybe God doesn’t really demand a deal. Maybe he just demands a journey. That we look for that spot, and trust that it’ll be there if we need it, and that we’ll do the right thing when we find it. Or trust that if we don’t find it, that there was a reason behind that. To have that Faith. That’s what I’m journeying toward. So that was my journey. Or, I should say, that’s how it started. Because I haven’t gotten there, yet. Still going. Still going.