find my spiritual center again

The pastor at the church I attend with my husband has been doing a year-long series on “Back to Basics” of Christianity. Oddly enough, this series has reaffirmed many of my foundational beliefs which are not supported in the basics of Christianity. This has led to some good conversations in our Sunday School class, where people know where I am in my beliefs. This past Sunday, someone was talking about a [“non-believer”]friend of hers with terminal cancer and how one time when she was with her, another friend sent a text message to the woman with cancer, letting her know that she was very concerned about her eternal salvation. My immediate reaction was, “Please, if I am ever in hospice care, do not send me messages about your concern for my eternal salvation.” One other woman in our class said, “Well, but if you are that close to death, you don’t know how you might feel about it.” I have a very high level of confidence about how I will feel about it. I will be eager to chat with whoever or whatever I encounter when I leave this realm but I don’t want people here who haven’t been there yet, telling me what I need to do to get there!

That I have “come out” to my Sunday school class? It is true. We are now on a sermon series (for a whole year) on “Back to Basics” about the fundamental principals of the Christian faith and I have been able to openly and honestly discuss the tenets of the faith which keep me from calling myself a Christian. They are wonderful people and I know they pray for me and that is fine with me. But I believe, with all of my being, that GOD knows my heart and in MY prayers to GOD, I have a sense of peace that GOD accepts my faith as it is.

WARNING: this entry is not intended to raise hackles or offend anyone. It is my semi-public way of managing the private tug-of-war in my spirit right now.
On New Years Eve, in my ritual letter to God, written in private and burned to go to the heavens on the wind, I flat out begged for help in navigating this current situation. I know that there are those who would say “thy will be done” but, then again, that is one of the reasons I hesitate to call myself a Christian because if some of the things that are happening are “God’s will” then I am not sure I want God’s will to be done. I was quite specific in my letter: “please don’t let this happen_” “Please let it be this”
Then I was listening to Krista Tippett’s “Speaking of Faith” podcast on prayer and I heard this interpretation of Psalm 4 by Stephen Mitchell and it resonated with me. Yet it fully contradicts my declaration about God’s will, then, doesn’t it?

Even in the midst of great pain, Lord,
I praise you for that which is.
I will not refuse this grief
Or close myself to this anguish.
Let shallow men pray for ease:
“Comfort us; shield us from sorrow.”
I pray for whatever you send me,
and I ask to receive it as your gift.
You have put a joy in my heart
greater than all the world’s riches.
I lie down trusting the darkness,
for I know that even now you are here.

I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit.
Kahlil Gibran

[Note to the wonderful people who read my entries and who disagree with me on this one. I am sorry if anything I write here tonight offends you. I have deep respect for your faith. This goal is about my journey through faith and spirit and I take it very seriously.] I have had some wonderful conversations with some deeply faithful people about this in the past 2 weeks. The discussion at church these past few weeks had the potential to batter my spiritual center – The “What is to Come” series has included “Death,” “Hell” and “Heaven.” As I’ve said before, I don’t reject all of the tenets of the Christian faith but I have serious questions and strong doubts about many of those tenets, particularly as they are expressed in the Baptist Church. Here’s the kicker – Hell doesn’t feel right to me. At least not on a large scale, if-you-don’t-believe,-that-is-where-you-are-going, kind of right. It also doesn’t feel right to me that all of the serial killers and rapists who have repented and genuinely accepted the Christian faith are not going to hell but I, who am unable to make that leap of faith because of something deep inside that tells me it doesn’t feel right, am thought by many of the people closest to me, to be a strong candidate for Hell.

Now, heaven is a bit easier for me. When the pastor delivered his message last week, he used the poem “A Parable of Immortality” by Henry Van Dyke to make his point. It worked very well and had everyone in the church in tears. This one felt more right in my spirit, for I had felt something akin to that when my father and my sister left this world. Of course, my idea of heaven and the ideas of the pastor and the rest of the congregation are probably very different. That’s okay.

So, admidst all of this, I had a dream. It was about the end of the world. Everyone was gathering, evacuation-like, at various places around town. My site included all of the people in my life, those I am close to and those I know only slightly. I was the lone doubter among the group. I was the only one who did not believe that the world would be coming to an end at 1:32 p.m. that day. And when it did not, I was the only one who was not devastated and discouraged. (There was a lot more to the dream but this is the main idea of it.) I took great comfort in this dream – I will hold onto my spiritual journey and honor the journeys of those in my life as well.

My spiritual center is doing okay.

I think it’s okay to be a bit off balance in this area. I continue to go to church with my husband. A few weeks ago, I made it clear to our Sunday School class that I am “one of those people” – the ones who believe that whatever someone believes is okay. I swear, I felt like I was coming out of the closet. I told them I have never struggled with this, it has always been at the heart of my spirit. I do believe in God, but the God I believe in recognizes that different approaches work for different people and that as long as you are true to what you believe and as long as what you believe does not involve harm to other people (there’s more but those are the basics), it’s okay. Cop out? I don’t know. It just feels right to me. And in conversations (prayer? pleading?) I’ve had with God, I’ve made it clear that I am open to a life changing experience that might influence my perspective. Whenever I have that conversation, it ends with me feeling like I am fine right where I am, accepting the God in each of us and the right each of us has to understand that God in our own way.

My spiritual center is filled with peace and hope and joy. I remember this well. And recently, I have felt it, quite strongly. Maybe it is the happiness manifesto. Maybe it is going to a church where I can nurture my beliefs without feeling like an interloper. Maybe it is talking to Calia about the world beyond this one. I can’t say. All I know is that I am feeling my spirit again and, while I am not prepared to mark this goal as complete, I would have to say that it is progressing well!

For several years, I haven’t felt my true spiritual center as I had for most of my life. Life tested it for a while, and like a turtle retreating into its shell, my spirit went into hiding. Now, with my conscious focus on happiness and my timid explorations of relationships with deeply spiritual people and ideas, I can feel just a bit of movement within my spirit’s shell.