11 April 2007
I cannot find my place among the believers
The title really says it all. I simply have found that whenever I look for a place among the believers around me I do not find a connection of any kind. I form connections individually, but when I try to apply those on a grander scheme, there is nothing. I don't know why this is. I feel as though my heart is open. I feel like I am pouring myself out. But nothing comes of it. Maybe I'm over-analyzing it all. But for some reason, it seems like there has to be someone out there who can understand where I'm coming from. Someone has to understand the concept that I cannot stand church, but I am longing for community. That I want to discuss the possibility that things can be done differently without being called a heretic. Does anyone else out there understand? Please, tell me if you do!
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I couldn't understand more if my life depended on it. I've been reading your posts for the last week or so after you posted the site for the blog on your away message. I've been very... enthralled? by them because they seem parallel to my position in so many ways, but I never really felt moved to post anything back... I dont know why, i just didnt. I guess i just felt like it was none of my business.
But after reading this post i couldn't stand not to post anything. I have said almost the exact same words to myself sooo many times. I've virtually stopped going to youth group, i go to worship sunday mornings because my parents still make me but then make excuses and complain my way out of anyother activity they would have me go to. Because everytime i go to sunday school or wednesday nights, i leave feeling angry and frusterated, sometimes almost to the point of tears, becasue i can feel within me that what theyre teaching isn't right.
It frusterates me further becasue i have no one to talk to about it. I won't talk to anyone in my church, obviously, because theyre part of the problem. I cant talk to my parents, my dad's a Baptist minister and professor of theology and my mom works with baptist missionaries, so i know their traditional views and i know they wont be able to fully comprehend what i'm trying to tell them.
I've been thinking about this issue for a long time and wanted to share a few of the things i've come up with. During a mission trip at the beach last summer, after we had been having a talk about the day and my youth minister had preached one of those ever frusterating little sermons, he sent us out unto the beach to go contemplate god or life or whatever needed contemplating. And while i was out there looking at the stars by myself, two big thoughts or theories came to me.
The first i almost hesitate to tell you because i know you'll recognize it and i'm afraid you wont take it/me seriously. So please bear with me and give serious thought to it. "Why is a question deeper than its answer." Ya, its the all-knowing Vergere. I never really comprehended what she was saying when she said that until i applied it, along with some of her other philosophie, to this particular situation. But it couldnt be more accurate. You can't spend all your time asking Why, because if you do you'll never be satisfied. You can never KNOW the answer, ESPECIALLY in a religous matter such as this. God is not limited to the human thought process and all of his creations and his... systems are far past the capabilites of the human mind. So you can ask Why all you want and you will find many different people offering all different kinds of answers. But they're not THE answer. They can't be. You have to come to terms with the question and the fact that you might never know the answer, and that thats ok. If god feels fit to present you the answer he will. Which kind of leads me to my second "revelation."
To use Vergere yet again, "Ask yourself. Where else can one look?" One of my major problems with the church is their view on the bible. They tell me that the bible is the holy spirit, and that it is god's word to us, and yet all i see when i look at it is flawed and alterated work of man, a nice guide but not the official map... thats not the best metaphor but i hope you get what i mean. I dont believe that "the bible is the holy spirit" as one of my sunday school teachers tried to tell us one day. "In the beginning there was the word. The Word was with God, and the word was God." When you become a christian, you accept christ into your heart, God LIVES in you. If God is the Word, and God lives in you, then is not the Word inside you? The true and unadulatrated word somewhere deep within you heart? If this is true then why are we told to deny ourselves and listen to a tainted compilation of men long dead.
And i know you might then say well how can you trust that your following God and not your own selfish desires? I belive this is where true faith comes in. If you are able to commit yourself fully, and somehow find a harmony with that god-part of yourself then you will be able to discern the difference. I know we often manage to justify wrong choices to ourselfes and pass them off as right, but you have to know, deep down, that it wasnt the right choice. It's finding that voice inside you that tells you that it was wrong that you have to learn to listen too. And It is and will always be hard, truly hard. But no one said faith would be easy.
This has probably been the longest comment in the history of blogspot. Buti i basically just wanted to get some of what i've worked out so far out there. I have been struggling with the exact same probalem as you have for a long time and hope maybe some of what i've said might make sense to you or help you in some way. I'm still so shaky about it myself. I would love to talk to you about it any time, i need just as much help as you do and would be glad to have company and support. I hope you find some peace and belonging somewhere soon, I know how miserable it is.
_Yours Truly
Kate
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