The next step in this journey of mine is attending L'Abri in England. When I contacted L'Abri about possibly joining them in fall, they asked for a brief biography. What I sent them those two months ago seems to sum up where I come from and where I am at. I thought it a good introduction into this space...
But let me be completely honest with you, let me tell you a secret: I have no idea where to begin. I cannot even come up with something to say. It is a brief statement of my own personal individual biographical data, and my mind will not cooperate. It's like my brain decided to go on sabbatical or something. Each sentence I begin to construct - doubts, questions and uncertainties tear it apart before it makes its way to the page. I cannot seem to formulate anything concrete, or further, anything I sincerely believe to be true. Let me be even more honest with you: I have been having this problem for quite some time now.
Here are the superficials: raised in a Christian home in small town suburbia, California, I am a 23 year-old female who recently graduated from college.
Here is some history: Straight from high school I moved from California to Canada where I attended a one-year program at Columbia Bible College. I see this year as marking the beginnings of an exploration into the faith I have professed since childhood. The next two years were spent at a community college in San Luis Obispo, California. It is here that I learned of community, it is here that I discovered what it means to truly gather. And the past two years, well they have been spent at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. And it is here, at this Christian College, where I have gained the courage to stop, turn, and face all of the questions that have long surrounded my faith.
Here is the current status: I am at a place on this journey where I am no longer content to convince myself to believe...in anything. This means I am no longer ignoring and placating the questions and doubts that have plagued me for years regarding Christianity. This means I no longer find reassurance in the words of prepackaged Christian rhetoric. This means I am skeptical, critical even, of all things that stink of Christian jargon or commercialized Christianity. This looks like, me searching for meaning elsewhere. In my volunteer work at a local hospice, in philosophical conversations with friends, in relationships, in reading classic literature and in believing in and valuing love - I am searching for more, for depth. I suppose that in the end, what this really means is that at my core, I am deeply lonely.
You see, what I truly want, what I truly desire, is to believe. It seems I cannot let go; I cannot wipe my hands of this Jesus and walk away. And so here I sit, for about a year now, in this dark room of uncertainty that has become my home. I cannot accept the answers that Christianity provides, and yet I will not deny Him. And so I sit. Paralyzed. The only thought that seems to escape my lips with any clarity or conviction is formed in the quiet and defeated words, "I don't know."
1 comment:
1) I remember when you were having trouble writing that biography. There is just too much leah to fit into 3 paragraphs.
2) I love this: "where I have gained the courage to stop, turn, and face all of the questions that have long surrounded my faith." The stop and turn mentality sounds like something Marilyn would say...and there is rarely a higher compliment than that... ;)
3)An excerpt from the book I am reading, Anna Karenina, by the character Levin, who must take communion/confession before he is married, though he considers himself agnostic at this point.
"In matters of religion Levin, like most of his contemporaries, had very indefinite views. He could not believe in it, and yet was not firmly convinced that it was false. Therefore, unable either to believe in the importance of what he was doing [taking communion] or to look upon it with indifference as a completely empty form, he, while preparing for confession, felt awkward and ashamed at doing something incomprehensible and therefore-as an inner voice told him- necessarily false and wrong."
I think you said you read this book a long time ago...but sometimes certain parts stand out to you according to what you are looking for/wondering about at the particular moment you read it, so you might have forgotten this little bit.
PS LONGEST COMMENT EVER!
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