Wisdom's Cry

It is hard for me to talk about my faith. Not because I don’t want to, but because so often when I do, my family, and my friends assail me with their infectious doubts. Doubt is a poison to faith. It is a poison to the soul, but it can also be a spur to keep us from ever confusing our faith with certainty.

My mother is primary voice of doubt. She raised me to be a Baptist. When I converted to Catholicism, she lost that common frame of reference we used to share to discuss matters of faith.

I pray the rosary. She cannot understand why.
I pray to the saints. She cannot understand why.
I pray for the souls in purgatory. She cannot understand why.
My house is full of icons, statues, and books by people she never heard of before. She cannot understand why.

The reason I say she “cannot understand” instead of “does not understand” is because we are no longer speaking the same language. Joseph Campbell once compared religion to a computer’s operating system. Programs written for Windows will not run in OS X. That is why she cannot understand. Her operating system is Baptist, mine is Catholic.

These problems are even further exacerbated by my discovery of Creation Spirituality. She follows a fall/redemption path.

I do not think it is my job to convert her, but she feels it is her duty to convert me.

She asks me probing questions. She cannot understand why I went through so much to become Catholic, going so far that I nearly became a priest, then monk. Now, I no longer attend a Roman Catholic Church, but I still consider my self catholic.

That is the source of my doubt. I consider myself a Seraphic Christian. I live (to the best of my ability) according to the Rule of St Francis. I recite it once a month, and draw inspiration from his writings. I live my catholic faith to the best of my ability in the Seraphic Father’s path, guided by what I have learned about Creation Spirituality and through the practice of Deep Ecumenism. I feel the loss of the community. I miss the liturgy, but more than anything, I feel the loss of Holy Orders.

As a child, I wanted to be a preacher. After I converted to Catholicism, I wanted to be a priest or a monk. I pray the hours daily, and to this day, I live a very monastic life.

What do I think Holy Orders would have given me?

Authority? No, it would have given me a communion of believers who walked the same path, practiced the same rituals, and prayed the same prayers. It would have given me people to share this journey with who spoke the same language, and ran on the same operating system.

This sense of community is one of the things I miss more than anything, and it is the very thing that feeds my doubt, and makes me less likely to share my faith with others.

I have dreamed for years that I would find a community of people who believed in and practiced Creation Spirituality. Now I have found the Creation Spirituality Communities, and I hope I have found such a home.

I am going to start sharing my faith, and listening as others share theirs in hopes that I can find a community to belong to. I have read the forums for some time, and I feel like this is the time for me to open up and start participating. We are close to the start of a new year, and it is time to share with others who seek out the path Matthew Fox laid out before us. I look forward to the journey, and thank you for giving me the courage to share my voice again.

You may want to skip ahead and then come back to this paragraph. I don’t want you to think I am saying something that I am not: I think heaven and hell do not play a large enough issue for the followers of Jesus.

I know what you are thinking. There he goes, I knew this was coming, Fire and brimstone, but it is not what you think. I am not talking about a hell in the hereafter to which few will fall, I am talking about the hell that we ignore everyday.

Heaven and Hell, like the Kingdom of God itself is with us even now. Look at the turmoil in the world, the wars, the famines, and plagues. As Joseph Campbell said, “Heaven and hell are within us, and all the gods are within us (Power of Myth, 39).” It is all here set before our eyes. When we looks into the war ravaged regions on the world, we are looking into hell. But even in these places, it is possible to find sights of heaven.

We forget the Good News that Christ came to tell us:

And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said,

The kingdom of God comes not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:20-21).

The Kingdom is here. This is the Gospel according to Christ (Matt 4:23; Mark 1:14), the Kingdom is nigh at hand.

This is the work of the faithful, to live in the Kingdom and reconcile the world. This is why Jesus’ teachings are about helping others. “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world (James 1:27).” Truly, we are to save others from this present hell:

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and you gave me meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in: Naked, and you clothed me: I was sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came unto me.

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you an hungry, and fed you? or thirsty, and gave you drink? When did we see you as a stranger, and took you in? or naked, and clothed you? Or when did we see you sick, or in prison, and came unto you?

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and you gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and you took me not in: naked, and you clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and you visited me not.

Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick,or in prison, and did not minister unto you?

Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal (Matt 25:31-46).

These are the standards of Christ our Lord. Too few Christians these days. The modern church has become obsessed with the private lives of people and forgotten about standards of Jesus.

So I do believe that we should talk more about Heaven and Hell, in the same way our Lord did.