Late on the morning of our sixth wedding anniversary, we were sitting out on a dock, feeling the cool, late summer breeze off the water. It had been a rough few months of furious study, trying to pin down the ever elusive dissertation, and we decided to run away to our favorite island and enjoy each other’s company without schedules or obligations.
We were lazing together on that dock, feeling the breeze and watching the waves, when a tension I had been living with inside me built to the breaking point. Suddenly I was seized with the certainty that it was all a hoax: God, Bible, faith – the whole thing. I looked up at the sky, and it appalled me with its emptiness. I was a fly on the roof of the world, and there was nothing above me but the void. I said nothing, frozen and unbearably alienated.
Before the weekend, I had been reading for the dissertation, and sometimes the books I read affect me a little too deeply. In particular, I had spent the last several weeks reading Esther Fuchs’ Sexual Politics in the Biblical Narrative: Reading the Bible As a Woman, in which she angrily attacks the Hebrew Bible. Her stated goal in the book is, among other things, to leave her reader unable to view the biblical text as revelation from God or any other form of religious or literary canon.
Spending my days in a silent library with only books for company, when the authors of a few of those books have the destruction of the reader’s faith as a goal (I’m not slurring all scholars here – but there are a few like Fuchs who state that as their goal) is hard on a soul, and I sometimes (foolishly) keep these things bottled up inside for far too long. I had talked to Az the Husband about some of the things I was reading, but had not discussed the emotional effect they were having on me.
Now I was uncomfortable and frightened and vulnerable and all those other things a person feels in the midst of a crisis kept secret, but I couldn’t keep it to myself. If I kept it to myself, everything about me would be false. And then I felt if I were alone with it a moment longer, I would be alone with it forever.
I looked at the sky, unwilling to look Az the Husband in the eye.
“What if there’s no God?” I said, making it a question.
Az did not blink. He may have paused for one count, and then he said, “Let’s talk about that. What if there is no God? What in your life would you do differently?”
I thought. Something about the question made me think about Puddleglum. In C.S. Lewis The Silver Chair, Puddleglum the Marshwiggle and two children are trapped in a wicked witch’s underground lair, and she is slowly enchanting them, persuading them to believe that there is no world above the ground. They almost fall completely under her spell when Puddleglum stamps out her fire (burning his foot in the process) and says:
“One word, Ma’am” he said coming back from the fire; limping because of the pain. “One word. All you’ve been saying is quite right, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won’t deny any of what you said. But there’s one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things – trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia.”
Like Puddleglum, I mustered suspicion against my doubts. Jesus saved me there on that lake shore, much as he had saved me before. Faced with the sudden flash of intense doubt, I thought of Jesus and flung myself headlong towards hope.
Tomorrow: Part Two.
Gorgeous. Just gorgeous.
Made me think of Plato’s Cave Allegory….
I’m interested to read the next installment. It is always intriguing to me to learn about what a person goes through when they are questioning their faith: how they come about questioning it, and what questions they actually ask… what the process is like, and where they end up.
Having been lead to faight by Nature and God rather than upbringing, my mind and heart question everything about it, often. I think it is healthy. I think it creates real faith.
Those that never question their faith… do they have a real one at all?
Looking forward to Part Two.
Cheers!
oh so good. can’t wait.
I can’t wait for part two.
Whenever I wonder, I think about. . .
Prayers that I have seen answered.
Miracles that I have observed.
Who I was before Christ, and who I am now.
The applicability of God’s word–it always “works” when I follow it faithfully.
The inherent order and beauty in the world.
The testimony of other Christians, living and dead.
My own inescapable sense of right and wrong.
I could go on, but you get the point.
What a great response from Az! What’s it like to have an intelligent answer on the tip of your tongue when you’re thrown a big question out of the blue?
I appreciated this post.
Wow.
I had nearly an identical experience. Sitting on a bed, reading, suddenly thinking, “This is all a bunch of bunk.) Unfortunately it took me a year to fling myself towards hope, but I got there, finally.
Leaves me anticipating tomorrows post.
Wonderfully put…It’s hard losing yourself in a book, left only to question your own realities. I’ve done it too many times.
Thanks for the thoughts, and the quote, so beautifully written….need to read that book.
thank you for sharing this. When I have faced similar questions, I ask myself a question much like Az asked you. I would still want to live my life the way I strive to live my life… with compassion and hope and grace. My faith has helped me to love others and help the world around me. And if I find out there is no God? Well, the things I did for my God are worth it. I will not regret the wasted Sunday mornings, the choir practices, the years at camp. I will not regret the volunteering and the studying and the helping and the caring.
Very well written, Veronica. ‘Reading books that have the destruction of the reader’s faith as their goal’- a gigantic challenge, and it appears as though you were up for it.
Can’t wait to read what’s next.
I’m sitting her contemplating a cute little comment, but nothing is coming. Honestly…needing to find that hope right now.
Looking forward to part II.
Az sounds like the best person in the world to talk to.
I often think of Puddleglum’s reply when faced with doubt. Even as a child, the wisdom of his words struck me like a hammer, and since then, they’ve worked their way deep into my marrow.
How incredible. I know that feeling when it all builds and the dam bursts into this question, near despair. Awesome post. Looking forward to part 2.
Julie
Using My Words
Veronica,
Currently wrestling with the concept of “entering the kingdom of heaven like a little child” and what that means in a practical sense. Not a crisis of the faith but something to ruminate on …currently at the viewpoint that a young child never says to a parent “You’re not good enough for me. I want someone else.” They are satisfied and content in the love, care and protection of the parent (even bad parents).
I need to have the same level of love and trust in my heavenly Father.
brother
So articulate, so honest. You are such a blessing.
Poignant and beautiful. I love C. S. Lewis for this very reason. He’s simple, yet so profound.
Oh, Puddleglum! I’ve wrestled with this as well, and looking back I realize that through all my doubts and pushing, God simply wouldn’t let me get away – just as you say, “Jesus saved me.” He used all manner of small reminders to bring me back, Narnian books included.
A beautifully written post, by the way. Thank you.
Oh, this made me teary-eyed.
Thank you.
Wonderful! Can’t wait for part two.
Reading Mere Christianity at age 28 right after my first daughter was born converted me back to the Christianity I had rejected at 18. Looking into Vanessa’s bright eyes on the delivery table, I believed in God; here was my miracle. This is a splendid post that I will read again and again. Bravo.
I can identify with what you are saying. Sometimes when I read listen too hard to these people, these scholars who are “always learning but never coming to the truth,” I also have those moments where it feels like I’m entering another dimension or something, looking out at a world I thought I knew so well!
Faith is a beautiful, shining gift that I take for granted too often. When it returns and everything again shifts back into focus with a “click,” I often find pity welling up in me; pity for those brilliant scholars who know so many words, but cannot simply believe.
“Of making many books there is no end, and much study is wearisome to the flesh. The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” Ecc. 12:12-13)
Wow. Beautifully written.
I have that feeling sometimes. Not as intense, though. Just brief flashes of “what if it is all just made up?” like a cloud passing in front of the sun.