Episode 10: this I believe

Last night was the end of the first trimester of our class. I had expected this part of the class to be about the basics of Catholicism – and it was, sort of, but to my surprise (and also delight and also great relief?) it was really much more about challenging us to articulate our own beliefs about the big questions of life. The homework for the last class was: “Write your own profession of faith. What do I believe? What sustains my life? Why am I Christian?” The class material gave as one example a poem/prayer from the Jugendrotkreuz-Bewegung (Red Cross Youth Movement), which is beautiful, and I’ve tried in vain to find it on the internet in English, so here it is with my own translation, which you German speakers are free to correct…

Ich will glauben Ich soll nicht glauben an das Recht des Stärksten an die Sprache der Waffen an die Macht der Mächtigen. Aber ich will glauben an das Recht des Menschen an die offene Hand an die Gewaltlosigkeit. Ich soll nicht glauben an die Macht des Reichtums an Vorrechte an die feststehende Ordnung. Aber ich will glauben, dass es nur ein Recht gibt für hier und dort, dass ich nicht frei bin, solange ein einziger Mensch versklavt ist. Ich soll nicht glauben dass Liebe ein Gaukelspiel ist und Freundschaft unzuverlässig und alle Worte Lügen sind. Doch ich will glauben an die Liebe, die trägt und nicht vergeht. Ich soll nicht glauben dass alle Mühe vergebens ist dass der Tod das Ende ist. Aber ich darf glauben an den neuen Menschen an Gottes ureigenen Traum einen neuen Himmel und eine neue Erde wo Gerechtigkeit wohnt.

I want to believe I will not believe in the law of the strongest in the language of weapons in the authority of the powerful. But I want to believe in human rights in open arms in nonviolence. I will not believe in the power of riches in privilege in the established order. But I want to believe in one justice for everyone, everywhere. That I am not free as long as a single person is enslaved. I will not believe that love is deception and friends unreliable and all words lies. I want instead to believe in the Love that bears all and never ends. I will not believe that all effort is in vain and that death is the end. But I can believe in a new humanity, in God’s very own dream: a new heaven and a new earth where justice lives.

I like the formulation “I want to believe” because I find nailing down my own faith really, really hard…the question “why am I Christian?” is in the end maybe easier to answer. I think our human brains are big enough to wonder about the unknowable, to imagine worlds that don’t exist, to realize that we can never achieve perfection. And there’s no way to entirely close this gap between what is and what might be, but we’re compelled to grapple with it – there’s religion and spirituality, but also art and literature and psychology and philosophy and science. For me, the language of this grappling is Catholic. It’s my spiritual mother tongue, if you will. In church, as imperfect as it is, I find things that I need in my life and don’t get elsewhere. Song. Surrender. Connection to other humans: present and past and future, here and all over the world. Challenge to love and grow and reach and fail and get up and try again.

But that gets to something else that surprised me about this class, and that is how many times the question “is religion dangerous?” came up, with the answer of a resounding YES. This stuff is so personal, and as soon as I cross the line from “this works for me” to “you should believe this” (which as much as I hate it when people do this to me, I find myself wanting to do to others with alarming regularity), I’m on shaky ground. We want company on our journeys, we want to feel we aren’t alone, we want to share what helps us, we are stronger together – but no race or creed or religion or church or club membership can automatically make us better people. We each walk our own path.

So with that, here’s my attempt…let’s say my first attempt, because I feel like I’m probably going to be working on this for a while yet:

I want to believe that there is a God and that God is Love.

Perfect, whole, supportive, healing, sustaining, 

understanding, comforting, completing Love.

Love simultaneously small enough to care about the speck of existence that is me 

and big enough to care for all space and time.

Love that doesn’t exist, except in my imagination.

But if it exists in my imagination, doesn’t it exist?

And shouldn’t I seek it?

Because I see its unperfected human form every day, 

in gestures and kind words and sparkling eyes.

And I feel its gifts when I manage to help someone else.

And I want to believe that I have a part to play in the world.

And for all my doubts I feel quite certain that when we die, 

we are reunited with the Love who made us.

If God is just a story, fine. Stories are powerful.

You can buy this, or not, that’s not my business.
There are many paths to wisdom, and you have your own.

I hope we can trade road stories sometime.