Last night GLEE dealt with some difficult issues surrounding faith and belief. It was the believer compared to the non-believer; the Christian compared to the non-Christian; between those who believe in prayer and those who have tried it and found it lacking in possibility. Listening closely the discovery is made that Sue prayed and prayed hard for her older sister to be normal, but no matter how hard she prayed the sister remained mentally challenged. The discovery concerns the teenager who has accepted his sexuality, but has difficulty with the religious orders of the day that condemns him and makes fun of him and says, in essence, that God made a mistake. Difficult issues as all hard issues of faith and belief are ... difficult because the answers aren’t simple nor easily arrived at … difficult because there are no real forum outside of church itself for a deeper discussion, especially in today’s climate of separation of church and state ... difficult questions when the believers can only give glib answers or pat solutions afraid to admit their own doubts and struggles ... difficult issues as I try to not only make sense out of Rick Kelly's death, but offer some meaningful answers.
Some years ago there was a television program called Joan of Arcadia. I loved the program, but my churches didn't. God would appear to Joan in various forms, asking her to do his/her bidding in Joan’s school and/or community. The average church member had real difficulty with the show since God took on some rather unconventional personifications – the conventional we could accept the unconventional was quickly rejected ... surely "God won't take on the outward appearance dressed like that or acting in that way" was often overheard. The basic truth is still there … how does God break into our lives and how open are we going to be to God when he doesn’t do our bidding – as if he was some kind of “celestial bellhop.”
Mr. and Mrs. “Rodriquez” can prove my point. Each Sunday they were getting more distant, standoffish … even hostile. Finally, I asked if I had done or said something to offend them. “No, but God has!” she declared. “In what way?” I inquired. “Well, Mr. Rodriquez is starting to lose his memory and I’m losing my hearing AND we pray every day, morning, noon and night, and NOTHING HAPPENS. Evidently we aren’t good enough for God to answer our prayers.” There in lies the crux of the matter for most of us doesn't it. If we pray for something and it happens all for the good. But, and that is very large “but,” if we pray for something and nothing happens then God is written off as not caring or not even there.
We’ve all been there at one point or another. Even Mother Teresa illustrates her own personal struggle in this area in her journals. How we work through this actually makes our faith stronger ... if we are willing to be honest enough with ourselves to actually work through these faith issues. In last nights GLEE one of the interesting conversations was between Sue and her sister. Her sister asked Sue if she believed in God and couldn’t understand why Sue couldn’t believe … especially if she, the mentally challenged one, could herself believe … believing not to answer the unanswerable questions, but to make it possible to go through another day.
The theme song from Joan of Arcadia was powerful. The words still haunt my spiritual being as the have a tendency to pop-up at different times on my spiritual journey. Here are the lyrics to:What If God Was One Of Us
If God had a name, what would it be?
And would you call it to his face if you were faced with him and all his glory
what would you ask if you had just one question
yeah yeah God is great
yeah yeah God is good
yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah
What if God was one of us?
just a slob like one of us
just a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home
If God had a face, what would it look like?
And would you want to
if seeing meant that you would have to believe in things like heaven
and in Jesus and the saints and all the profits
and yeah yeah God is great
and yeah yeah God is good
yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
What if God was one of us
just a slob like one of us
just a stranger on the bus
trying to make his way home
trying to make his way home
back up to heaven all alone
nobody calling on the phone
except for the Pope maybe in Rome
yeah yeah God is great
yeah yeah God is good
yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
what if God was one of us
just a slob like one of us
just a stranger on the bus
trying to make his way home
just trying to make his way home
like a holy rolling stone
back up to heaven all alone
just trying to make his way home
nobody calling on the phone
except for the Pope maybe in Rome
And so, we get up in the morning, wash our face, put on our clothes, have breakfast and face another day … we can either face it with God or without God … it actually depends on how we want to face the difficult questions of life. Are we or can we be comfortable with the questions going unanswered while we still try to find answers knowing full well that we might never unravel the problem and discover an answer? Even in the light of unanswered prayers? In the journey consider Hebrews 11:1 as shared in The Message: The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It's our handle on what we can't see.
Quote for today: For every complex problem there is a simple solution--and it is always wrong. H.L. Mencken
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