My Beginning or End....

I'm sitting on my kitchen island/breakfast nook with my second glass of wine chatting online with my friend Derek. Today has been one of those emotionally and mentally draining days as I went through my second day of orientation. To give you a glimpse into what I'm walking into, I've decided to show you my notes from my class today " Interpersonal Foundations", which turned out to be such an emotional class for me and I'll talk about that a little later. But here's what I wrote from class today (the notes are very sporadic and more questions than statements):

Interpersonal Foundations

September 5, 2007

What is my beginning? What is my origin?

What or is who God? What is my view of God? What is my experience with God?

- Male
- Perfect and good
- I’m separated from him

When God created Adam and Eve, he wanted to be partakers with them and not just his subjects and when they ‘fell away’ He went looking for them

Can’t imagine God in our ‘createdness’

Who is Christ?

Post Augustine, there’s only space for the church because they’ve created dogma and eradicated the theology of relationship/covenant with God

We shouldn’t look at theology just through our heritage but even in the margins…in the places where we never really expect to find Christ/God

‘What I know is used to defend against you’

‘We categorize because we are afraid’

Where does sin come from?
- Self-consciousness – becoming aware of ourselves, we begin to hide and are no longer conscious of God
- Brokenness/fallness – can’t see what we were intended to be
- Losing sight of…

‘The most violent Christ is the view of Christ by Christians’

Any certainty stops faith, stops a person being in awe, stops growth, stops asking questions…

I have forgotten God.


I realize this might not be new for many, but for me, it felt like my whole world was crashing. I've spent the last 4 years hating Christianity because I felt there was a huge disparity between the Bible and what I saw being practiced in the Church. For the most part, I think I've refused to fight and just gave in to the rebellion that has dominated these last few years, but it's like sitting in this class today, I didn't have the option to shut these questions out because it seemed as though everyone was asking them...and to make matters worse, we are in a class of about 100 people...after a while, it gets very overwhelming.

There was too much information, questions going around that I had a breakdown during class. Roy, who is the professor, told this story about a little girl who comes to the realization that there is a new addition to the family and so she goes to her parents and tells them she'd like to spend sometime alone with her new brother. Her parents are a little afraid because they don't know what she's going to do, but realize they have a monitor in the baby's room and can listen in to what's going on. So they let their daughter go in and she closes the door behind her and they anxiously listen as to what's going on. They hear her tiny feet walking about, probably getting to the crib and to their surprise, she speaks to her 3 day old brother and says " I want you to tell me about God, because I forgotten about Him" at that very moment, something deep in me began to weep. I could not understand why, but I just started crying and couldn't stop, so I went to the ladies room and cried for a while, without a concrete reason as to why.

After returning to my seat, I think I realized that the reason I felt that story so deep was because I had/have forgotten God. I don't remember Him very well. He seems very much like a myth, a distant memory, a friend I once knew, but have, over the years, drifted away. God seems opaque and unreal, I believe and yet have a hard time believing. He seems impersonal even though I can recount so many times that there's been such personal touches of Him in my story and getting to this place...but like Thomas...I believe, but deep inside I'm really crying out 'help my unbelieve.'

For the last few days I've felt like I don't understand why God brought me here...if He actually brought me here...and if He did, maybe the reason was because I have forgotten Him and like He did for Adam and Eve, He's seeking me out...He's calling to me "Naomi, where are you?" But the truth is that I'm hiding. I'm hiding behind so many things and maybe it's time that I come out...just as I am and let Him find me and if asks me why I was hiding, instead of blaming the church or Christianity, I hope I'll have the guts to say that I'm hiding because I feel so worthless, or I'm hiding because I have doubts about Him or I'm hiding because I don't fully understand Him.

There's a great article that just came out in TIME magazine about Mother Teresa
regarding her faith that is so eye opening, at the same time so profound to think that this woman, who had such an amazing life, had so many doubts about her relationship with Christ that gives me hope that I don't have to necessarily have my faith figured out. What I can say right now is that this is the beginning of something I can't even tell you where it will take me, but it is also the end, so God help me, of living in mediocrity because I've come to dislike what the Church has done with the gospel message.

To say that this journey will be interesting is such an understatement. I probably will never fully understand the reasons I'm here....but like my friend Stacy wrote me last fall," I hope I don't forget that I've been called to influence people for Christ...in whatever fashion or form it takes....so God help me.