Faith.
Faith was once defined for me as being the relationship that develops out of faithfulness. To have faith in something is to trust it, and trust relies on experience, so where there is no experience, there is no trust, and where there is no trust, there is no faith, and where there is no faith, there is no life. Living is relating. There is no life for the faithless.
I was born and raised in a home of professing Christians. Thus I became one, and remained so for a number of years. I don’t remember much of my childhood, I joke that it’s because I was suplexed one too many times by my older brother. To be honest I don’t know why it is that I have so few conscious memories of growing up. What I do know I’ve pieced together from the stories of family and friends, a few scattered recollections, and a bit of logic. I do remember going through the motions of being saved as a child, no more than four years of age. I remember going through the motions time and time again, crying and pleading to the angry, white-bearded, overseer called God, every time I upset one of my parents or did something I knew was wrong. I remember explaining my actions to my father, I assume he caught me in fervent prayer, and he tried to comfort me.
“Fost, what are you doing?”
My dad always called me ‘Fost’, Phil picked it up from him.
“I’m asking God to come back into my heart.”
“Fost, son, you don’t have to ask God to come back, God doesn’t leave.”
“But I was bad.”
He came and sat next to me, my small bed saying its own prayer of salvation from the excess weight. He looked at me a moment, then placed his huge fatherly hand on my shoulder.
“I know honey, but nobody’s perfect… that’s why we need God.”
I didn’t get it. I just kept on trying to be perfect and continued in my fear and trembling of the Almighty and consistently reaffirming my father’s faith that was instilled into me. My own faith overcame my father’s within me when all that I had been taught by my parents was undone at a family meeting.
“We’re getting a divorce.”
That was the beginning. From those words a chain of events that had a profound impact on my present dysfunction was put into the works. Faith was the first casualty, and it was an inside job. I was attending a very charismatic church and frequented a small group affiliated with it on Monday nights. I would go to the group on Mondays and would be “encouraged”…
“Your parents will work through their marital problems.”
That was before the announcement of their imminent divorce was finalized.
“Your parents will get back together.”
That was before they started seeing other people.
“Your parents will still get back together. Family togetherness is God’s will.”
That was before my father got engaged.
“We pray against this union. Your parents will see the error of their ways and get back together.”
That was before the wedding date was declared.
“It’s not too late. We rebuke this plan of the enemy and ask God to intervene.”
That was before my father was remarried. After that?
“Gee… sorry…”
Throughout the whole ordeal I was being led to believe, in faith, that God would heal and mend whatever problems existed between my parents and that everything would turn out for the best. I was reminded constantly of one pivotal truth…
“God hates divorce.”
I learned some valuable lessons through my parents’ separation and divorce. There is also much I failed to learn. Foremost, I decided that I would never take relationship advice from either parent, or any other divorcee. I learned to take all church related rhetoric with a grain of salt, because human filters are usually dirty and capable of contaminating much, if not all, which passes through them. Probably most importantly, I realized that people make choices, and are held accountable to them and in so being, must face consequences. I also realized that whatever God I tried so hard to love and communicate with (whatever that meant) was not keeping up my efforts… I felt that our relationship was very one sided and I hadn’t the capacity to keep up such an effort when it amounted to so little. So I prayed…
“God, I’ll be living, should you ever want to reach me, I trust you’ll know how to get a hold of me.”
Since that prayer I’ve lived my life, as best I could, trying to figure things out by myself… alone, utterly alone, until I met Phil, and if faith is the product of relationships, it follows that I can’t have much of it with so few of them, especially now that Phil is gone. After questioning the foundation you can’t help but examine the structure. Now, I question friendships all the time, wondering what peoples’ motives are for calling me up or letting me hang out with them. I wonder what it is that people see in me, what I see in them, that brings us together or tears us asunder. I wonder why I have no friends that I’ve kept in touch with, that have lasted, over the years, the moves, the changes, the monotony, and the diversity of this life to date. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to find that attainable Hope, and stop reaching for those perpetually out of reach. These are cumbersome musings. They often take their toll on me and can laden me with any number of manifest maladies. All too often I allow myself to be overcome and overrun by my trivial circumstances as seen through my pessimistic world view. Phil frequently managed to alleviate the burden when he found me particularly sullen. I think he almost saved my life once.
“Hey!”
I was at the hotel, the Mountain House, at work.
“Hey! Fost!”
I wasn’t working though, I was on one of the many meandering trails.
“Foster! Is that you?”
I was standing.
“Yo! Fost!”
I was thinking.
“Fos-ter!”
I was standing, thinking, at the edge of a cliff.
“Foster?”
I was thinking of jumping. I was wondering how exhilarating it would be to fly, just once, for as long as I could; spread my arms and catch a breeze, or perhaps a breeze would catch me, the breath of God, or better yet, God’s very hand, perhaps I could provoke the touch that seems perpetually out of reach to catch me if I would just…
He put his hand on my shoulder.
“Fost… you alright? I thought it was you… I’ve been calling you. You couldn’t even wait while I tied my shoes?”
He sees my blank stare. I’m pretty sure he knows my thoughts… he smiles anyhow.
“C’mon… we’re going to miss tea.”
No comments:
Post a Comment