believe | the fourth month

Three Gorges Square is Times Square. Only smaller. And Bigger.  It's dirty. Always wet.  Always. But it bustles just like New York; in fact, it bustles more.  You wouldn't even have to step foot to guess that: just the plain numbers could prompt that prediction.  There are 40 million people in Chongqing. That's more than the population of Canada. Sure, it's spread over a huge area. But 40 million? That's 5 times New York. 

From where I was sitting, Chongqing didn't look so large.

"I don't want to be a bel1ever," she said.  "I want to be selfish.  I feel like if I was to believe those things I would have to be brave, but I don't have the courage to."

"Yes, to be a believer you must have courage; but, if you have belief, then courage is easy. Courage is just acting on principles that others don't normally acknowledge--or act on.  For believers, our lives are built around things people don't normally acknowledge; courage is just comes naturally to this kind of belief."

"Alex, I cannot know how to come to this. I do not feel G*d this way," Linda said--then paused.  Knees pressed together, Linda's eyes floated a bit, then settled somewhere around her feet.  "Will you pr@y for me?," she pleaded.

"Oh, well, Linda, I don't want you to worry.  Because God is real.  He can be felt and touched..."

I didn't pr@y for her that night

//

In what sense is G*d real to us?  From a young age, for many of us, we are taught G*d's divine attributes.  We learn that He is mercy and love.  Not only is He these things, but He is the source of their definition.  Not only is G*d love, but love is meaningless without G*d.  We are taught that G*d loves everyone.  We are taught that He created the earth and man, that He has a thing for yeast-less bread and bitter herbs, burnt offerings, and guys that can match him at wrestling get named Israel.  If you grow up in a Club, you learn a great deal about G*d.  But, it seems to me, the outcome of all that learning is a curious one. It, more often than not, has effects unlike the consequences that learning in any other fields has.  I feel like information concerning G*d is the only kind of information that we are graded on the accuracy of our knowledge of it without ever being expected to act on that knowledge. 

If there is a shred of truth to our so-called beliefs, then G*d isn't a concept, He is a reality.  Actually, if we're right in what we say, He isn't just a reality--or a part of it--He is the reality.  But G*d actually being real doesn't seem to figure into much of how we talk about Him or how we live about Him.  Sure, we talk about G*d; we tell each other about what He is doing or what He wants.  But, in fact, our talk seems to almost rely on the fact that He doesn't actually exist at all.  Like He is just a concept.  Like he is something we construct, for each other--something we created, instead of the other way around.  God is the only fact of reality that we continually acknowledge but hardly, if ever, count on.  If He isn't just a concept, then we might actually have to change our plans.

If, for a day, you stopped believing in G*d existing and all that, in what way would your life change?  Would you act, in any measurable way, differently?  I mean if He just became a pure concept, pleasant and whatever but wholly a product of your mind, would your life change?  Does your life at all rely on His existence?  I'm sure if you stopped believing in the existence of your friends, thinking them only fabrications of the mind, your actions would change. You wouldn't call. Or spend time with them. You wouldn't ask them--or should I say rely on them?--to do things for you, because nonexistent things can't do those things. But you couldn't imagine that, could you?  I mean, not really.  Or, if you could, your life would be totally different.  Because your whole life you've relied on their existence.  You ask them to do things, because they will do them.  You rely on that.  You spend time with them, because you love them, and you have a relationship with them--and that relationship is real.  You do things for them.  Because it matters to you and to them.

For many of us, if G*d became similarly fictitious to us, our mode of living wouldn't change all that much.  Our plans wouldn't change—nor would our actions.  Because the whole time we've been planning our lives as if G*d doesn't exist.  If He does, awesome, but He doesn't really figure into the day.  Ideally, we're Christians, but functionally Atheists. 

Christi@n apologetics, sometimes, almost seems to operate on a similar principle.  G*d is something to be proven into existence.  What a bizarre thought, for something that is so eminently real.  I mean, you don't feel terribly compelled to prove the existence of the ocean to other people, do you?  That would be ridiculous.  Just go walk into the ocean.  Why then, if G*d is so real to us, do we find it so necessary to prove G*d's?  If He is who He says He is, just go walk into G*d.  We don't prove the existence of G*d; He proves Himself.

There's this great part in Exodus. Israel is camped out by the Red Sea, because G*d told Moses to make the Israelites wander around for a while to make it look like they were lost.  Pharaoh sees this and thinks it is his chance.  He takes like 600 of his best chariots and a whole host of others to go hunt down bring them back to Egypt.  So the army is closing in and the people are all freaking out, but Moses is calm, and he says, "Do not be afraid.  Stand still, and see the s@lvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today.  For the Egyptians whom you see today you shall see no more forever.  The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace."  That just amazes me.  Because, when you boil it down (which doesn't take too much work), Moses is just asking them to act like G*d is real—that He is actually G*d, more real than those 600 trained murderers and their spears and swords and skill at making death.  And I wonder, how can we count on G*d to have victory over death for us, when He hardly has any impact on our life?

Because G*d to us isn't as real as all that.  And we substitute G*d for words about G*d--words that seem more bent on constructing a clearer image of a 4000 year-old fantasy in our minds then they seem to describe something that can actually be interacted with, like other real things. Water. Friends. Spears. Whatever.  And the consequences of this mindset are devastating. 

I'm reading this book, it's called The Life You Always Wanted--terrible title--but it has some real punch to it.  In the second chapter, the author discusses christi@n group markers: behaviors and features that are used by christi@ns to distinguish themselves from other people groups.  The chapter begins by discussing a believing jerk that used to be in the author's club for years, the weird thing wasn't that there was a jerk in his club, but that the jerk in his club stayed a jerk and no one really expected him to change.  As if, in other words, Christi@nity has nothing to do with an interaction with a real being, which resulted in real change, but instead, the maintaining of other markers of his indentity has a believer.  The man never drank in Club; if he smoked in the sanctuary, then that would have been grounds for an intervention.  But the man didn't engage in these things, so he was safe.  And the truth about those things, drinking, smoking, etc, is that in light of an overall attitude, they're inconsequential; but to the members of that club, they were a vital means of indentifying believers from others.  I mean, if you don't actually act like G*d is real, then you need to be some way of showing you're a Christi@n. So not being a smoker becomes more feature of Christi@ns than mercy, grace, and love--or a gradual progression towards those things.  If G*d isn't real to you, the inconsequential becomes essential; you have to hold the line with the inconsequential things to hide the inconsequentiality of your own f@ith.

//

"I mean, I talk to them, these guys that are part of the life group, and they seem all excited about it. They want to get together and study," Mikey said, "they're like, 'oh yeah man, that sounds awesome; we should totally do that.' but when I text them, they flake out."

"I know; it's because it isn't real to them yet," I replied.

"And when I read the Word, there's no enthusiasm.  I want to say, 'don't you understand? these are the words of G*d."

//

Is it really all that surprising that the words about G*d that we read would often have as little effect on us as the G*d who inspired them has on our lives?  In many ways, language works through familiarity; the words and metaphors that are most effective are the ones that conjure in the mind things that we are familiar with.  The phrase "dead as a doornail" has little meaning because we have no idea what the comparison means, and, even if we did, it would be unlikely that the image of a doornail would appear in the mind when it is used, because we're just not all that familiar with doornails, let alone what it means to call one dead...or how they are dead at all.  Communication becomes most effective when words are used that references things all parties know and have experience with; therein lays the rhetorical punch: the experience that informs language.  You see, the word "G*d" isn't G*d; it's just a word, a way of referencing something.  But if we have no experience with the reference, is it at all odd that the word seems to be nothing to us?  If you don't live as if G*d really exists, then every time you use His name it's in vain.

//

And I didn't pr@y for Linda for that night, not because I didn't think it would be right but because after all my words about the reality of G*d, Linda asked me to do something that actually relied on that reality--and that was a scary thing for me.  Doubt crept in, not slow, so it didn’t really creep. All at once, and i couldn't hold it back.  My belief in Him wasn't sufficient in that moment.  And I don't think that's a coincidence; I think it only makes sense.  I feel like whenever I've heard words like "have f@ith" or "believe," it's always to give courage to those whose positions' validity is at the moment half-past dubious.  Belief is like the weak answer to doubt, what we make due with, or comfort ourselves with, to bide some time until the doubts and questioners cease or fade.  But belief is more than that, so much more.  It isn't weak, and it isn't something created--like an answer; belief is real, as real as anything is real and more. It's like an element of nature, one of its forces.  Belief isn't something we tell ourselves to make death less scary or life more bearable; belief is the gift of G*d; it is action made in light of evidence that few can see and fewer act on, and, if you have it, then there is no reason to fear.  Believe is courage. And courage does come naturally from people who believe what we say we believe.

//

To: David 13594256370 Sent: 10:46:41 11-01-2012

I'm really excited about what could be.  I'm just really scared.

Sender: David: +8613594256370 Received: 02:49:31 11-01-2012

If he is who he says he is, then there is no reason for fear.