Skip to main content

Losing Faith?


In a recent conversation with a perfect stranger, I mentioned that I would be starting my Masters of Divinity at Harvard this fall, to which the perfect stranger replied, “That’s great, I just hope you don’t lose your faith there.”

Lose my faith?  What a funny expression.  Is that akin to losing your marbles, mind, hair, virginity or orthodontic retainer (I have personally lost 8 retainers, mostly because I forgot them in the napkins I threw away).   The way he said “lose your faith” implied that it’s here one minute and then, whoops, gone the next, as if I have little agency in the matter.

Of course, I know what is meant by the expression.  Critical questions and religious diversity, both hallmarks of a graduate education at Harvard, are viewed by some as potential threats to one’s faith- a slippery slope of reasoning, casuistry, and uncensored exposure that can lead to the total unraveling of a person’s faith. 

I am continually shocked by the white-knuckled inflexibility with which some people hold their faith and the refusal to allow that faith to be probed in a spirit of intellectual honesty and existential integrity.  However, that’s just my personal theological bent.  What I actually find most appalling, and even belittling, about this claim is the phrase itself: “to lose faith.”

I wonder if this stranger ever considered that those “misplacers” of faith have faithfully renounced it, deliberately thrown it away, or salvaged only what was truly tenable in their lives, so as to make way for a spirituality that could abide worthy questions and wonderful diversity and the pervasive complexity of life? 

Losing faith grants too much passivity and helplessness to what may range from a flagrant act of defiance to an intentional shift in ideology or consciousness.  “Losing faith” may mean casting off what was once a psychological crutch, not real, organic, life-grown truth. 

Instead of beginning from a place of absence, or from what it is suddenly missing from our tiny, solipsistic perception of one another’s spiritual life, why don’t we look at presence?  What is growing in a human being and is it allowing them to realize their fullest, generative potential?  In paying attention to what has been gained in one’s life, it is easy to recognize something holy, though perhaps unfamiliar, underfoot. 

 I do not mean to imply any disrespect towards religious convictions as such or to suggest that anyone should recklessly throw their beliefs away, particularly if they have proven genuinely life-giving.  I simply object to the expression, “lose faith” for its inability to recognize and honor the varieties of spiritual experience that are possible for a human being.  It seems that in all negotiations of religious identity there is a responsible party calling the shots, and even if you disagree with those shots, please, allow her that agency. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The First Negotiation

The morning light licks the corners of my face, repeatedly, until I consent to opening my eyes. She makes her gradual way across the bed, nudging her most promising sign of hope unto the tossled ivory. The sun is far more gentle than any alarm clock I’ve ever fought, though no less insistent. In such radiant self-giving, how many times can I roll over? So we strike a compromise: I will flip my pillow and “rest” my head, but promise to keep my eyes a flutter, little windows parted slightly for the streams of her still light. Sometimes I up the bargain, telling her that there is really no better way to receive her glory, no greater praise of her warmth, than to surrender consciousness upon her lap, just a little. She will often reply by shedding new light upon the floor, warming a most suggestive path out into the kitchen. My stomach grumbles. Are you sure you don’t want to try freezing time again? I ask. You, me and the sheets, forever curled in our secret morning splendor...
5 comments
Read more

Another Reflection on Breaking-Up

It’s happening again.   One of my good friends is on the other end of a telephone call, holding back tears as she recounts the details of her recent break-up. She is a strong, fiercely independent woman, who has counseled and coached the rest of us through the emotional train wreck of many collective break-ups.   Two years ago, she told me, “Maggi, when you end a relationship, you find yourself waking up every morning to a dull heart-ache perched upon your chest and you really, really believe your world is over.”   You roll yourself out of bed anyway. You make the route cup of coffee.   You stumble into the shower and let the steam swell around you.   If you’re feeling especially lifeless, you drape your hair over your ears, so that the cascade of hot water makes a deep rushing sound, like being swept beneath the sea to a powerfully calm, fetal state of being, where the roar of running water drowns out all the piercing thoughts in your head.   You...
5 comments
Read more

The Genetics of Compassion

Genetics can be tough. One look at both my parents’ dental history reveals I had zero chances of inheriting strong teeth. A winning smile, sure, but quality, cavity-resistant chompers were out of the question. This is why, by the time I graduated college, I’d lost count of the number of fillings I had endured (over twenty).    I can tell you I had precisely two root canals because they involve the most intensive drilling, complete removal of the pulp of the tooth, and two additional appointments to reconstruct and crown your sad shell of a tooth.   And while you might imagine that the aggregated hours, ney weeks, I’ve spent underneath fluorescent lights with latex fingers and a suction in my mouth have made me into a steely veteran, the opposite has been true.   I’m sorry to say that experience has left me more traumatized than heroic. So it was with sudden panic that I woke one morning to a throbbing toothache.   For two days I traded te...
3 comments
Read more