2nd Week Tuesday Musing - Are you there God, it’s me Fred.

 The title of this blog is a play on Judy Blume’s 1970 classic middle school novel “Are you there God, it’s me Margaret”. The protagonist of that story is a sixth grade girl who moves from the city to the suburbs. The daughter of an interfaith marriage, she grew up with no real religious affiliation but would try and pray using the title of the book apps her opening line of prayer. And the book cycles through a short period of her life, learning and growing up, sometimes turning away from her prayers (when it seemed like God didn’t answer) or turning back in gratitude when something she had been praying for occurred.

So how does a 50+ year old book with an 11 year old hero relate to a nearly 63 year old married father of 2? Good question. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I’m not really good at praying. But the fundamental reason for that is likely that I struggle with the concept of God, at least in how God is portrayed. God the Father? Jesus the son? Both feel like humans trying too hard to give meaning to their existence, personifying something that allows them to anchor and define themselves.

Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist, is widely know for his view that God exists in an ever dwindling universe for what Science can’t explain. That theory known as the “God of the Gaps” allows Tyson, a strict agnostic who wholly needs scientific evidence to believe, leaves no room for faith. I think he hits on many points and misses a few. The largest miss is that the incalculable odds that I would be sitting in Monserrat at my iPad at 4:30 in the morning and this started with a speck of dust that blew up and created not just the earth but all of history. It’s closer to the Intelligent Design theory, but it’s hard for me to believe all that we experience started as an accident. To do so would make me question why I’m here and what is this life all about. I need to feel there is something more and bigger, I just, for now, don’t think it’s the God of Christian tradition.

We’ve had some informal conversations here on this pilgrimage, conversations as a group we would never have in a bar and so the focus on Ignatius and his transformation, on his pligrimage from Loyola to Jerusalem and all that followed in his life when he turned to Christ has given us all a frame of reference to see if that speaks to us. Can we transform like he did? Look at all the good that happened once he decided he would do everything for God. But I’m not like him and I would suspect there are others in the group with some similar views. Fundamental questions about whether you can do good in the world without a religious basis would be answered differently by all of us. As I also mentioned in a different earlier blog, my religion has to have feet. How can I use my talents to help others. Is that because God has given all of us the moral code to do so or is that part of human evolution where we learned that supporting the less fortunate helps all to succeed (and I admit it feels good to do so). 

There are approximately 10,000 organized religions in the world. Which one is the “right” one? Why should what I believe be better or different then what others believe? Is it all the same God with people creating the story that allows them to express their love for him or her?

If the Christian God is a loving father who made all of us in his image and likeness, the why is the Bible full of vengeance stories. Love  has no room for vengeance. And if Christianity is the “true” religion, that what becomes of the 6 billion people who don’t identify as Christians? Are they not worthy of God’s love? And the Bible has so many contradictory positions that Christian nationalists can justify doing what I would call “non-Christian “ things to people who are not like them. And the churches with their riches that could be used to help people as opposed to being monuments to a dirty. We’ve seen some impressive catherdrals on the pilgrimage yet there are people in those communities who go to bed hungry each night.

I don’t have the answers, I debated writing this blog as I feel I should get an incomplete for my position. And it’s hard for me to describe where I am on my faith journey. This pilgrimage has allowed me to spend more focused time on what my faith means to me. But I haven’t given up. I’ll repeat what I said about my Mom and how religious she was and how she was not afraid to die. I’m amazed and impressed that folks can feel that way and, maybe as I age, am looking for that level of comfort to give meaning to my life. My pilgrimage won’t end when I step on the plane to go home and where it takes me, I don’t yet know. But I owe it to myself and to others to keep looking for those answers.