My New Friend
I have a new friend…I think. She’s about the same age as me, and has had many of the same struggles I’ve had, but from a female’s perspective. She doesn’t believe in God the same way I do, and that’s ok. In reality, she believes in God the way most people who live outside the margins do, and this is the problem.
Before I continue, it’s funny that I use the word ‘margins’ because most of you might think I mean the inner-city, but she grew up in the suburban inner-city. A mostly invisible world that lives right next door to suburbanites everywhere.
Nonetheless, she is as hard as they come, and a hard life has made her that way. But she wants more out of life. A lot more....though life isn't very promising right now. When I first met her, I knew I was going to love her. I knew that she was going to teach me something…and that together we were going to learn something new. With her, I know what it means to say that “I love her with the love of Christ”, but not the version she’s always had. And as much as it is perfect for her, and exactly what she needs/wants, everything she’s ever been told about God forces her to reject it. And I don’t blame her.
For people like us, faith has always been presented as an orderly task.....just another part of society’s standards of living practices. Standards that have somehow been approved for implementation at the highest levels of American society. Standards from the elitest of faith people.
A faith that operates almost like a checklist of sorts. Something that directs us people down below on the margins of society of what our do’s, and don’t do’s are. So as to meet the code that requires strict adherence, objective attitude, and dependable character. All the things that we struggle with.
While people everywhere struggle with meeting such standards, these will eventually make sense to anyone coming from a place where ‘choice’ is something you have. But when ‘choice’ seems like something that is forced upon you, like your best options to 'choose' from are usually bad or worse, then this approach doesn’t make any sense at all.
When you’re on the margins and live amidst chronic chaos, everyone assumes that you need more order. More regulations, more boundaries, and more rules. Everyone assumes that the only thing lacking in our lives, is making the ‘right’ choices. Choices from options they would never choose from themselves. Many times, this is true. We do need more structure. However, for many more, this structure presented to us in faith is an illusion. An illusion that is the misfortune, which inevitably preceeds the debacle.
Perhaps, for people on the margins who’ve never had the freedom the ‘choose’…they must be given a choice. A choice to figure out how faith works for them, and in their settings. They must be introduced to a faith they can own. A theology from below. When faith at-large has been shaped, developed, conversed, discovered, studied, and perfected all outside the walls of people on the margins…then that kind of faith is lop-sided. Then that kind of faith is not 360 degrees faith. That faith, can be faithless.
It's dangerous to allow the margins to have a choice, let alone a choice about who God is. So I say to you my friend, I invite you to join me in a journey to discover the ‘chaotic faith’ that people like us must find. A faith that we must introduce to ourselves, and to others. I know you want to give up and say “F**k it! Nothing has ever worked for me like that when it comes to faith, and I gotta do what I gotta do!”
And I tell you, in the midst of that, Christ is already there....shaping, preparing, creating, a theology that will inform the nations. And you my friend, get to be a part of it, because God loves you in a way you never imagined.
Comments
why is it that we choose not to follow Gods precepts and twist faith around to our impression or our liking? Faith doesnt work our way. Lets journey back to Gods word and see what HE has to say.
Posted by: Judy | January 10, 2006 10:09 AM
Thanks for this post. I think I understand in a different way - the kind of faith that you are describing is a "survivor faith" - a ground-up, entry level faith that is somewhere to start re-exploring God again. A place where, unbeknownst to you, God has prepared a way just for you, once you've searched, struggled, wrestled and let go... Or those who have seen too much to simply take God at face value. Remember that Jesus may have chided Thomas for doubting but he still let him satisfy his curiousity. Jacob wrestled with God to understand...
We are meant to take things on faith but I think we have a misconception that faith is simply a 'nod' in God's direction. It's not. It's a wrestle against everything we are and have seen, in order to be assured of what we can't see.
Posted by: jocelyn | February 6, 2006 02:48 AM