crossposted from
my blog...
june 15th - scattered thoughts on contemplation, faith, and doubt
since i moved to lawrence, i’ve attended a couple of theology discussion groups. i love theology discussion groups but sometimes feel alienated as i don’t really get into the philosophy and rationalizing so much. i have a background in religious studies (not in christianity, though, which is the basis of most discussion groups i’ve found), but my own personal religious convictions are less based in rational thought or philosophy and more in personal, and usually irrational, conviction. i’m more interested in what people do and why, or in the touchy/feely, emotional aspects of faith. the intellectual side of things does exercise muscles that haven’t gotten much use since college, though.
last night i got to lead a discussion for the first time and i decided to talk about prayer. i was nervous, as it’s a more personal topic than many of our discussions, but i learned a lot from the experience and what other people shared. it also challenged me to think about the role of prayer in my own life, and my relationship with god.
during the discussion we talked a bit about why people pray…for example, praying for some outcome (which seems irrational to many folks). recently i was reading celebration of discipline by richard foster, which is a classic mainstream christian devotional book. (i am not as big a fan as i hoped i’d be.) in it, foster talks about how if your prayers aren’t being answered or you’re not seeing results, you’re just not praying correctly. this is hella problematic for me…one of the common religious tropes disabled and poor people run up against is that if we just prayed hard enough, or prayed correctly, we wouldn’t be disabled or poor anymore. it’s ableist and classist and it sucks. praying for outcomes, or prayers of petition, often feel arbitrary…sometimes we see answers, sometimes we don’t. for some people, this stretches the limits of rational thinking, and can even be a reason why they have a hard time believing god exists. (or if god exists, that we should bother praying to her.)
we talked about how public prayer can be a way to share one’s concerns and needs with others – at the church i’ve been attending, we do a thing called the “people’s prayer,” where folks share their concerns and petitions in the format of prayer, but it also helps us stay up on what everyone is going through in their lives.
someone also mentioned how prayer can be a form of working things out in one’s own brain, without distractions. i thought this was pretty cool in light of an article i found a few days ago, where the writer talks about “running with jesus” as a form of prayer. because of mental health issues (mainly dissociation), i have a hard time sometimes writing or talking with myself about issues, so i know there have been times when i’ve used prayer in this way – either through getting things out in a conversation with god, or writing a letter to god while journaling.
one of the things i brought up is how meditation and prayer can serve practical purposes…for me, it helps me mentally, physically, and emotionally – not just spiritually. i find i am less prone to anger and irritation when i do contemplative practices on a regular basis. this also serves as a spiritual barometer of sorts…sometimes (though not always) i can tell if something is going right spiritually by the meaningful changes i see in my day to day life. in islam, the five daily prayers as well as the practice of short prayers said throughout the day, dhikr (devotional practices), etc. all serve the purpose of remembrance of god. some of these prayers serve different purposes as well, but the main thread is remembrance of god in every activity – even down to, when we speak, saying things like “insha’allah” (god willing) for everything we plan, or alhamdulillah (thank god) for everything that happens, good or bad. that immediate, constant level of remembrance of god can be extremely helpful – not just spiritually but also mentally and emotionally.
i am frustrated sometimes as it feels in our communities there can be a dividing line between those who feel god’s presence or are comfortable praying with those who are not. we talked about this a little bit last night. i think this creates a false dichotomy of faithful/doubting, when in reality, most people i know (including myself) struggle with doubt. this dichotomy can also be hurtful or alienating for people who feel they fall into the category of “doubting,” or have never felt any certainty about faith. i have been wondering lately about how to go about bridging that gap or blurring that line so that people do not feel that it has to be one way or the other. or that religion, church, community, etc. are only for people who are “believers” and not “doubters” (or even “atheists). (or even only for people who are “believers” in certain specific things.) because fuck that exclusivity bullshit – we are in this mess together. at the discussion group i spoke more about my certainty of faith than the doubt i experience, but afterwards others’ reflections on doubt made me reflect on my own doubt, and also how i relate to other people who are struggling with doubt.
i have always felt drawn to religion and started learning about different contemplative practices when i was really young. i’ve done various forms of contemplative practice intensively on and off for a long time. i’ve been lucky to be a part of several different faith communities and have many spiritual friends and mentors along the journey. i’ve had experiences which i would describe as feeling god’s presence in my life, and i’d say having a close relationship with god is extremely important to me. i have struggled with reconciling many of my beliefs and identities with faith, and that has caused difficulty, but it’s never made me stop believing altogether.
for me, this also stems from other experiences in my life. i don’t think i’d have survived many of the things that i have been through without faith in god (or something – i have not always been a monotheist). for me, also, faith – as well as social justice work – has been a way to cope with years of depression and suicidal thinking. i have a strong set of principles/beliefs that form the backbone of, well, my desire to get up in the morning. my depression is much much better now than it used to be. but still in order to survive and thrive i have to have a clarity of purpose in my life. otherwise, in my experience, everything goes to shit really, really fast. i am fascinated by what drives people to get up in the morning (or afternoon, whatever), because it is very difficult for me. i think for many people it is possible to have a sense of purpose without faith, but for me, my religious beliefs underpin many things in my life, including why i do social justice work. in a nutshell – because i believe resisting oppression is an act of faith, perhaps even (for me at least) a joyful obligation.
at the same time, i doubt…a lot. i have chronic impostor anxiety about a lot of things in my life, including faith. i often question the sincerity of my intentions. one of the things i am grateful for in islam is the discussion of sincerity of intentions/sincerity in prayer – it has given me a framework within which to examine this issue and work on it, but it’s definitely still a struggle. i think no matter how religious one is or how much certainty one has, impostor issues or issues of sincerity always crop up. the experience of praying and wondering if Anyone is actually listening, or if it really makes a difference, is also common one for me – although one of the things that helps me with that is having had a strong feeling/sensation of god’s presence at a few times in my life. so when i do feel very alone or that prayer isn’t working i can remember that sensation. with the strength of doubt i have sometimes, i’m not sure how i would manage to keep faith without that memory. dissociation is a huge problem for me (it is a symptom of eating disorder & post traumatic stress issues, and no matter how well my “recovery” is going it never fully goes away) – this can also affect my faith a lot of the time. it is hard for me to communicate with god when i can’t even communicate with myself, or when it feels like there’s no self there to communicate with – when i feel irreparably disconnected from who i am.
i also have so much resistance. this probably sounds funny, but contemplative practice is like exercise for me. a lot of the time i have to make myself do it and try really hard to ignore that tape of “this is stupid, why are we doing this, i’d rather be watching netflix, this is pointless, no one’s listening, there are more important things to do, i don’t feel like it,” etc. i feel better when it’s over with and when i notice results, but a lot of the time i have to force myself to start and force myself to continue. in buddhism this restlessness and resistance is called monkey mind. for a number of reasons, i have a hard time even wanting to tame monkey mind…it can be difficult to distinguish when my mind is just throwing up crap, or when i have a strong feeling of resistance for a specific reason, or when it is an act of self-care not to make myself do things. and there’s the part of me that is so sick of “shoulds” in my life and has that attitude of – i don’t want to do things just because i don’t want to do them, and why should i force myself? for me, the idea of legitimacy as far as this goes feels really ableist – i don’t like trying to label certain impulses as “real self-care” and other impulses as “lazy.” but parsing out what is what, and not beating myself up or falling into internalized ableist traps while trying to cope with monkey mind, can be really difficult. time and practice have helped but this is something i still struggle with.
i often wonder about great religious figures, or even religious leaders in our local communities. it seems that doubt is rarely talked about. when it came out after mother teresa’s death (perhaps it was before? i don’t know a lot about the situation) that she had experienced long periods of doubt and disconnection from god, people were shocked. recently, i was reading a blog where someone wrote that we (everyone but religious leaders especially) shouldn’t question our beliefs intensely or share doubt because it might lead people away from god. personally, i think it’s not worth believing in something that can’t be questioned. and it’s possible, if you are trying to evangelize (this is not my goal, but seemed to be the blog writer’s), that talking more about doubt and disconnection from god could help bring people who are currently feeling isolated to god. or at the very least it might make them feel more accepted and humanized within our communities (this is my goal).
i wish we had more conversations about these issues in our communities. i wish people were more sensitive to doubts – i think often in religious communities there’s a sort of peer pressure to put on a face of being certain in your faith, especially if you’re in a leadership position or if your membership in the community depends on sharing certain beliefs. one shortcoming i recognize in myself is my tendency to emphasize my certainty of faith, which can sometimes come out in ways that are insensitive to folks who aren’t so certain. and it can erase the shared struggles of doubt that we experience (and also perhaps invalidate or erase the ways in which our experiences of doubt are different). perhaps talking about this more can help people overcome some doubts – perhaps not. i do think it would strengthen our relationships with each other and our communication and honesty around things that are deeply personal and important.