Faith*

*So perhaps I have misspoken. After reading the comments of a friend, I realized that I was not taking much care with my words, something I should always do, especially when I have friends who are going to test me and require that I accurately represent myself. So I'm taking back that God is unknowable. And I'm also taking the Bible out of the original version of this post.

ORIGINAL (with some revision):

I have a friend who is really struggling with her faith right now, and her fight has me wanting to lay out a few of my own beliefs, partly because I want to understand them better and partly because I know she reads this. So feel free to keep reading, whoever you are, but if you aren't interested in the title of this post or if you aren't her, feel just as free to stop.

I was raised Catholic and that is what looks most like church to me. I've been to other churches, and they just never go beyond feeling like more than a performance. Like a play. Not to say that I don't think there are other valid religions. But to me, the idea of church is embodied in Catholic mass.

Here's the thing. I don't go to mass. Or at least not with any sort of regularity. And it's not that I don't see the purpose of going to mass, belonging to a church, becoming a part of a community of believers. All of that makes sense to me. But so does a lot of other stuff that doesn't fit into the church's idea of a good Catholic. As a Catholic child in religion class, I was taught that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, the depths of His power and knowledge expanding to the point that I cannot begin to understand how deep it goes.

So my question: how, then, can anyone possibly claim to know the right way to Him? If we can't even begin to understand the way that He works in, through, above, around the universe? Because, while I know there are people who will disagree, I believe that you can't really claim to know God. I know His works. I see them everyday. I know His love. So I do, to some extent, know God through the conversation He and I are having constantly throughout my whole life.

I've gotten myself very confused.

I'm not looking for a fight. But question away. And not just me. Question God, and the church, and your faith. Because it doesn't mean anything unless it's been given in the face of adversity. If you aren't making a choice at all, you certainly can't be making the best choice.

I say revel in the struggle. Revel. I don't always (or often?) find God in church. I don't always find Him through prayer. Of course, those things help. And they help some more than others. But my favorite prayers I read on the back of a book by Anne Lamont (the rest of the book didn't do too much for me if you're interested in my opinion on it). "Help, help, help" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you." Covers it all for me. As does God. He's in the spaces between the words in my questioning of Him. He can't help but be, can he, if He's everywhere?

(Thank you, thank you, thank you.)

Faith stretches if you let it.