It is easier to explain why, than what. What is a complex issue and involves weaving my way around several Christian doctrines that conflict with my values, such as misinterpretations of text that seem to ignore women’s right to choose. But, leaving that to one side, at least for a time, let me explain why I go to church regularly here in Santa Fe and why I at least attempt to believe in God.
I believe because I have to. I have no other way to accept—or begin to accept—the tragedies over four generations that have engulfed my birth family. The latest is the death four years ago of my son Will.
Without at least an attempt to believe in an afterlife, these tragedies become unbearable. As I was writing about the early death of my brother Jonathan in my memoir, Little Brother, I felt the vacancy where faith has flown. After reading my mother’s letters, I found that she had lost in her suffering her long-held Christian faith. This left her utterly inconsolable. I, too, have been inconsolable after losing my precious Will, but the ritual surrounding his funeral and the meditations on the death of Jesus offered every morning during the communion service have made it easier for me to accept and to go on with hope.
Surely it is not necessary to suffer such tragedies to come to some form of belief. I think generally we all benefit from being around good people, people involved in trying to relieve suffering, and the churches are full of these people, both clergy and parishioners.
So yesterday as I listened to the Sunday service via Zoom—a poor substitute but better than nothing—I hoped that those of you reading this also are finding your way to some form of faith.
Maria Carlota Baca says
This is such an awful topic, Sallie, and one I visit occasionally. The repugnant thing about organized religion is the middlemen: the priests and prelates, the rabbis and mullahs, the pastors, the well-meaning reverends, and the ayatollahs in the cathedral. Also, the requirement that one believe things that are patently ridiculous and the necessary part that fear plays in ALL these man-made constructions. So even though I don’t believe in an afterlife or a deity, there are tragedies that, in your words, are unbearable. I lost my darling brother Tommy last year. One reason to go to a church for succor is fellowship. I don’t have that. I guess nature is my fellowship. I just drive up in the mountains, stop, think, and look around. I don’t think that “everything happens for a reason.” The only time I think that there might be a god is when we have a sunset like Saturday evening. But then I think about our star, our little blue, “just right” Goldilocks planet, our galaxy, and the billions of other galaxies. I think I’ve simply become a cosmologist manquee. Carlota