My Faith: Returning to church, despite my doubts
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/05/my-faith-returning-to-church-despite-my-doubts/comment-page-3/
Editor's note: Andrea Palpant Dilley is the author of “Faith and Other Flat Tires.”
By Andrea Palpant Dilley, Special to CNN
During my junior year in college, I took a butter knife from my mother’s kitchen and scraped the Christian fish decal off the back bumper of the Plymouth hatchback I’d inherited from my older brother. Stripping off that sticker foreshadowed the day, a few years later, that I would walk out of church.
The reasons for my discontent were complicated. By most standards, I had a healthy childhood. I grew up the daughter of Quaker missionaries in a rural Kenyan community that laid the foundation for my faith. I spent the rest of my childhood in the Pacific Northwest, raised in a stable Presbyterian church that gave me hymns and mission trips and potluck dinners.
I was surrounded by smart, conscientious Christians, the kind of people who read 19th century Russian novels and took meatloaf to firefighters when much of eastern Washington state went up in flames in the fall of 1991.
When I started into my skeptic phase, my Christian community gave me space to struggle. They listened to my doubts about faith. They took my questions seriously.
And yet when I turned 23 I left the church.
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I simply observe that many who make public professions of "faith" also seem to need to parade their "doubt" before others in order to gain legitimacy as people who are ultimately rational. But those who do so also generally paint their ultimate "faith" (or return to "faith"
as inevitable, making the whole process seem rather disingenuous. "Faith" appeals to reason and evidence when it suits, and denies the need for it when it doesn't.
They are a publicly "welcoming church" for GLBTers. Have female officiants. Very socially active here in town. Seem to be really pro-active with putting broad Christian principles into practice, in real terms and in day-to-day stuff.
Would be a loss of sorts for me. I'd feel odd passing by the mission, and leaving the church I grew up in.
Yet, truth be told, I've never been a regular mass goer. I stop by at times to "touch base", light a candle, remember those close to me and literally hope for the best, for us all. And I love the enormous silence a Catholic church affords. Go to mass on the obvious observance days.
I've been to an Episcopalian service - was a guest speaker during the homily part. My take was that there was enough ritual - which I appreciate - to connect with. And a strong community sense that means a lot outside of the building, the Sunday service, etc.
