Before we get into the
what or the
where, let's start with the
why. Why faith?
Because in the beginning something happened. If you want to know what the specific details of this are you are probably out of luck. Yet it is a good enough place to start. In the beginning there was, and we work from there.
Science most highly approves of the Darwin Theory of evolution. The major setback of which is the missing link. Despite the fossil records of species, they still have this missing link issue.
Now the missing link isn't simply one stage between ape and man. What is also missing is why we stopped. Not just man, but all species behind us. You see, while it is most commonly pointed to that there are a couple of steps along the way missing from the fossil record, what we are also missing is the continuous existence of these mutated critters from all stages that point to this evolutionary process. If evolution was a strictly natural, non-interfered with process, then we should still have monkey out there spewing out cro-magnon men in the jungle. We don't. Something caused the changes, or something caused them to stop. The question is what that something is.
The answer is that it is unknown. Not necessarily a difficult concept to grasp. There are many things that we don't know. The more difficult concept is the thought that it is unknowable.
You see, to a questing mind, the concept of unknowability, or unchallenged lack of knowledge is not acceptible. We must still seek and try to explain. As we seek we have no choice but to propose our own theories and test them out, on a quest for greater knowledge.
I have heard it said that atheists are unimaginative. That they are unable to grasp that there is something greater. I have heard it suggested that they are generally unintelligent. As a stereotype this is all bullshit. There is nothing to attack in the concept that one will not blindly accept that which is not, and can not be proven.
I have heard it said that religious individuals are dreamers. That they are delusional, or otherwise mentally damaged. That they are generally unintelligent, or afraid to grasp the concept that there is nothing more out there. As a stereotype these have a greater likelihood of hitting the mark, but are no more true in anything approaching an absolute.
In both camps can be found the same thing. People who are looking for answers and explanations. Regardless of where one looks, the quest is not the problem. The problem is when you stop searching out the truth and allow yourself to stagnate in your certainty. This is foolish. Regardless of where you stand, a refusal to accept that there is so much that you don't know is beyond arrogant. So I search in a different way, and from a different background than each and every one of you.
This isn't to say that I don't give credence to that which I believe in. It is just to say that I understand where most of the diverse people out there reading this are coming from.
Do I have points where I question my faith? Where I question the existence of a higher power? All the time. Thus far, what I have seen, heard and felt has resulted in my continuous faith. It has led me to where I am. It has led me to listen more, and make use of that which I have learned as a result. In my next post I will get into some of the questions that led me from the church. For the moment I will indicate simply that at the time of the following incident, that turn away had already significantly happened. It is the incident in which I really listened for the first time in a very long time.
When I got out of the service I went straight to work, doing security at a high rise in Rochester in the evening. Much of this job is spent sitting in a booth in a darkened parking lot, with your thoughts for company. My thoughts were troubled at the time. I was having somewhat of a crisis of faith. I was preparing for my own wedding. I was thinking about how I was going to survive and help my wife to do so in such a pointless job.
Out of this I came up with three questions. I sat back, thirsty, and thinking of making some orange Kool-Aid when I got home and thought, "Okay God. Tell me how it is I am supposed to know that you exist. Tell me how I am supposed to know that this woman I am about to marry loves me as much as I love her. Tell me what difference my existence makes for anyone."
Yes, rather demanding, I know. I have always been like that. Look back at the conversations I have posted in italics and you will see that I haven't changed.
So I am sitting in this booth and I look down to see a ladybug wandering across my shift report. In late December at 10 o'clock at night. (The latter details didn't occur to me at the time.)
I picked my report up and held it out the window, gently brushing the insect off. I watched her walk along the sidewalk and then turned back to my shift report. There was the ladybug walking across the report again. So I said, "I suppose this is your way of telling me that you are there." I said sarcastically. "Couldn't you be a little more impressive?" Then my pager went off.
The page was from my home number and I called it to find that it was Martha who had paged. She said she had been thinking about me and that she had swung by to visit my mom (whom I lived with at the time) and to make me some food for when I got out. She also told me that she had made me some Orange Kool-aid because she knew I liked it so much. (See, you thought that it was irrelevant when I mentioned it up there, didn't you?)
We chatted for a few minutes and then I hung up and went back to the booth. The ladybug was content sitting motionless on my notes, but seeing it reminded me of one of my demands. Martha had called and told me that she cared.
You think I calmed down and got more respectful? No. Quite the contrary, I became rather angry and defensive. "How are you going to prove the last one?" I demanded.
The ladybug didn't move, nor did anything else really, except for the drunk that I could see wandering down the street. I waited for a peal of thunder or some other lunacy, and when it didn't come, I nudged the ladybug with my pen so it would move off of the next line on my report and began writing the mundane details.
The hand slapping on the window of my booth scared the hell out of me. I had foolishly written off the drunk, and was thankful that at least the door was closed so I had time to make that mistake less than devastating.
The man told me to call his wife. When I asked how I was supposed to do that, he rattled off a number. I wrote it down, although I had no intention of calling her. "What should I tell her?" I asked.
"That I am having a heart attack." The man responded, and collapsed next to the booth.
The first call I made was not to his wife. Once the ambulance had picked him up, though, I dialed that number. A woman answered, and I told her that this was awkward, but a man I didn't know had given me that number and told me to call her.
"What's he done now?" She demanded.
I told her what happened, and where the ambulance had taken him and, though distressed, she thanked me and hung up.
I went back to the booth and guess who was crawling across the fingerprints the man had left on the window?
It all hit me. All three questions had been answered. I took a deep breath, and then reacted just like myself. I said, "Great. I got it. You're listening. Now tell me who the hell you are."
The answer to that question took years to fully materialize, but the story will never be forgotten. Neither that nor the lesson. The Goddess works through ladybugs, orange kool-aid and heart attacks.
