Year before last I saw a fascinating Fringe show that made a permanent impression on me. It was a young storyteller (whose name I've forgotten) talking about his upbringing as a Pentacostal Christian and how he left all that behind to move to New York and become an actor. Unlike many monologuists of that type, he talks about his friends and family with real affection and a little sadness, even though he no longer shares their beliefs.
What struck me about his story was this: the reason that he eventually lost his faith was because he couldn't hear God speaking to him and everyone else in his church could (or said they could). He was a sincere and devout young Christian, and apparently spent the first 18 years of his life feeling crushed because the teachings of his church made a big deal out of personal conversations with God, and he just couldn't hear that voice.
I had to wonder if his problem was that he took the "voice of God" thing way too literally. I'm willing to bet that most of the devout members of that church didn't literally hear voices either. Yet somehow none of the spiritual advisors he confided in ever were willing to admit that. They just told him to "listen harder" and ultimately lost one of their little lambs to the Big City of Sin. Would it have killed his pastor to say, "Some people experience God differently, my son, as a feeling instead of a voice?"
Maybe I'm missing the point of the Mother Theresa story, but I wonder if she's doing the same thing - expecting a little too literally to have conversations with God, and discounting the feelings, impulses and motivations that have driven her to do God's work all these years. If that's the case, she isn't doing anybody else in her faith any favors by letting people think she's in constant communication with God. Maybe if she'd been more honest with her admirers and followers all along she'd have been a better role model.
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What struck me about his story was this: the reason that he eventually lost his faith was because he couldn't hear God speaking to him and everyone else in his church could (or said they could). He was a sincere and devout young Christian, and apparently spent the first 18 years of his life feeling crushed because the teachings of his church made a big deal out of personal conversations with God, and he just couldn't hear that voice.
I had to wonder if his problem was that he took the "voice of God" thing way too literally. I'm willing to bet that most of the devout members of that church didn't literally hear voices either. Yet somehow none of the spiritual advisors he confided in ever were willing to admit that. They just told him to "listen harder" and ultimately lost one of their little lambs to the Big City of Sin. Would it have killed his pastor to say, "Some people experience God differently, my son, as a feeling instead of a voice?"
Maybe I'm missing the point of the Mother Theresa story, but I wonder if she's doing the same thing - expecting a little too literally to have conversations with God, and discounting the feelings, impulses and motivations that have driven her to do God's work all these years. If that's the case, she isn't doing anybody else in her faith any favors by letting people think she's in constant communication with God. Maybe if she'd been more honest with her admirers and followers all along she'd have been a better role model.