A Steady Push and Pull Routine, Part Two

I've been trying to write this post since last Friday. No kidding.

First off, aw shucks. You guys. I got lots of wonderful comments via e-mail, but I won't post them here because they make me blush. Just know that I love you all. One big lovefest going on here.

Secondly, I was asked two very different but slightly related (and possibly sarcastic) questions:

1. What about the resurrection? You a fan?
and 2. How are you not a Jew yet?

Clearly, these are not easy questions to answer. For me, at least. Because if I say I don't believe in miracles, then how could I believe in the resurrection? And if I don't believe in the resurrection, then how could I consider myself to be a Christian?

And here's the clincher: I do consider myself to be a Christian. Which is why I've had such a hard time writing this post. And the best answer I've come up with is: my faith is one big contradiction. I am one big contradiction. Even if Deconstruction Theory was as hard for you as it was for me to understand, it doesn't take a whole lot of work to make my faith cave right in on itself. The center simply cannot hold.

I think that I should take this opportunity to revise the first sentence of the post in question here. Because "When I was twenty, I stopped believing in miracles" is not 100% accurate. It would be much more accurate to say, "When I was twenty, it became extremely difficult for me to believe in miracles." I'm also going to take this opportunity to apologize to anyone I may have offended. I don't at all think you're silly or unintelligent or uneducated if you believe in miracles. Truth is, I envy you.

Around the time I first started having trouble with faith I found the Episcopal Church. Correlation may or may not be causation here; it's hard to say, since so much about what I thought--not just religiously but also philosophically and politically--was changing at this point in my life. Mostly, I loved the ritual the Episcopal Church had to offer. I had been raised to believe that ritual was dead, meaningless, superstitious, even. That it was dangerous to take Communion more than a few times a year because then it might become commonplace. That it had the potential to take a full faith and make it empty. But in my experience, just the opposite has happened. In my experience, Communion takes my empty faith and makes it full.

I don't know what happens when I take Christ's body and blood. No clue. And I really do think that when you step back and take a look around, it's supremely bizarre. Most of what we believe as Christians is. But I still take Communion because regardless of what else I believe about Jesus, what may or may not have actually, historically happened, I believe that there is this incredible book telling his story. I believe that God gave us this book because what's in it is important for us to know and believe. I believe that having faith in this book and in God and in Christ has nothing to do with science or history or theory or proof. Or logic.

And in this book Christ tells us to take Communion in remembrance of him. And so I do it, even when it seems silly to me. The center cannot hold, but--miraculously--it does.

I used the word "contradiction" earlier, but Kierkegaard used the word "paradox" to describe this miracle. When you believe in a religion that is based on paradox--the paradox of believing in a figure who was (is) both 100% man and 100% God, which equals 200%, which everyone knows doesn't mean anything--, it makes sense that faith itself would be a paradox too. And that paradox is that faith cannot exist without doubt, and doubt cannot exist without faith. I have doubt. I know I have doubt. And therefore I know I must have faith.

We go to church to be fed spiritually, and what I've found at the Episcopal Church is that whether you like it or not, you are going to get fed quite literally every single time you go. You may not be super into it at first, but you don't really have a choice once the Prayer of Thanksgiving begins. And by the time you're actually cupping your hands together to receive Christ's body, it's nearly impossible not to be into it. You have to be into it, because you're there and you're kneeling, and you're surrounded by people who are doing the same, and this person in a beautiful robe is handing you Christ's body, and another is offering you Christ's blood, and you hear over and over and over that this is Christ's body and blood, given for you.

And for me. Given even for me.