Mark Dohle

Fighting the monster

June 23, 2009 |  11 comments
Image Credit: sxc.hu Life is a hard teacher, especially for those who struggle to deepen their relationship with God and to strive to live it. Religion is something that I don’t have a problem with. For me it is necessary, it gives form to the journey, meaning, a story in which as time moves on, deepens, or if not it can become a prison with heavy doors and barred windows, with no way out. The thing about relationships is that in order for them to deepen and mature a number of crisis’s have to be walked through. This is often called the desert experience, sometimes romanticized, but in reality experienced as a time of chaos and fear. For fears have to be faced in order to move forward, this is true in any endeavor, and for the spiritual life doubly so.

There is a dark side to religion; twisted, often hateful, teaching a fearful image of God that leads to cringing instead of openness to the infinite. God is often portrayed in ways that if played out by humans would only invoke fear and yes hatred. It is as if God has a hormonal system, can be surprised, and because of that gets angry and vindictive, just like a human would do, especially those who are beset with psychological problems. So while God is taught as love, the real message is hardly that. So the monster taught, demands from us love, or else.

These images, that are an intimate part of many people’s ideas of the divine, are the very obstacles that need to be overcome if a deep loving response to grace is able to happen. For many it will take a lifetime, for others the struggle continues until death. Others, well they just drop it altogether and live as if there is no reality beyond this life. And who can blame them?

The wonder is that so many stay and struggle with these images that were taught to them as children. Perhaps enough good was presented about God that allows them to seek to deepen some kind of relationship. A relationship based on fear is in the end worthless, unless it allows something to fight against, to seek the love that is taught but often not really believed by those who are supposed to instruct.

I think many people know, at least on an unconscious level that all images of God are idols in the end, even the good ones. Each has to be let go of, but first each has to be faced, especially the destructive ones. For it takes a conscious effort to swim upstream; effort and a slowly deepening trust in the divine order. For we often create a God in our own image, while we are in reality, made in the image of the divine.

Fear and trust cannot coexist. Fear causes walls to go up, leading often to a retreat, or at times a simple standstill, making it impossible for any kind of movement forward in any relationship. Real friendship has only one fear, the same goes for any kind of deep love. That fear is one of doing something that would damage or hurt the one clung to, something that would change the relationship. So instead of the loved one feared, it is the possibility of the lover doing something freely that would cause a rift. This is called sin. An act freely chosen, will intact, something evil and sad to say very human, something that happens often to the sorrow of both parties.People love out of need, no matter how deep and enduring, at the bottom those we love complete us. That is why human love can often turn to hate, for both are a deep, intimate, bonding, between souls. So when God’s love is thought of it is often just a projection of human need. However what if there is a love that is not based on need. Such a love could never be lost, at least from the lover’s point of view. Christ used the parable of the prodigal son to show us a story of human love, yet also much more. Human stories simply stated, trying to teach us something that is perhaps impossible to really understand; the reality and mystery of infinite love freely given, without need or ulterior motives, something that just is; the very ground of our being, something almost impossible to believe in. I know I struggle with it.

I would think most people long for love that is unconditional and enduring. Now there are some human loves that can seem to be close. Parental love is one, yet parents often fail in loving their children, and even if they do, a limit can be reached, though it may take a very long time to accomplish it. So love engenders fear, for it can be lost, forever, and sad to say it often is.

It is hard to believe in any kind of love that is unconditional and infinite. We live in a world that is often cruel and uncaring. So yes faith is needed and it can be a very hard thing indeed. I often think that atheism is in reality the easy way out. The only reason I can’t make that jump, is that life as absurd as it can seem is even more absurd without a God, not to mention impossible. For after all the universe does have a beginning. Before the Big Bang, before the singularity there was no space, nor time, or laws of any kind; in fact space and time are expanding as the universe continues to move outwards from its beginning. It is all so unnecessary, unimportant if it stands alone. So for me to think the launch was somehow self created is even more incongruous than a belief in a creator. Yet I still struggle with faith at times. So I decide to believe, to deepen my relationship with God and move forward in trust, for trust cast out fear.

There is so little understood so many mysteries to seek answers to, which I feel we can never be bored with it all. I think the struggle is the name of the game, to question, choose, deepen and move forward; or not. In the end, in a place only God knows we decide. In the end, I am glad we can’t judge. For I would rather stand before God than before any human, no matter how good or loving that person may be, for we are finite in love and understanding. For in the end only infinite love sees all, knows all and because of that can forgive all. Or perhaps it is love that allows us to forgive ourselves in the end.

It is a dark road for everyone, it is a shame we can’t help each other along the way.

Mark Dohle Comments (11)

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