A Hackberry Faith

"Then I say the Lord's Prayer, trying not to recite it, and one morning it occurred to me that a prayer, whether recited or said with concentration, is always an act of faith." ("A Father's Story" by Andre Dubus)

Yesterday, something my pastor said in his sermon made me pull out my pocket notepad and write, "Our faith is a hackberry tree."

For readers who are unfamiliar with the hackberry tree, it is often referred to as a "trash tree." It will "weep" on your car if you park under it. It will send out its roots along the top soil and other trees will sprout up like weeds from one tree. They don't really produce anything of use. No fruit, no useable lumber. They're more a nuisance than anything else.

They're also very hard to kill. Chopping down a hackberry tree is to invite a shrub of sprouts from the routes in the next growing season. I did a web search on "how to kill a hackberry tree," and found the most common suggestions were high powered herbicides (some of them controlled by the government) or kerosene poured on the stump---sometimes a combination of the two was suggested. So you have to poison a small patch of ground to kill a hackberry tree. And because the root system will travel, there's no guarantee that you've absolutely killed it. If it's not in an area that is mowed regularly, it's quite likely that the next growing season will find a sapling (or 3 or 12) a few yards away.

And, of course, when I said "our faith" in my notepad, I was using the first person singular "our," the "royal our," if you will. My faith is a hackberry tree. Of questionable use and hard to kill. A "trash faith."

If you've read the spotty entries in this blog over the last year, you might rightly guess that I'm grumpy, mostly with the institution of the church. It's fair to say that I've lost my faith, really, although where I end up is in this ecclesiastical agnosticism. While I remain a theist (as I did the last time I went through this cycle), believing in God, I'm not sure that I believe in the church. And when you lose faith in the church---a large part of that faith being in the teachings of the church---the theism becomes a little vague.

About twelve years ago, the last time this happened, I would tell people, "I believe in God, I just don't know what I believe about God." That's less true this time, as having gone through this ecclesiastical agnosticism before, I feel somewhat secure that I've rebuilt a theology that is a little more solid than what I had before the first loss of faith. Still, I hear things said with such appalling certainty that I end up wondering if I can say I'm a Christian. I can say I have a "Jesus thing going on," I can even say that I want to follow Jesus---I'm just not sure how much I can say I'm a Christian, given all the things I hear being said about what a Christian is.

This is not terribly unsettling to me. I'm not worried about it, honestly. I puzzle over it, especially when I'm sitting in church, filling a role as "assisting minister" and questioning every third line that I lead the congregation in saying. I puzzle over my integrity, over my hypocrisy in doing this. But it's not worrisome.

I suppose it was more unsettling last time, but having gone through it before, I know there is little bad to come from it and some good to be found. I take comfort in the line above, from Andre Dubus' much-anthologized story. An uncertain faith is still expressed as a faith, even when it's not done with full attention and conviction.

And so, barring someone coming along with kerosene and herbicide, I trust my trash faith will sprout again. And I shouldn't be so hard on the hackberry tree. It will provide shade, no small thing in a place like Texas. In fact, I hope this open expression of doubt will offer some comfort. If I have experienced one recurring theme among the unchurched, it's their discomfort with certainty. Well, here's my uncertainty. It's an expression of faith, actually, and by some accounts, it's not a very useful faith. But settle here for a bit. Find some cooling comfort here, especially if you've been burned by certainty. Even if it's a severely pruned faith, it'll bush out again soon enough.

‘For there is hope for a tree,
if it is cut down, that it will sprout again,
and that its shoots will not cease.

Job 14:7

When in Doubt

One of the things that I love about being a liturgical Christian is that the liturgical year never lets you pretend it's all glory and angels and sparkly shiny goodness. (This may, indeed, be why some people choose NOT to be a liturgical Christian!) Right after Christmas, we have the feasts of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and the slaughter of the children we remember as the Holy Innocents.

Easter is a little easier on us, but every year, the second Sunday of Easter gives us John 20:19-31 as the Gospel text. Without you having to surf over to oremus.org, I'll tell you: this is the text of Thomas not accepting anyone's word for the resurrection. Thomas has to see, in fact touch for himself.

We're reminded this following Jesus thing is a little hard to accept, even for those who walked all over Palestine with him. No wonder this generation is having some trouble with believing.

But I'm not really interested in Thomas tonight. I'm just reminded of him and his place in our liturgical year because the last few days have had dear friends and complete strangers express doubt, or maybe just unbelief. I've heard a an anguished confession of finding no comfort in the faith that once comforted. I've seen faith disregarded as "belief in an invisible overlord."

I suppose Flannery O'Connor was on to something when she remarked in a letter, "It is much harder to believe than not to believe." But when I've heard this quoted as a sort of bravado, a sort of "look at me, I'm doing more difficult thing!" brag, I've always felt it was a shallow thing to say in the face of someone expressing unbelief. (Flannery didn't mean it in that way, I don't think. Click the link to see her slightly larger context.)

So what do I have to say about doubt and unbelief? Maybe more than I do about faith, actually. More than could possibly fit in a blog post.

But here's a couple of things I'll acknowledge tonight.

I doubt many things. Even as I find myself wrapped up in a life of faith, I question much of it. (And I do not believe my questions are "of the devil" as one questioning friend has been told by her church circles.)

In fact, there was an incident in 2000, an incident that I've tried writing about and still haven't found the right way to talk about it, that caused the bottom of all my beliefs and theologies to fall away. I tried to walk away from the church for a bit (and failed miserably). In the years since, I've found myself rebuilding a faith, a theology even, that is far from systematic and more than a little messy, but it is real and full of surprises. It is a faith that is comfortable enough with lost faith for a friend to actually tell me she has lost her faith. It is a faith that lets us sit with that without having to convince anyone that one or the other is right or wrong or going to hell or going to heaven. It is a faith that loves in the face of faithlessness. It is a faith that has found a love that loves through the faithlessness.

Here's the thing I know for sure, for absolutely certain, that I don't believe. I don't believe in the magical faith, the superstitious faith. This is the faith of the "if you just believe and pray the right way" folks. Listen, "praying the right way" is just another way of saying you have to know the incantation. I don't believe that living a moral life and making precise statements of faith will protect you from harm. I don't believe faith is about protection. I overheard a woman on her cell phone one day telling someone "you got to read your Bible day and night so God will give you a house." I'd sooner expect to win the lottery without buying a ticket. If my friend has lost this kind of faith, good riddance. It's the faith in an "invisible overlord" and it'll just make you crazy. (See much religious programming on tv.)

I guess I've been at this faith thing so long that I've come to expect the questions, the doubts, the periodic bouts of unbelief. I'm not alarmed by them. I think it was Frederick Buechner (and someone correct me if I remember wrong) that said "Doubt is not the opposite of faith, but a component of it." Yes. Absolutely. My faith has little meaning outside the context of my doubts. I embrace this. I don't know what comfort this is for someone going through a crisis of faith. Maybe it's not meant to comfort.

But who knows . . . maybe Thomas knew this, too. Maybe Thomas had lived with Jesus and his miracles enough to know that he was safe questioning and doubting. Perhaps it is more blessed to believe without seeing or touching, but to see and touch is still a blessing.

One thing more: My seeing and touching may be more metaphorical than what is recorded in the Gospel of John, but I have seen and I have touched and, perhaps when I least believe, maybe I will again.

Being metaphorical will not lessen the impact. Without a doubt, the response will still be an awestruck, "My Lord and my God!"