Last night, belief, logic, and belittlement clashed, and I failed on all counts to live with integrity within its triangle. I was raised by my parents--two individuals who were raised during a time when they experienced the rituals of Christ's life. Absent from their experience, as I understand it to be, was a lack of how Christ teaches us to meet and build upon the events of his life--the spirit and wisdom by which he lived his life. How do you explain Holy Spirit in logical terms--a 1940s white ghost?
How do we affirm the life of Christ without sterilizing it to its bare realities? How do you prove the truths Christ lived in concrete terms. These questions drove two people of integrity from the Christian Church. The subsequent answers they have lived, in part, is to belittle individuals, who commit themselves to Christ's life as being simple-minded. My parents do live lives built upon much of what Christ taught and advocated--called for in our lives.
In 1982, I committed myself to a life of celebration that exceeded logic's limits--reason's realm. I committed myself to learn from, grow through, and live what Jesus lived. In so doing, I was not decrying the foundation of the Universalism of my upbringing--there is good to be found in all world faith traditions, and we should support one another in a free and disciplined search for truth.
Drawn to Christ by questions in search of answers beyond logic, or logic as it was lived in my home, I committed myself to listen to the words of Christ, to observe, and affirm--authenticate--Christ's teachings in my own life going forward. Contrary to first glance, Universalist/Unitarian fellowship is not, or need not be diametrically opposed to Christianity. I did not reject my Universalist roots as it seemed to my family and a Christian mentor. No. I embraced Christ as I saw him in expressed in a Catholic campus community, through Mass, and in the diversity of friends.
Since 1982, I have not done well in meeting the criticism of faith in Christ. The only meeting I have done has been in trying to share my life freely--trying to share how I live my life. I do not do well to meet questions of fact that I understand to be static within Jesus' life historically ignorant of its vibrancy to life today. I do not mean to imply that the way I live is better. I do not want to entrap myself by belittling logic's limits, or reason's realm.
In recent years, I have heard two types of Catholics, and Christians identified. There are the thinking Catholics, and then there are Catholics. Polite disdain is the best description I know to give to the attitude toward Catholics. Rather than engagement with all Catholics, as I understood the call of Universalism to be--finding the best in all faith traditions--I am met with belittlement of other Catholics, and the smug tolerance of thinking Catholics. I hear complaints that Catholics, and other Christians, I do not witness the recognition of the smug criticism, and intolerance. I speak of Catholics, because it is in the Catholic Church that I have met beauty. Yet, the same basic distinction has been drawn between Christians and Christians.
I confess I do not understand the distinction--the need for smugness, intolerance, and recognition. I want to understand. I do understand that I met a different Catholic Church--a different expression of Jesus--in 1982 than was experienced in the 1940s. I do know that they experienced a monolithic expression of Christianity. There was one, and only one, way to be Catholic.
I was astounded to discover the rich diversity of Christian faith's expression. My new college friends did not fit into neat little boxes. Intellect was not mutually exclusive to Christian faith. Yet, intellect was not a guarantor of Christian faith. Integrity was not the titled property of intellect. Christian faith was not--is not--integrity's competitor.
I can etch in stone definitions of Christianity's core--of Catholicism's essence. Yet, I cannot etch in stone a static description of Christ, of Catholicism, of Christianity, as I will live it for the rest of my life. I can and will share as much as a tolerant door--a tolerant window--is opened to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment