Distilling the question of purpose & self worth
In my last post, I opened up a dialogue about where we draw our sense of worth from, especially with making the journey from an Evangelical perspective to one of the ancient faith of Orthodoxy. I don’t have any answers, and in fact I think my list of questions continues to expand the more I think about this. But after evaluating everything and processing things out loud in a dialogue with another tumblr member, I think I’m coming closer to the source of my angst and my doubts as a relatively new convert to Orthodoxy.
In my pursuit of understanding, there are a few resonant themes that are surfacing in the midst of the confusion and questions:
- If we cannot truly and authoritatively say we know God — how can the finite truly understand and grasp that infinite? I wrestle with some of the claims of the Orthodox Church about God.
- If we cannot comprehend or really know what happens the moment we take our last breath and what happens on the other side, all we really know is what we have in the here and now; and that is to live our life with love and respect for others and to try and leave this world in a better state when we leave it than when we first arrived. Buddhism, for example, teaches some ideas like that, of self denial and learning to serve, love and respect other human beings; and those ideas are not in conflict with Orthodoxy as I understand it.
- With the aforementioned bullet, Orthodoxy places a lot of emphasis on works behind your faith, doing the love of God if you will — loving others, serving, putting others before self. If that becomes supremely important to what we do on earth (and how that affects things in the life-after), then what does it matter what religious expression someone buys into, so long as that the end fruit is nearly the same: we improve our own state of being by denying self, loving and respecting others, and setting out to improve the lives of others around us before our own interests. If we have done that and made efforts to live a “righteous life”, then I struggle with any claims of exclusiveness…like Orthodoxy was the VIP lounge to God’s plans or desires for us.
- And back to the claim of knowing God — “he”, or just more appropriately God, is infinite and beyond being; how can we assume what God purports of us, and even that he cares about what we care about. This I believe, “his” ways are not our ways and are higher than ours; and with that said, does God really care about what concerns us?
It is that last question that seemed to be the golden nugget that resides under all of this angst I have been having lately: does God really care about what concerns me? If so, how do we really know? For example, does God really care about my day to day issues; that it’s fatiguing being a new dad, or that I feel I’ve no anchor to attach my sense of worth to, or that the things that were once paramount of importance to me have been sorely neglected because I get the impression that few could care less.
When I joined the Orthodox Church and was chrismated back in 2008, I bought into nearly everything hook, line and sinker. That’s not to say I didn’t have my doubts or my questions, but I didn’t really stop to ask a lot of hard questions before making the decision to come into communion with the Orthodox. And it seems that a number of hard questions have surfaced, many of them fundamental to faith, period.
Does God care for someone of insignificance like myself? Does God care to interact with the creation, and if so, where do we truly experience this connection between the infinite and finite? I know we’d say that we experience God in the Divine Liturgy, but that is more of an exercise of faith, believing that God is present when you really can’t see a manifestation of God or have an experience that truly cannot be explained rationally and is really on the plane of the supernatural — yet you see the evidences of an interaction there. To use the old metaphor from Billy Graham, you cannot see the wind, but you see the affects of the wind in the blowing of the leaves on the trees.
I think of the stories of some that have had supernatural experiences with God — there is a touch-point with God that motivates or inspires them to do something for God as their response. I even think about my own moments where I’ve seemingly had what I thought were connections to God, where God’s intervention had been real and had altered or directed my circumstances or choices. But really, looking back I can’t authoritatively say that it was truly God. I don’t mean to subject my past experiences to my present doubts, for maybe God truly did intervene in my life — but then maybe I basically was so woven up into the idea of something that I had also convinced myself of an idea and bent my behaviors and circumstances around that idea. It wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve convinced myself that something was one way, when it really could have been another.
I believe that God is there and is bigger than I can and ever will be able to comprehend or know. What I don’t know is if the same God really cares about someone of insignificance like myself and what I see as my own monumental cares and concerns. And piggy-backed with that is my questions and doubts as to the Orthodox Church and some of the claims made surrounding God and apostolic truth.
For if the end-desire is that God would want us to live our life righteously and with love and respect for other human beings, does it really matter what the source or motivating factor is that helps us strive towards that way of life? Not that I necessarily think that pantheism is the answer here, but I think our idea of God is so limited, that the human expression of religion is too finite to capture the image of God — rather just a fragment of the shadow cast from its light.
Searching.
