Fifty-five years ago, Jack Kerouac, shining-eyed and intensely glib, was asked: "Exactly what are you looking for?"
He replied that he was "waiting for God to show His face"
I can empathize with him. Half a century later and I'm torn by the need to eliminate all self-examination and act as though "nothing matters and we all know it" (Desolation Angels 1965) and to fight "for the right to be near God" (letter to Ed White 1950, cited in Angel Headed Hipster).
The pressure on a thinking believer, a seeker if you will, is acute. As a cradle catholic, I cannot staunch my idealism any more than my fear that existentialism may be the only belief I can rightfully subscribe.
And so the idealistic and existentialist question that has always consumed me is the same one posed by Jesus himself: "Who do you say that I am?"
If there is no pre-defined essence of humanity except that which we make for ourselves, who do we say that Jesus is?
Peter said he was "the Son of God", Jesus often described himself as "the Son of Man", Paul attempted the answer "All things to all men". Still others will say that Jesus is a novelistic invention of Paul and the Gospel writers -- the tagline, hook, charismatic spokesperson and value proposition in the nascent Church's marketing strategy.
We see Him depending on our personal beliefs, and indeed, on our personal needs.
My fiance once asked me if my faith was one of consolation or of confrontation. As with many of his questions, I have a short answer that will probably not stand up to intense socratic scrutiny.
That short answer is: "Both". My belief in an anthropomorphic triune God, my belief in Jesus who was fuly human and fully divine, is one that one that comforts me and challenges me to be better.
At the center of that belief is Love. In the same way that the love my fiance and so many other people have given me freely continuously supports me and makes me want to be worthy of so precious a gift... my beliefs give me comfort and purpose.
I have many questions and even more opinions: on who Jesus is, on what He meant, on whether the Catholic Church or any organized religion has got it straight. The things I believe I take both from the bible and from novels, from hymns and from pop songs, from movies and from nativity plays, from what others have experienced and from what I have lived.
And still I have questions.
This isn't a blog for answers, it's a blog that helps clarify what the questions are. Everyone has to find their own relationship with God, this blog is merely a way to deepen mine.
As Alice Walker narrates in The Color Purple:
"Celie, tell the truth, have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God."
I think The Good News is that we are loved by a beautiful and affectionate God. Jesus was, as the movie puts so succinctly, "just wanting to share a good thing. I think it makes God angry if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it."
I think Jesus is a little like Kerouac, shining-eyed and intensely glib, sly as a dove and simple as a fox. I think He cared too much for His own good and got nailed for it. Literally. I think -- I believe -- that He loves me.
I want to see the purple while I'm on the road, zipping through the tenebrous transcience between eternities. What I'm really seeking is a way to know who He is, and how to love him back.
After all, when people asked Jesus about himself, didn't he always say: "Come and see"? (John 1:38-51)
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