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| Soucre |
Hello everyone, I've been absent once again because I spent the last two weeks settling back in, getting used to my schedule and the time difference. My time in England and Scotland was fabulous, and really helpful in terms of giving me some much needed perspective. I think I mentioned that I quit my corporate job in favour of doing some consultant work for them, and turning my full attention to my private practice. Shortly after I moved to Trinidad, I felt as though I should be opening my own business but I had a transatlantic allowance worth of baggage to deal with. I didn't want to stay. I had made plans. I had hopes I couldn't see fulfillment for if I stayed.
"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life." - NLT, Proverbs 13:12
For some people, their experience of God is more about moral guidance than it is about life choices. For example, people may let their religious identity dictate whether or not they drink alcohol, go clubbing, have casual sex or attend a church. They may do this, but when it comes to taking a particular job or moving/staying in a given location, they might feel like that is a matter of their personal preference. My experience of God sometimes makes me a bit self-conscious, because I seek Him when making the decisions that many Christians even think are "personal." When I moved to Trinidad, it was because I felt a "calling" here. I didn't want to come, and when I felt sure that this was what I should do, I cried. This isn't something easily explained to anyone, and it's especially difficult as it becomes more and more trendy to be concrete and seemingly empirical about life, and life-decisions. Evidence based practice is the only thing people want to hear about from peer reviewed journals, even when talking about the day-to-day activities of life.
There is no peer reviewed, evidence based practice when it comes to my spirit and heart though, and no empirically sound statement that covers every crevice of my dreams. For me, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. This is the very argument that someone might use to criticise me for making decisions that no one can argue with (how do you compete with God?!). It's not that I'm afraid to make my own decisions, and it's not like I haven't taken the time to formulate my own opinion. People have talked about how Christians romanticise definitions of faith when really they're exercising stupidity, and I am quite weary of this. I've seen their point, and it makes me feel shy about my own. I depend on God. I have had a very good and very diverse education, and I'm aware of some very un-Christian schools of thought, but I still have faith. What makes this experience of faith different from that of some religious people? In my opinion, your faith should NEVER attempt to convince someone else of your beliefs or experience. The motivation for sharing that faith, in my mind, should never be to change someone's mind.
My faith in God is never about other people's behaviour. It's always about what I think God is calling me to do. I think that Christians are most offensive when they are so convinced of their amazing "rightness" that they want to bludgeon it into other people.That's when I find them most offensive anyway. I believe that the more you attempt to sell faith to others by showing them how wrong they were is the further away from you they'll run. That being said, my faith is such that I do seek God when making decisions about life. I do believe that God offers guidance that no one else can, and I will sacrifice my original hopes and dreams if I can feel closer to God in a decision I feel called to. The only evidence I can offer you that that is viable for me is in the satisfaction I experience in my spirit and heart when I feel closer (instead of further away) from God. All of this is a digression though, as my real point is about the experience of hope when faith seems to contradict it. I've rambled enough though, so perhaps I'll communicate these thoughts in a poem:
(Retro)Hope
What joy is this when I'm okay in not okay
You wouldn't understand if I told you,
There's nothing to show for my time yet, but there is.
Did you see what just happened?
Did I miss the moment just then?
I'll look back six months, a year from now
I'll look back,
How many times have I counted the dots?
Spaced perfectly, they connect my dreams to me
Isn't it funny?
And to think I thought I'd be here forever.
Things change, whether we want that or not
Things change, even when we cry they won't
And I'm still here,
I'm alive, even.
Slowly, hope seeps into now,
A morph from one image to another
Change. Life. Dreams Alive.
I'll look back and count the dots I see.
