Spirituality is...a Forever Change

Xena: See how calm the surface of the water is. That was me once. And then....(throws a large rock in)....the water ripples and churns. That's what I became.
Gabrielle: But if we sit here long enough it will go back to being still again. You'll go back to being calm.
Xena: But the stone's still under there. It's now a part of the lake. It might look as it did before but it's forever changed.
"Xena: Warrior Princess" - Episode 1.3 Dreamweaver

 
 One of my favorite lessons in middle school science was the Mobius Strip. They are easy to make. Take a strip of paper, give it a twist then tape one end to another creating one strand. The curious thing about the mobius strip is that because of the twist - you can trace the entire surface of the strip in one continuous movement without ever coming to an end or an edge.  It is both changing and unending. It's good sometimes to remember spirituality follows that form.  Why is it good to remember? Because it is so easy to forget.

The Myth of Lost Faith

I've heard it. I've said it. You've heard it. And maybe, just maybe, you've said it too.  "Lost faith."   I usually encounter the myth of lost faith when talking with a group of people or listening to prayer requests.  However, when you stop and think about it - its something that seems to hang in the air around religious conversations  like a mosquito swarm.

•      "Please pray for my son-in-law. He's lost his faith."
•      "I used to be active in youth group but when I grew up I saw church as hypocritical and I just lost my faith in it."
•      "I don't want my students reading ideas from the Jesus Seminar.  They could lose their faith."
•      "I'm going to a pastor's conference on reclaiming those who are lost to faith."  
•      "Losing my Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in American and Found Peace" is a book by former LA Times religion reporter William Lobdell. 

Surrounded by so much rhetoric and repetition it becomes easy to believe lost faith really happens. However there exists numerous forms of evidence to suggest faith really doesn't get lost at all. It changes, it causes ripples in the calm waters of our being, and it may seem to disappear beneath the surface but the fact remains that once you've had a spiritual experience you are forever changed.

Part of the reason for this myth is the tendency of evangelists to promote spiritual change as a "one time only" kind of deal.  When they are talking to someone about Christianity they really play up how gaining a relationship with God through Christ is going to change you.  What they fail to stress is that once you change - you're gonna change again, and again, and again.  So we see the phenomenon similar to William Lobdell's situation frequently.  People's lives are a mess, they embrace Christianity and change, then they get disappointed (in Lobdell's case he traces his change of heart to years of reporting on the Catholic sexual abuse scandals), or they embrace something else and they change again, claiming to have lost faith.  Only they haven't lost it. They have changed it and chosen to believe in something more comfortable, or less disappointing or more reflective of where they are in life.

People marvel and feel spiritual awe when they encounter the beauty of a deer drinking from a creek, or look at the sonogram of their new baby getting ready to enter the world.  They may place the credit for this awe on God, science, or nature, or kismet, but the fact remains the spiritual experience is still a part of their being - they haven't lost it at all. These feelings change them and add to the complex system they understand in life.  What is seen, can't be unseen. The rock is in the lake and nothing is the same again.

Jesus frequently describes the idea of teaching about faith as "planting seeds" and uses quite a few seed parables to remind us faith life is a process which involves change at every juncture.  When you plant a seed the ground is changed and the seed is changed. As it grows the plant will change. When it is harvested the fruit will change and the harvester will change from having the experience of gathering fruit. The ground isn't lost, the seed isn't lost, the fruit isn't lost.  It's all just changed.

mmmm....change is good.....

Once we rid our thinking of the myth of lost faith - spirituality regains its place as a connection we all can share.  When we no longer have to hold on to our faith with such a tight grip that we can't read, hear, see or learn things that challenge us, we open ourselves up to a more adventurous faith and a stronger bond with God.  When we don't have to label people as "lost" - we find our commonness with them creating the pathway to peace, not the highway of suspicion, superiority or seclusion.

Think of the great things that happen in our hearts and in our world when churches stop scrambling for programs to keep from losing attendance, and start programs designed to bring more of heaven to earth. Imagine the peace that could be found in families when we stop thinking someone who is experiencing spiritual change is "off the path" and start embracing them with love so they can find a steady path to walk upon.  Without fear, we can revel in the times we share spiritual moments with one another, knowing after that interaction or experience we will not be the same again.

There are people who fall into depression. There are people who seem to have given up on life.  There are those days we have when our prayers seem to bounce off the ceiling and we wonder if it wouldn't just be easier not to believe.  However, that is not a loss of faith. It is a blockage of a faith that is still there.  Even in the most angry heart a shadow remains of the good, the God, and the positive spiritual experiences.  With medical treatment, connection or persistence that shadow can guide us like a sundial back to a place where our faith is waiting.

Spirituality is not being seduced by the calm water and pretending the ripples never happened.  It is also not being caught up in the ripples and thinking the calm water will never return.  Most importantly, spirituality is not pretending that when the calm waters do return that everything is the same as it was before.  Spirituality is the forward moving, continuously changing lake of our soul.  May we refresh it, and be refreshed in it, always.