Osler's Razor

He needs to just forget about it for a while, not try to force it. And not come to law school.
 

There are two things that I have found most helpful when my faith wavers:

1) Repentance. When I feel distanced from God, it is commonly due to some sort of mistake I have made that grieves the Spirit and causes it to withdraw. The correction of that mistake brings forgiveness and a feeling of redemption, which are the strongest spiritual feelings I have experienced.

2) Sacrifice. He who seeks his own life, loses; but he who loses his life for God's work, finds it. I know it's not the best paraphrase, but the principle is absolutely true. Sacrifice forces me to depend on God to fill the gap after I give up something that I can't afford to spare. Whether it be time, money, habits, or comforts, I can find His hand after I sacrifice, so long as I am looking for it.
 

Though I haven't gone through a period where I doubted God's existence, I have gone through a period where I so grossly overestimated coincidence for God's will that suddenly everything about my faith came into question.

One thing that I think is useful, especially if you had an emotional connection as a younger person that is now harder to channel, is to learn more about God (in my case, Jesus Christ) from a scholarly perspective. Delving into subjects like the Gnostic gospels and the history of the early church have provided me with new sustenence and have proufoundly expanded my faith.
 

I think, first of all, that it's the responsibility of "the people who know the art," i.e. one's teachers in grad school, to tell you when you're good, and what you're good at. In my grad school experience, that was missing most of the time. Just because you're an adult doesn't mean you don't need the same kinds of reassurance you needed when you were in 7th grade, or high school, or freshman year in college.

Even though this writer doesn't say it, I wonder if his situation is made more acute because he is perhaps in a minority, i.e. if most of his fellow students are younger or are not married with kids. I remember feeling doubly unsure of myself when I went back to grad school, married, after 8 years of working at 3 different jobs, and was surrounded mostly by people younger and more recently out of college.

I've more recently experienced a similar feeling of shaken foundations by moving to a country where I didn't know the language. When you can't even read the mail in your mailbox, or a newspaper, or know what they're saying to you at the grocery-store checkout, it really shakes you to the core.

I don't claim to have any great solutions, but I think you have to do what you know, at heart, you are good at and YES, show those abilities. Don't be afraid to be humble--you're there already--and go ahead and show your "exuberance of the novice", no matter whether you feel it's ignorant. Someone will notice the exuberance and pardon the ignorance. Actually I've found that the ignorance and humility are appealing, to people who want to teach you something, and the exuberance coupled with a sense of humor will help.

But you have to DO something. Don't flounder too long. Just direct that play, or whatever it is, or dive into one subject you don't know about and become an expert at it. Focus on doing ONE new thing, and learning it well, and you'll feel better.

As for the spiritual doubts--well, I think if you can say "Dear God, please show up" then you are already there. You just have to be open to the ways in which He/She might decide to show up . . .
 

Hey, that was Swissgirl in that last long post; didn't mean to make it anonymous but I don't understand my German browser's instructions . . .
 

First, Anyone spending time thoughtfully reading the Psalms quickly sees David wrestle with ALL the turmoil this person is struggling with. And he was a man after God's own heart!

Second, we have a God who is interested in a relationship with us and being sought by us. Because of this, some have suggested that at times He hides Himself from us in order to be sought by us. Just a thought...
 

I can certainly relate to unexposed granite having been through a similar experience. I certainly have not "come out of it," either. So, I have no tips to help Granite pull out of it. perhaps just the opposite

it could be that Granite is coming closer to the real truth. the truth that Jesus was (regardless of C.S. Lewis' famous "trilemma") merely a great teacher and inspirational leader. The transcendence granite is seeking, that I once sought and thought I had found, does not exist outside of the human imagination. people who find it do so because they create it out of their own longing, not because it exists objectively outside of themselves.

could it be that people encounter God because they want to be important and signficant. They want it bad enough to buy into the emotionalism and stories of a God who loves them enough to die for them?

Honestly, I don't know. i just wanted to provide an alternative view. Good luck to you, Granite. I hope you find some peace.
 

As the Spanish Medievalist, I have been subjected to almost every bit of religious or mystical rhetoric concerning God and his existence that their is. Some has been helpful, some has not. But St. John of the Cross created a metaphor with which some might be familiar here: the dark night of the soul.

What it's really all about is that place where we all go at one time or another in our lives when our inner turmoil causes us to doubt--everything. I have had my share of dark nights, both real and metaphorical, when I have doubted everything, when I thought it was all untrue. There are times when it is not hard to imagine that our tiny blue speck in the cosmos is nothing more than that--a tiny blue speck whose mere existence is governed by little more than chance.

And yet, and yet...something always keeps dragging me back. There always seems to be a light that keeps turning on, a light that calls me back, a light that glimmers of hope. When I heard your plea, "Dear Lord, please…show up" I knew you weren't lost or foresaken. You may be confused or befuddled, your confidence shaken, your faith hanging by a thread, but I will tell you this, a thread is all it takes.

Some of the most important people that have ever lived--Peter, Thomas, Augustine, Luther--all fought their demons, but in the end they found their answers in the most profound reaches of humility where the ego dare not venture. You are a good director. You understand profound ideas about theater, life, death and faith. You can sit down or you can lead people. Not to reference a pop culture cliche, but which of those options would Christ take?
 

Ok I uhmmmm am Unitarian, uh... so I cannot really write with any authority here, but in my "religion" (no one thinks it is actually a religion) They sort of expect you to sometimes you know question it I think. I mean isn't what Granite is experiencing maybe a natural thing? I would think that everyone has SOME kind of faith in SOMETHING - even me, though I have a hard time describing of defining it... but I lose faith in "it" at times...

It makes me almost comforted (maybe that is cruel?) to know that someone who has a true and strong religious faith has occasional questions or sort of "low tide" periods, and though I am an idiot on this subject I think that that guy has a lot of COURAGE to sort of talk about it out loud and try to deal with it, instead of maybe spending years sort of ignoring it and going through the motions.

I probably missed the point... Feel free to burn a Question Mark on my lawn....