hanging on by a thread
the spiritual flip flop is crazy
So things are pretty bad. At first I felt like such a poser - waxing poetic about my renewed faith for three months, then suddenly and completely falling off the wagon. But then I thought to myself, this blog is about a fickle faith, not a perfect faith. I spent three months sharing the joy of my reconversion, which I felt was true and authentic. And now I need to share from the other side, truly and authentically. From the side of discouragement and doubt.
I haven’t felt motivated to pray the way I had been praying for the past few months, so I’ve been looking for another way. I thought about plugging into content from popular spiritual leaders, reading a book on faith, even watching The Chosen again, which jump started this whole reconversion in the first place. But I didn’t feel pulled toward any of them.
SD and I are watching House of David right now, which is not life-changing the way The Chosen was for me, but it’s still so, so good. In the episode where David is collecting stones to battle the giant, I was reminded of a prayer reflection I wrote a month or so ago. The prayer prompt was to reflect on five stones we can use in our spiritual battle. I had written: prayer, faith sharing, signs, journaling and writing.
Journaling and writing are the “stones” that feel right at this moment in time.
For many years I did morning pages, a stream of conscious style of journaling created by Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way. Any time I do my morning pages, I always experience deep reflection and almost always receive answers to my questions. My morning pages were never really a prayer exercise for me, but God often showed up on the pages somehow. So even though morning pages aren’t explicitly prayer for me, it does feel spiritual, or at least an opening for the Spirit to work in me.
I shared with SD that my morning pages have been about my doubt - questioning my faith and even God’s existence. I feel so ashamed and like a fraud for even typing that here. But I remember something a priest said recently, that God can handle our doubts, our questioning, our discouragement, our anger, all of it. So it’s better for me to be honest and write it all out, to work it out in my head, to maybe find answers in my morning pages.
So that’s what I’ve been doing, writing my morning pages every day. Some days there is no mention of God or my faith at all, but I still hope that somehow God might be still speaking to me through the reflections, that God might show up on those pages.
As for writing, that’s what this blog is for. Writing is one of my “stones” because, like journaling, writing is a way for me to work it all out in my head and in my heart. Journaling is private, though I do plan to share some parts of it here. Writing is public, with the hope of connecting and perhaps helping even one person. Even if that one person is just myself.