“Pizzaonia emerging” Courtesy of the Pizzaonian Art Institute, Abe Straction, curator
The continuing conversation between Jesus and Brother Giovanni
Dear Jesus,
It has been awhile since my last letter. I am sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you. I have had a lot on my mind lately, and I need to get some advice. I know we have kept our conversations on everyday things since you are constantly being bombarded with requests. And, I know trying to deal with what everyone wants from you leaves you little time to ever simply enjoy yourself like the rest of us.
However, having said that I am going to do what most everyone else does and lean on you. Yes, this is about the whole notion of faith and the motivation that makes us want to believe in you.
I need to put my faith in some kind of context that makes sense to me. I am talking about the whole notion of believing in something that you cannot prove, but still deeply believe. Most non-believers will concede that you probably did exist, at least as a man. However, the “Son of God” is where a lot of people are stopped cold and cannot fully grasp and proclaim. Unfortunately, this is even true for so-called devout Christians who will not publicly proclaim who you are for fear of feeling foolish.
(Just as an aside – there may be a good reason for this since some of your more conservative believers do seem unbending and not very forgiving in their attitudes towards those folks who do not share their notion of who you are.)
However, since I am trying to move beyond this the other thing that I need to get off my chest is the whole subject of why we do believe in you in the first place. Certainly, in the beginning it is more about are personal needs and our fears. It is very easy for us to put them on your doorstep and hope they are going to be resolved. Obviously, this is a pretty immature, and I suspect a lot of Christian haters believe that most of us who do accept who you are do believe that our needs and fears are why we, from their perspective, had to create you in the first place.
Again, you can see why they believe this since so many of us never leave the immature stage of needing you as the real reason for are so-called love for you.
If I am being too harsh forgive me. It is very easy to point the finger at the other guy. I hope I can keep this about me since to do otherwise is rather self-righteous.
All of this came about today when I spent some time with you in my thoughts. It suddenly hit me how easy it is to fool ourselves into not realizing that our motivation for proclaiming our belief in you is never pure and always seems to have some self-serving purpose lurking in the background.
This is what separates us from the saints I suppose, but when do we know how sincere our belief and love for you really is? Many people answer this by saying our actions should speak louder than words. The true Christian acts out their faith in you every day with acts of kindness and love. But is that really true - Is it possible that even some heroic acts done in your name are also self-serving and not completely honest in their motivation?
You can see how far I can go with this – for some, I have already crossed the line and moved toward being ridiculous.
I am not sure there is an answer to any of this, but I would like to get your thoughts on the subject. Perhaps what Thomas Merton said was right. Maybe we can never be sure of our motivation. But as he said so clearly, the fact that we still seek you may be enough. It is our need to find you in the darkness of disbelief that might be as good as it gets. Maybe that is what real faith is all about.
Let me know what you think.
Your friend,
Brother Giovanni
Comments