But what about faith?

on my second advent gone.

I first started going to church when I was 21. I had a knock down drag out mystical experience that left me forever changed. Over the years I had a few more full blown encounters with Love that stripped my soul bare in the face of blinding Grace. My faith required very little of me. It felt like fact. God was no more difficult to believe in than Maine. I had been there. Other trustworthy people had been there. Even when I could not see proof of God immediately in front of me I had no treason to believe that it had disappeared.

And now, I am not so sure.

I cannot find it. I look where it used to be. I have tried to make my way back to Maine, and it is nowhere to be found. During Advent last year my older kid and I went to church a few times. We took the baby, and I wanted to feel the thing. I wanted to feel that connection, even a whiff of the familiar. I wanted to feel the connection- the grace- the love. All I felt was homesick.

I used to love church. I know that may sound kind of obvious, but I did. I loved the awkwardness of it, I loved the language, how it had become warm and familiar, but was still so obviously other. Some part of me knew that I never really belonged in the church. But the church belonged in me. It formed me, for better and worse. I loved the church year, I loved silly words for things no one else ever needed to talk about. ¹

I never thought that God was the church or anything silly like that, but the church was where I met God, the church was where I fell in love with Them, and now I don't know. Somedays I wish I was the kind of person, the kind of Christian, whose faith provided the solace and the balm to get through hard times. I wish I could tell you that Jesus has been my rock over the past year, and that my sense of being loved has never wavered. But I am not. I am, it turns out, the kind of person who needs a community. And please, I understand the impulse, but I am not looking for recommendations for new churches. I am sure your church is fantastic. I am sure your friend’s church is fantastic. But I cannot just step into a new space and begin again. I cannot introduce myself to the kind and lovely people of your church. A part of me wants to. A part of me wants to find the new place, and the new people. At the Toratah study even as I was lost and confused by the nuances of biblical hebrew, I was googling converting to Judaism.²

Yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent, and we went and bought a Christmas tree. I did not go to Church. I no longer know the way back to faith. It is as if I can still see Maine on the map, and I believe the people who are still there, but I cannot book the ticket. I cannot turn the car that direction. If you are still there, if you dwell in faith, I am happy for you.

I am not saying I will never come back, but this road trip is taking me somewhere else. Right now, I have the open road ahead of me. I do not know where I am going or what I will see along the way. But even if I never get back to faith, I know I was there, and it was beautiful.

1. Adiaphra, Vespers, Chausibles, and such

2. I am probably not going to convert to Judaism.