Numb

I was attending a training this past week on healing as part of racial equity work and the presenter talked about how we in American culture are particularly good at numbing ourselves from difficulty and pain. As she spoke about becoming unnumbed and how hard, yet important that is I had a revelation about my faith.  I have known for a long time that there are variations in Christianity and I have often articulated that as conservative versus liberal or evangelical versus progressive.  What I began to think about this week though was Christianity as a numbing agent or an unnumbing agent.

Sometimes when something bad happens people will say things like everything happens for a reason or God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.  While I recognize that these are comforting for some folks for me it’s dismissive. This is where the numbing comes in.  If it’s all God’s plan and we just float along in it we are passive.  Life is happening to us and we just trust in God and move on to the next distraction or moment.  Life is chaotic, tragic, and random.  I don’t think God gave my dad cancer so we could learn from dad how to die well.  I think my dad took that quirk of genetics and environment that triggered his cancer and through his deep faith in God was able to make an incredibly difficult time meaningful for himself, his family and his friends.  My dad’s deep faith was unnumbing.  We wept, we talked about life after death with doubt and conviction, with both hope and certainty. There were no easy answers or simple moments and it was holy and amazing. Yet throughout the time there were so many people offering theological numbness, trying to easy our pain with platitudes and positives. The trouble is it was in that pain, in dad’s suffering, that we actually found God with us.  God is in the trouble, in the difficulty, in the transformation, in the mess, in the darkness, in the hard stuff.

Being a Christian actually makes my life more painful and difficult often. It is my faith that calls me to change my life, to do things differently, because Black people are being harmed by systemic oppression, white supremacy, and racism.  As large groups gather at the river for revival, condemning Black Lives Matter and making a mockery of public health by not wearing masks, I see that numbness, that theological drug of ease and passivity which is at odds with what I know about Jesus.  Those folks wanted to pray healing on the city, using pretty words and rituals and then driving home, not actually doing the transformational work is takes to reset a shattered society. 

I know that faith life is hard work. Loving God is what drives me to set healthy boundaries, to work on relationships, to submit to other’s voices and perspectives, to give up power, to take sabbath time, and to love even the difficult and unlovable. I believe in a God who calls me to use all I am and all I have to make the world more just, more loving, more grace filled, and more holy.

Is faith just another crutch or comfort that helps us numb the difficulties or is it a gateway into those difficulties that lead us to deeper living and richer understanding? Is faith the opiate of the masses as Marx said or is it the source of bravery like Bonhoffer lived? I think it’s up to each of us to decide that, but I know we at the Parish are doing the work of bravely facing the hard moments, engaging in the difficult conversations, and finding new life where we often would least expect it.

-Eilidh