I’m rarely home and never know when I’ll next get the chance to hop a budget flight back to my hometown, so I seized upon the extra two days off last week (God bless you, mostly Catholic government) to make it to some special occasions, apart from Easter, for my family.
Once these occasions were over, though, I was cranky, mostly because we had to spend so much time preparing for, going to, and extricating ourselves from the church where I grew up. Okay, so it was Holy Week. Of course we were going to attend a lot of church services. Plus my family’s always been right in the thick of church stuff, with both my parents on the council and my brothers and I serving as liturgists/ushers/readers since we could see over the top of the pulpit, so of course I couldn’t just beg off (I was reader twice and usher once last week, ha). And of course it would take a bit of chitchatting with the pastor and elders and such before we could get back in the car afterward and leave (even as a believer, this part always made me feel as impatient as a five-year-old). But like I said, I’m rarely home, and I’m posting this blog entry on this community site right now, so you can imagine why I just wanted to burrow into the walls of my home and soak up the being-homeness instead of sitting through another rambly sermon about something I find really hard to believe.
But, I’m glad I went on Good Friday. On that day, I rediscovered Christianity.
Well, sort of.
While listening to the series of brief messages on Jesus’ seven last words, it hit me that a favorite line I had when it came to fiction (sorry; I forget who said it first) applied to the Bible as well–that just because something was not completely factual did not mean that it was not true. Though the events in a short story or a novel do not actually happen, though the people in them are just made up, I can’t deny that from these works, I still glean truths about what makes a human being and what living should be. And I can still find truths like these even if I disagree with the author’s perspective; for instance, a cynical story can still drive me to hope, perhaps even more anxiously than an optimistic one can.
So, although I very much doubt the factuality of the Bible, I cannot deny that parts of it still serve as a pretty good guide to being a decent human being.
Though I question not only the factuality but also the religious necessity of Jesus’ gruesome trials and death, I can still grasp the truths in the powerful making a sacrifice to save the powerless, in giving up oneself for the people you love, and in the concepts of friendship and loyalty (hey, Peter).
Though the resurrection bit is foggy, it speaks to a very human longing for immortality and, in my case as an agnostic, hints at the importance of making the most of life, because I don’t know whether it’ll be the only one I’ll get.
I also see that Jesus was a good teacher, leader, friend, brother, and son–many things that few people ever really know how but still try to be. Whether “son of God” is actually also on that list doesn’t really change, for me, the value of his example. Whether he was real doesn’t change that either–I mean, I know that Wolverine is a comic book character (and definitely more flawed than Jesus), but he’s still a hero to me.
My favorite theology teacher in college was a bit of a liberal in that for him, “the way, the truth, and the life” meant to live Jesus’ way–not necessarily to praise his name, to pass it on to those who don’t know it, or to condemn those who won’t worship it; just to be an excellent human being. So that’s what I mean by having rediscovered Christianity. I’ve reaffirmed its influence on my life–the values that I learned as a kid in Sunday School and that continue to influence my choices, the traits I look for in the people I meet–and will not discount the value of the book upon which it is based. It is still relevant to my life because it is still truthful in parts. Some people will learn these truths from their own religions; a lucky (blessed?) few will get them from their own philosophizing. I’m not shelving other books or ways of thinking, and I won’t be completely dependent on Christianity and the Bible to form my own philosophy. But this is just to say, I’ve rediscovered a place for them in my life.
It makes me happy, because it means that I will no longer be so cranky about having to attend church and, even better, I don’t feel so disconnected from the family I attend (and occasionally serve) with. They still don’t know, but then telling them doesn’t seem so important anymore. Not for now, anyway.
