One day our Sunday school class added a new member, a young
wife and mother who had moved to GA from another state. She had previously belonged to a different
church and had found a new spiritual home in the church where my family and I
were members. During class she would
occasionally speak out against her past beliefs in defense of her present
beliefs. Her attacks on the old church
were never addressed by anyone in our class, not even the teachers, and I soon
became aware that I was the only one who was uncomfortable with her open
hostility.
In spite of my discomfort, I also understood her
intention—or I think I did, anyway. In
attacking her past beliefs she was defending herself but because she was not
very strong in her new faith she was unable to speak from a solid position of
confidence. After all, spiritual
conversion or commitment is not unlike any relationship; who isn’t defensive
and even insecure in the early stages of falling in love? This is why new lovers often immerse
themselves in one another to feel the security in seclusion. As the confidence in the mutuality of
feelings grew, the lovers are more able to go out into the world where their
love and relationship are inevitably exposed to criticism, to judgment, and
even to attacks.
This woman, who was eventually my friend, was not secure
enough in her own beliefs to frame them without disabusing another belief
system. For my part, I eventually talked
with her about some of her attacks explaining them from a Biblical context and
even suggesting that her old beliefs were not wrong and nor were they, as she had
come to believe, downright Satanic. I
even lent her a booklet written by a minister of her new path in defense of
those who believed what she used to believe.
She never returned the booklet to me. I don't know if she even read it. And I don’t know if she ever arrived at a place
of peace with her old beliefs. Did she
ever reach a point in her own spiritual growth where she believed her parents
were not damned to hell for their misguided beliefs? Did she ever come to forgive herself for
choosing a spiritual path without question only to confront its ineffectiveness
in her own life? After all, I think
ultimately it was not the old church’s belief system that angered her so very
much so much as it was her own blind belief and then personal spiritual
awakening that made her so angry. Angry
with her past mistake(s), she attacked the object rather than acknowledging her
own duplicity. And this too is not
unlike the lover who compares her new beloved against the old and finds the old
inevitably falling short to the point of vilifying him for being a bastard,
unworthy, selfish, hateful, and even evil.
Thinking back on all of this, I know that my intention in
sharing the booklet with her was not to say she was wrong or immature or
whatever. I merely wanted to invite her
to see things differently, to gain a new perspective. Could she have appreciated her new spiritual
path had she never walked the old?
Perhaps but absolutely not in the same way. Her old beliefs established a foundation for
her future faith. Had she chosen to
remain with the church of her childhood she would have simply become more
rooted in what she already knew to be true.
She chose, instead, to leap from the foundation of her past into a new
truth and because of this she was able to appreciate the teachings she came
across with the same openness and vulnerability of someone falling in love for
the first time.
I believe she could have fallen in love without uprooting
herself from her past beliefs. I also
believe that she fell in love with a new belief system that was right for
her. Love is a funny thing and lovers
are often fools for their beloved, whether the beloved is a person or a
spiritual path, a belief system or a denial of a belief system. The peace that comes with familiarity can
also lead to contempt; keeping love fresh within a commitment is the challenge
we all face regardless of the objet du
désir.
This is what I would like to believe. I would like to believe that my friend
reached that point of peace—peace with her new love, peace with her past love,
and peace with herself. Or maybe what I
really would like to believe is that she grew so confident in her new love, was
so immersed in her beloved, that she no longer felt the insecurity of her past
shadowing and even threatening to overshadow her present. I would like to believe that because of her
painful past she was better able to love her present choice, the commitment she
made as an adult that outshone her childhood beliefs.
I like to believe she is standing secure on her new
foundation and rooting herself deeply in what she came to love.