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Rabbi Marc Gellman began his studies in 1969 at the University of Wisconsin, and went on to attend the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of ...
Read more about By Rabbi Marc Gellman, Tribune Media Services.
CAN'T QUITE EMBRACE FAITH? START WITH GRATITUDE
By Rabbi Marc Gellman, Tribune Media Services
Q: I'm having a hard time keeping my faith. I was raised a Christian,
yet we didn't attend church regularly. I consider myself blessed, yet
I'm having trouble accepting that God had anything to do with it. I
can seemingly explain my good fortune by a combination of science and
hard work. I very much want to believe and have God be a daily part of
my life, but my heart doesn't feel the same way. Can you help? --
Almost Godless in Florida (via an actual letter!)
A: Let's begin with what you doubt. You doubt that God has had anything to do with your success. You think it can all be explained by science and hard work. Fine. You're responsible for giving yourself the intelligence you possess. You're responsible for keeping you free of fatal diseases, fatal injuries and debilitating accidents. You're responsible for being born into a family that could love you and help you on your path to success. You make the sun rise and the rain fall so you have food to eat. You are responsible for all the goodness and bounty that's sustained you and enabled you to prosper. And you haven't been able to give thanks to God for any of the blessings you did not create but from which you've prospered.
The problem you have seems mislabeled. You're not suffering from a loss of faith but a loss of gratitude. Somehow, you have to open your eyes to all the factors in your life that you did not create. Whether you decide to call these factors blessings, and whether you attribute them to God or not is not important in the early steps of your journey. What is important is that you acknowledge that you have a deep personal need to express gratitude for your good fortune.
How can you do that? I suggest you start by serving a meal to a homeless person, preferably a child. Look at that kid and think about the life lottery that put you on the serving side and that child on the receiving side of the soup kitchen line. Perhaps that will be the moment when you fall to your knees and say, "There but for the grace of God go I." Science and hard work don't explain why that child is hungry and you are full.
I always feel a little embarrassed trying to sell religion to unbelievers. However, your letter struck me as both sincere and searching. You don't have to find God. I'm not trying to change you. I'm just trying to help you realize that while living your life without God is now culturally acceptable, living your life without gratitude is not.
Many wonderful atheists I know are satisfied with a secular gratitude, which many express in fine deeds of compassion. For religious folks, gratitude is our link to God. God is the object of our thankfulness for all our blessings. The logic of this spiritual move is that God made the world, and the world nurtures us, so we're obligated to thank God for the gift of life that our earth sprouts forth every day (check out Psalm 19).
Another possible way for you to find your way to God, which seems to be your frustrated hope, is to fail or fall. I don't wish this upon you, but I know that for many people on the way up, God is just unneeded baggage, but on the way down, God is a saving rock. Henry Viscardi, an advocate of the disabled, once told me that there are no healthy people vs. disabled people. There are only disabled people and people who are temporarily-abled. So while you're blessed to be temporarily-abled, perhaps you might reflect on how adequate your belief in science and hard work will be once you join the ranks of the disabled, as we all do in time. Then you may need a source of hope that eludes you now.
Finally, I would ask you to reflect on the true fruits of faith. Is it really your belief that faith just gets you an ATM card which you can use to withdraw blessings from the great spiritual investment bank in the sky? Perhaps you might come to see the benefits of faith as being a tad less materialistic and tad more spiritual. "Why do I have what I have?" is a low-grade spiritual question. "How can I best use what I've been given to help those who haven't been given enough?" is a high-grade spiritual question.
I wish you a good journey. I actually hope you don't find all the answers to your questions. Rather, I hope you can live your way into the answers.
(Send QUESTIONS ONLY to The God Squad, c/o Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY 14207, or email them to godsquadquestion@aol.com.
(c) 2008 THE GOD SQUAD DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
This news arrived on: 10/09/2008
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