La Fey

I spent over half of my life in the church, most of that time was in the Southern Baptist church. I was one of those kids who judged people hard in the name of Jesus Christ. I loved Vacation Bible School, Jars of Clay, and any church related activities. When I was about 10 years old we began attending a Methodist church. After several more years, my family stopped going to church almost all together. We had unfortunately seen Christianity at its worst throughout the years. We had been part of churches who tried to teach it's children to speak in tongues. We had watched as another church fell into ruin because of a disagreement over the facilities. We had seen countless people who called themselves Christians (literally meaning 'little Christs') act like monsters.

For several years now I have explored my beliefs. While my thoughts are still forming, these are some conclusions I have drawn thus far. I know there has to be something bigger than me because the passion and gifts that I have don't just come from myself. I also don't believe in God in the traditional Christian sense. I believe that "God" is what different people need it to be, but I think ultimately "God" is love, "God" is peace, and "God" is the universe that surrounds us. A Cornell University professor came to William Jewell this past semester and put these thoughts in a much more coherent way. He said that in the US we use the American flag to represent the 300+million people living in our country because we can't possibly comprehend this number in our tiny human brains. Just like the American flag, we use God to represent the ever expanding multiverse because our puny minds can't grasp the enormity of our world or what is beyond it.

This being said, some people need to believe in a more-than-human like creature living in the sky who controls our natural world. For me, I find "God" in humanity. I find "God" when I work with the homeless, with children, with those living in poverty, etc. I believe in something similar to "living a life like Christ" because I believe in living as brothers and sisters in humanity as servants to one another.

This morning I went to the Rainbow office in Nagarote. I was called into a room with three other people. One man began reading a passage from the bible, "Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head (Matthew 8:20)." As uncomfortable as I am with organized Christianity sometimes, I love the idea of Jesus and I love this passage. Actually I like it even better in the words of Rich Mullins, "Birds have nests and foxes have dens, but the hope of the whole world rests on the shoulders of a homeless man."

Oh man, I have so many things to say about this and I'm not sure it will make any coherent sense, so bear with me…..

So, going back to this morning, after reading this passage the four of us talked about Jesus, God, and the need for faith. A woman I have been working with, Flor de Ly, said that life in Nicaragua is harder than most other places, so the people need a god they can relate to. They need a god that can give them hope. She said that every day parents work hard, but their children still go hungry and that every day there are children who have to deal with things that they are too young to fully understand. She said that there is so much poverty, suffering, and struggle, but God is in their hearts so they can keep going because God gives them hope and a promise of a wonderful eternal life in His kingdom. Flor also said that Christianity is different in the states because we live very fortunate lives, so we need God and the example of Christ to remind us of our brothers and sisters around the world who are not as fortunate.

Afterward, we held hands and prayed. This was the first time I had prayed in this way for a long time (excluding the prayers around the dinner table with my grandparents). Flor thanked God for me and my work, but mostly she thanked him for her riches, meaning her children, her husband, the roof over her head, her job, and the fact that her family has enough food to survive. It was then that I wept. 

I wept for the fact that Flor's riches were what we often take for granted in the States. Our riches are money, a big house, a car for each family member, electronics, and just all of our expensive stuff. I wept because many people claim to strive for a life like Christ, but they forget that Jesus was a homeless dude. He didn't live in a giant house with flat screens and vacation in Cabo. I wept because I don't know how or when we forgot about humanity. When did we lose sight of what is real and important? Our lives are so full of jobs, school, shopping, traveling, etc. that we sometimes forget to love. We sometimes forget what love is, and sometimes we forget to share that love with our brothers and sisters around the world. We sometimes forget that no matter what "God" is for each of us, the truth is that right now in this life all we have is each other