For some reason, maybe I am just being sensitive, much of my reading here on DKos has me thinking about faith and community and what they mean together. The diary about the National Day of Prayer had so many assumptions about who would be pleased that it was declared unconstitutional and why. Several other diaries have also touched on it -- the one about young people and their beliefs (or stated lack thereof), the one about AA and its reliance on the HIgher Power. And I had an uneasy feeling that about being community here. So I have been thinking -- so much so that I did not pay much attention to the sermon today in church; I was too busy thinking about what was going on in my little brain and heart.
So here are some of my thoughts ... but first disclosure, right? I am a heterosexual woman of a certain age who is deeply religious. I am a retired ordained minister of the PCUSA and I have a deep personal faith. The old cliche "Jesus is my bestfriend" could probably apply to me. On the other hand, I have been described as very earthy (and it was not necessarily a compliment) and I tend to be pretty practical (I don't belong to the mystical or charismatic branch). Most of the times I feel more comfortable with non-believers or different believers than I do with fundie Christians. I come to this community to read (since I rarely comment and even more rarely post) about politics. I love politics but don't have knowledge and passion that many of you do. I think of this as my community, even if I am on the fringes.
So I find it a little bewildering when people use words like "Christianoids" (I think that was the word) or make assumptioins about how "Christians" think and act. That is just as ridiculous as me thinking that all gay men are promiscuous queens or that that all atheists are aggresive and non-compassionate. We all come in different flavors, ways of thiking and, intelligences. But the assumptions about faith -- those have been in my heart.
I believe that we all have faith ... not necessarily in a deity and not necessarily in a faith system. We all have something that makes us act as we do, that causes us to think the way that we do, that helps us to make sense of the universe. For me that is my faith in God, but it means that I act in community to live out my values.
As I was thinking of this, I remembered two people that I knew about 15 years ago when I worked as a chaplain at a transitional hospital -- a long term care facility between a nursing home and a hospital. They were both elderly, maybe in their 80's, alone since they were widowed with no children and no close relatives or friends. They were also educated and middle class. They were both very sick and definitedly not thinking logically or coherently.
One was a woman. The nurses asked me to see her because she kept hiding in the closet and they could not figure out what was going on. I went in to talk to her and eventually (because of her condition it took a while) she told me that she was scared to die. You see, the good news was that she was a good Chrisitan woman and therefore was going to heaven. The bad news was that her husband was already there since he had been a deacon and mainstay of the church ... and he had beaten her all of their marriage (for her own good, of course). She did not want to go to heaven to be beaten for eternity. I tried to talk to her, even went in a clerical collar and then robes but not thing worked. Finally, out of desperation, I asked a tall white male friend to go talk to her and reassure her. That worked. She died peacefully about 2 weeks later.
When I worked with her, and even now, I see red that anyone would use religion and God to scare another person into submission. But that was really what she believed and only a man could get through some of her fog to give her comfort.
The other was man. He had been raised Jewish but had put down atheist when he had filled out the hospital forms. He had been a scientist at both Los Alamos and Sandia Labs and, those who remembered him from other hospitalizations, said that he was a very dignified gentleman. Several mornings in a row, we found him on the floor by his bed, with IVs attached and hospital gown flapping. First we thought that he had fallen, so we put up the rails. When he still ended up on the floor, we restrained him. But then he was agitated all day. Finally out of desperation, we untied him, lowered the rails and just watched him carefully. It turned out that he was trying to kneel and say his prayers. I asked a rabbi to visit and he read the Psalms in Hebrew and prayed with him. Some members of the synagogue came to visit and read to him and he calmed down and died a couple of days later.
So what is faith? For the woman it was terror, for the man it was something that he had not needed until a few days before he died. I have attende lots of deaths, lots of people in the process of dying; most look for meaning in their life, for community to remind them of their humanity and for peace, emotional and physical.
So I come back to community, for to me that is the essencse of faith. As a Christian I have always believed that we are called be together and to make a difference to each other. One of my scriptural guides (my canon within the canon) is Micah 6:8 ... what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness (mercy) and to walk humbly with your God? This can only be done in community. And for better or worse, you are my part of my community for now. Let us respect each other.