Personal Jesus

Two nights ago Several months ago my soul-mate and I shared our story to a group of friends that I know and trust.  We talked about the hard parts of our marriage and our lives and how we made it through and how our experiences have shaped our view of God.  It was akin to emotionally vomiting and having your friends pick through the carnage.

I had to drink heavily after the experience and am still feeling a bit numb.  I can’t say that I enjoyed it, but it felt right and appropriate.  It felt good and awful.  I was restless for the weeks to follow.

The difficulty my partner faces now has to do with our views of god.  I have a hard time with a personal god.  This doesn’t mean that I don’t feel intimacy or connection with god.  I do feel those things.  God weeps for me when I weep and laughs with me when I laugh.  I see God as a highly emotional being.  Logic is required for things to flow….and emotion is what connects us…to God ….to man and woman….to animals. 

I would like to believe in a jesus that answers prayer, but I can’t.  He never has for me.  I finally stopped asking for things about 10 years ago.  Frankly, looking at my life, I wouldn’t have given myself what I asked for either.  I feel like I owe it to god to thank him for at least 8 more years.  So that is what I do when I pray.  I thank god for things.  Maybe my time will come to ask for miracles and interventions again, but I’m done for now.  God has given me everything I need.  (s)he doesn’t need one more selfish self-entitled human asking for something ‘to make them happier.’ 

Happiness is my problem.  Not God’s. 

This sounds great and polished and pretty, doesn’t it?  I love it.  It sounds so clean and right.

But there is a problem; a consequence. 

Every relationship requires give and take.  The consequence is that  my relationship with God feels one-sided.  I don’t ask for anything which translates loosely into “i don’t need god.”  Emotionally I don’t feel this to be true.  Theologically it’s a toss-up.  Technically it isn’t true (God puts in motion everything I need to survive and live).  I thank God for relationships and for my children and for my job and yet I express thankfulness for the opportunity for these things to happen; not necessarily god’s involvement in making it happen.

So in a sense, I am stuck.  I have an emotional longing and connection to a personal god and a physical, spiritual, technical, and most importantly logical wall that keeps getting in the way. 

The way out i suppose, is grace.  Grace never follows a logical path.  Grace is god’s way of saying ‘fuck you’ to conventional wisdom and rhetoric. Where the cracks show up in the wall the wildflowers of grace eventually break through and bloom. 

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