Fighting Bees
Give great thought to faith but little pressure toward grading it
“Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever.” - Elie Wiesel, Night
“I choose to maintain this faith which, in the past, gave wings to my soul. I would not be the man that I am, the Jew that I am, if I betrayed the child in me, the one who thought he had to live in God, if not for God. In truth, faith in God, I have never abandoned it.” - Elie Weisel, And the Sea is Never Full
I read Night in 8th grade. Ten years later, Shannon and I boarded a train in Prague that would travel the tracks towards Auschwitz death camp. The same click-clack we heard would have been the same thousands of Jewish prisoners heard during World War II. I laid my head on a pillow, free to move within our tiny cabin. They rode in cattle cars, with no room to lay down or even find privacy to relieve themselves. Shannon and I spent a day touring both the work and death camp. We saw the hundreds of shoes and suitcases left behind by exterminated prisoners. We walked the path of roughly 1.1 million who exited their train only to enter a gas chamber.
There are many experiences found in history books that I would like to relive. This is not one of them. As I walked, I thought back to reading Night in 8th grade. I do not remember every story from Elie’s account, but this one came back to me in loose form as I walked up to crematoriums in rubble.
Elie tells a story of two men who wait in line for their own execution. The first man whispers, “I believe in God, I believe in God” as he looks to the heavens in hopes of rescue. The second man, just a few people back in line, gives in to the darkness and fire around him. Internally his soul screams, “I do not believe in God!” But as each man approaches the front of the line, they spiritually switch places. The first man, having given up his hope for divine intervention, turns on God, “I no longer believe.” The second man, accepting his fate, gives up his belief in humanity but decides to reaffirm his faith in God. “I still believe,” he tells his soul.
I hear this story, and I think about the people that sit on my couch who try to determine whether they believe or how much they believe. Granted, we are in the safety of a counseling office in contrast to a Nazi death camp. Still, I have sat with people who exhaust themselves to determine how well they know God. One week faith feels strong, and another they believe themselves on the border of agnosticism. I admire the emphasis they put on faith, but I also wonder: Are we equipped to assess our own faith?
In Elie’s story about the two men, he puts it to us, the reader, to consider: Who is the real man of faith?
There are moments when I feel close to God. Other times I wonder if I really know Him or even care. Then I look outward and see that often the people who claim to love God the most hurt people the most.
We need to give great thought to faith but little pressure toward assessing our faith. Yes, take faith seriously but not to the point of high praise or harsh criticism. In those moments, we lose touch with both ourselves and faith. In reality, the people around us have a better chance to assess our faith than we do. Here’s why:
1) We are relational to our core.
2) The dust rarely settles during toxic-shame’s never ceasing, unrelenting barrage on our psyche.
Everything about us is relational. Who we are on the inside will eventually be felt by people around us. What we do with God internally will show up externally in some form. Count on it. We cannot escape the impact of our faith, or lack thereof, on our relationships. The people around us become both the observers and recipients of what is happening inside of us. Just as it is easier for you to see my face than me, it is also easier for you to see and experience the fruits of my faith. In this way, we need each other. We need to hear from others how they see and experience our faith. There are certain people whose faith helps me keep believing, and I would wager to bet that if I asked them, they would say they often struggle to believe. There have been times my wife’s admiration of my faith has been the only thing to keep me believing I am a believer at all.
Some of this is because we cannot see our own life from the outside. Some of it has to do with the toxic-shame within us which gets in the way of us assessing ourselves with accuracy.
Toxic-shame takes up residence in the part of my brain where I analyze myself. I didn’t invite him. I’ve asked him to leave. But shame is the most persistent of squatters. Leave me alone within the walls of my psyche, and toxic-shame comes out to play. He muddies my ability to see clearly and trust myself firmly. He does not play nice. Worst of all, I usually do not even know he is in the room. He shows up, without invitation, like a ghost. Invisible. Inaudible. When his thoughts mix with mine, he usually goes undetected on my radar. Then I am no longer me. I am some version of me in a fog. When I am lost within myself, I am a terrible judge of what is right, good, and loving. Under toxic-shame’s influence, I am helpless to see myself or my faith with much accuracy.
I get the privilege of sitting with people who are fighting to keep faith. I have heard through many tears about the losses of children, marriages, pregnancies, jobs, and friends. I am both honored and terrified in these moments: Honored people trust me with their trauma and terrified at our human capacity for pain and doubt.
In the depths of despair, people tell me they struggle to trust God. They ask questions in which I know they want company rather than answers: How could God allow this? Could God actually love me? Is He even there? Will any of this ever make sense?
In moments like these - when emotions connect to deeply honest questions equally fueled by desire and doubt, I see faith at its strongest. Doubting God in pain is not the same as giving up on him. Questions fueled by doubt also reveal faith, even if it is tattered and frail.
To say, “I do not believe”, in pleasure or pain, is of course faithless.
To say, “I believe” without pain and doubt is cheap faith.
But to say, “I believe” connected to loneliness and sadness and hurt and fear and anger...this is faith I want to hear more about.
Abraham Lincoln said, “When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.”
Picture a pastor who has run empty of strength to continue his sermon. Amidst his Sunday morning monologue about the complexities of God and His hard-to-understand interactions with our stories, the pastor steps away from the podium. He moves from partially hidden behind the podium to seen at the top of the stage steps.
In mid sentence, he realizes he cannot finish what he planned to say. His waterfall of words dries up. He knows the sermon he memorized but his heart won’t let him speak. He would only be telling the congregation what they have heard every other Sunday morning. They know the answers. But faith is not always knowing answers. The pastor’s silence is felt more than his words. His silence meets the silence of the room and our collective fear of the silence of God.
No longer able to stand, the pastor sits down on the stage steps and puts his head in his hands.
The audience, no longer passive listeners but now active observers, each interpret this moment based on the state of their own faith.
The folks who attended that Sunday merely to be entertained with a spiritual message sit annoyed. This is like buying tickets to Six Flags only to learn the roller coasters need repair. Some think of leaving early, and a few do. Did this guy forget his sermon? Seriously! I’ve got better things to do. The people in this camp who stay in attendance get out their phones to scroll social media until the pastor is done having his moment.
Then there are the people who came that Sunday looking for a fix for their pain. These are similar to the people who try therapy only for a few sessions, quitting because the therapist failed to solve their problems. Our pain reveals our need for healing. It also can expose our attempts to get others to do the work toward healing we do not want to do. As the pastor weeps into his own hands, these people in the audience begin to criticize him. How could he teach this stuff when even he does not believe it? Then they begin to think about other churches in the city to try out.
Then there are the people in the congregation who know this kind of pain and fight to keep faith. These people watch the pastor and lean forward. A few almost slip off the front of their chairs. These are the people who live in the tension between once upon a time and happily ever after. This is the man who wrestles with his sobriety each hour but finds purpose in the struggle. This is the woman whose husband left her with three kids who chooses to pray for him anyway. This is the infertile couple about to give up their dream of getting pregnant who plan to attend a friend’s baby shower that afternoon. Finally, they think, a teacher who drinks what he pours and eats what he cooks. This is a man I can trust. This is a man I will listen to each week, even if he says very little. This is a man who will help me keep my torch lit through my night. This is a man of faith.