a kingdom built of seeds

How would I describe it?

It’s like losing your way in a familiar place. The spaces that once brought you comfort are now sources of discomfort. Who you once were is now a stranger. The God who once felt so near is now distant. Your faith is far away. Your love is weak. You do not know what you believe, if anything. You identify more with the outsiders, the other—the unbelievers—than you do with the insiders, your former tribe—the believers. What the former say makes more sense than what you once said. They see clearly from the outside what you now also distrust. They ask the same questions and you agree with 90% of their observations and answers. Does that make you an unbeliever? A backslider? Wayward? Whether yes or no, it makes you honest. You can’t stay but you also can’t leave. (Do you understand how difficult this is?) You belong nowhere—neither inside nor outside. Your faith is so small but you still have some the size of a mustard seed. You can’t not believe at all, or believe in nothing, but you can’t believe as you once did. You don’t know who or what God is exactly, not anymore, but you still believe there’s a God. The Bible is complicated and confusing, prayer comes hard, church is difficult. You’re spiritually homeless. You’ve lost almost everything but something remains, though you can’t quite name it.

Was it conviction, or conditioning? Was it sacred, or socialization? Was it God, or a gimmick?

You are certain of nothing. Agnostic Christianity, you could call it. A Christian who admits they can’t know anything for certain (how can you know if what you try to believe is true?). The believing unbeliever, as Buechner says. The agnostic Christian, the believing unbeliever. That’s exactly what you are. You no longer pretend. But you have a hard time being honest with those who question, confront, or disagree with you. You are still very afraid that you may be wrong. You are still afraid of hell, though you’re uncertain you still believe it exists. You’re much more likely to believe in a heaven, and you still do, though without specifics. You think differently about many things—eternity and the afterlife, the bible, prayer, church, religion, faith, theology, beliefs, certainty, God.

Losing your former faith is like losing yourself; so much of your self was wrapped up in it, identified with it. You were your faith, your faith was you. Years later and you still don’t know who you are in the aftermath. But something remains. Some hope in the midst of doubt, some faint recognition in the midst of unbelief (or is it disbelief?). You feel something you can’t explain. You call it “Presence,” perhaps. It’s subtle, almost hidden, but pervasive and immanent. You can’t deny its reality. You are hesitant to call it God but you know it is—the haunting, hounding, relentless Presence of God. It’s what astounds you most—that when you stop trying, when you let go and leave, when you give up what once made you good or worthy, it remains (at times stronger, dare you say it). The only reason you haven’t given up entirely is because It hasn’t given up on you. It is not conditional, unbound by the boundaries of humankind. It does not play by our rules. And so because It does not relent you do not give up entirely. Even your leaving is an act of desperate faith. Again, only a shred, but it’s something. You would rather be left only with these unfamiliar tatters than all the cheap, easy, empty faith you once had; it can hardly be called faith, merely apathetic consumption.

You no longer follow indiscriminately. You become your own person and it terrifies you. You love the unknown but it frightens you. The thought of missing the truth weighs heavy. You are confident of nothing, except maybe that Presence, subjective as it is. You know you may be wrong about everything. And, so slowly, you are accepting it. You can now live in the tension of not knowing but still believing all the same—the believing unbeliever. You do not have to be right. You must only have a little trust, a little faith, a little hope. You do not have to know, only search, ask, seek, and knock (or scream into the void if that suits you), never knowing if you’ll find. You are not in it for a reward, only love, and only on a hunch. 

All you can say for certain, after all, is: I am loved. You know it in your bones. It’s the only belief you’ll bet on, your life not least.