Stumbling Faith

When I was about 14 years old, I completed the sacrament of Confirmation, “officially” becoming a Catholic. Up until this point in my life my faith had been my parents’ decision, begun with my Baptism. But at 14 it was time for me to confirm that their choice was mine, and that I would willingly embrace Christianity. At 13, a Jewish boy would celebrate his Bar Mitzvah, and be considered a man. At 14, was I a Roman Catholic man, no longer a boy?

Faith, like the journey of maturity, is one which varies depending upon the individual. Some take longer than others to get where they're going. I attended public school up until high school, and like most Catholic children my age in public school I went to a one hour C.C.D.(Continuing Christian Development) class each week at my church. These classes expanded upon the teachings we heard in mass each week, applied Jesus' teachings to real world situations, and prepared us for our first Communion as well as our Confirmation. In a sense, Confirmation signified our “graduation” from the C.C.D. program. As confirmed Roman Catholics, we had asked serious questions about our faith and ultimately decided that we agreed with it.

It's one thing to read a text book, and write down the answers you've memorized to be correct. It's quite another to truly comprehend what one has learned. I dusted off some of my old C.C.D. books last night and flipped to a random page. Across the spread was a beautiful watercolor painting of the apostles staring in wonderment at the resurrected Jesus. The artist had captured the emotions they must have been feeling, and the awe and surprise was evident upon their faces. Over one of their heads someone had doodled a word balloon, within which was written a single exclamation: “JESUS!”

I'm not sure whether my young brain with its attention deficit meant to have the apostle take the Lord's name in vain or to genuinely be crying out the name of a friend thought dead. I do know that doodling in the margins of notebooks in my regular classes would lead to an art career, and it was interesting to see that in a class arguably more important than my academic classes(at least from a spiritual perspective), I was just as easily prone to distractions. At 14 I could barely tie my shoes, feared new people and new experiences, and trusted very few people apart from my mom and dad. When I said I believed, I was old enough CHRONOLOGICALLY, but was I mentally? Considering the fact that at the age of 30 I can barely tie my shoes, fear new people and new experiences, and trust very few people besides my parents, I'm not sure that I was.

I'm not criticizing the Catholic education system. I don't for a minute regret the choices I made, even if I was immature when I made them. Most kids ARE ready when they're teenagers. What those classes did do was give me a good foundation to make the right decisions when I was old enough to be faced with them, and to recognize God's hand in my life. I think it's true of ANYTHING that we study in school that true understanding comes with actual experience. It's easy to memorize facts and figures, but it isn't until we're called upon to apply them that we finally KNOW. I often joke on this site about my bad luck, about how the most unlikely things seem to befall me. It's easy to lose track of how many times I've almost died, but the key word is “almost”. Every one of those times is a time I survived. I didn't bleed to death when I fell on glass at age 5. I didn't drown in a friend’s pool a few years later, and I didn't fall when I climbed out on a second story window ledge in the fourth grade. The bullies who punched me in the stomach, shoved poison berries in my mouth, gave me “two for flinching”, or hit me when I showed the “whites of my eyes”, never did any serious or permanent damage. I didn't die when an undertow carried me 30 feet out into the Atlantic Ocean, or when a flagpole fell on my head and knocked me unconscious, or when a birth defect in my intestines ruptured. Last Summer I came through two car accidents, one more serious than the other, in the span of a month.

I once wrote: ”I would not be here if it were not for my parents.” That's still true, and it's ironic that the commandment I struggle with the most is ”Honor thy Father and thy Mother.” But the deeper Truth is that I would not be here if it weren't for GOD, operating through my parents and other forces. In tonight's sermon, my pastor spoke of dependence, of how we all NEED God even when we think we don't. No one is truly independent, as he pointed out. We might get up and get a glass of water, but where did the running water come from? A plumber made sure the pipes worked, and somewhere a plant processed that water. The glass we drink from was made by someone, and should we sit down and have some bacon and eggs, somewhere there's a farmer we're depending on. We depend on each other; everyone has a purpose. But, expanding upon what TheWriteJerry recently had to say about purpose, the priest pointed out how God gives us a responsibility to one another by our very existence and abilities.

I've stumbled many times in my life, and I'll stumble many more. But, like the poem ”footprints”, God has always carried me and helped me get back on my feet, helped me to keep going when I just wanted to stop and give up. The classes I took as a child told me what God did for us, but I had to experience it firsthand to KNOW. There will be more pain and hardship in my future; I wouldn't be ALIVE otherwise. Knowing I made it through the difficulties of my past helps me to face those of my future and know that whatever happens, He'll help me through.

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I'm submitting tonight's post to next Wednesday's Christian Carnival, hosted by the Bible Archive. Be sure to stop by and check out other contributions.