My Quest of Faith

My step-grandmother was Buddhist though she never flaunted it in front of my very Protestant family. One night in the hospital while my grandfather laid on his deathbed, the hospital chaplin chatted with my Vietnese step-grandmother about her faith. She told him that she believed that there is one God but that we all have and need different ways to worship him. Outside of her long lost eggroll recipe, this was perhaps the most important thing I could have ever learned from my quirky, sometimes mysterious step-grandmother.

I’ve kept that thought very close to my heart all of these years, even though she is long past, and every now and then, I take it out and dust it off and mull it over.

I grew up as a very active person in the church, mostly the Southern Baptist church, and while I did question quite a few of the “rules” laid down by the church authorities, I was a strong believer in God and salvation through Christ. I’ll even admit to being more than a bit judgemental and sometimes closed-minded though I was probably the most open-minded of my peers at the time and I often pushed at the envelop and questioned the little details, thanks to the guidance here and there of a few wise souls.
After college I got what I call Hypocrite Burn-Out. I tried being very active in church for a while but the hypocrisy and the social cliques and such really turned me away from the whole idea of church-going and church-participating.

Still, I’ve never let go of my faith and I pray to God and I seek his council on many things and, yes, I even sometimes still read the Bible on my own without influence from someone trying to bend its meaning one way or another or interpret it for me. I prefer to find what God wants me to find in the Word by listening directly to him.
Over the last year, I’ve had the inklings of a desire to explore other religions. It’s really more of a curiousity about what other religions believe and what “rules” they set for themselves, what theories they have for salvation and the aftermath. I’m curious what it is that makes them need to worship they way they do or believe what they do. I certainly am not seeking a new faith or a new god or even a new way to worship.
I’ve also been reading more about Christianity and the beginnings of it and the Christian Church. I tried to talk to my mother about the questions that I was developing about what might or might not be real in the doctrines and even in the Bible. I’m not one of those people who believes that the Bible is the absolute truth. There are too many contridictions in it and it was written by men, not God. Men wrote the Bible as their interpretation of the events and I’m sure as things were translated, the Bible’s message was influenced by the men penning it. I have no doubt that politics was just as involved as spiritualality. I am currently reading The Dark Side of Christian History and it certainly makes me wonder about some of the facts about God and Christ that we’ve been taught over the years.  It certainly makes me question whether God hadn’t meant for there to be more to his message than what ended up in the Bible, which appears to be a collection of works gathered and chosen by men more for political reasons than for spiritual.
I think that my search for understanding and the truth may bother my mother a little bit. She told me that the way I was talking I was making things sound like one couldn’t know what to believe in and therefore how could I not question my faith.

And this is where I come back to my step-grandmother and her belief in one God under many names and many religions.

Despite my questions and doubts concerning the Christian Church, I believe in God. I believe he created us. I believe he watches over us. I have faith in him. That hasn’t changed.

So, I think I will continue my quest this year to learn more about my neighboring believers and what they believe and how they worship and I think I’ll research the Christian Church some more too, but I’ll take comfort in knowing that I’m not questioning that there is a God but searching for enlightenment as to how best to worship him for me.

tags: Faith

2 comments

1. on January 12, 2006 at 9:25 pm

   Bryan le said:

   Hello,

   I am a Vietnamese Buddhist - and to be honest, I love my religion. I didn’t exactly read the entire post (sorry!) but I have to say, that it has allowed me to reflect upon my life heavily in a positive note. Buddhism does not dictate my life, and I control 110% of it. Each aspect I do and each moment that happens to me, I can credit it to something else that I have done (karma).

   You should seriously consider Buddhism.

   Sorry, I don’t mean to preach. I’m just letting you know first hand that it has done a lot for my life.

   Enjoy, and good luck on your quest.
   Bryan

2. on December 8, 2006 at 5:17 pm

   Harry said:

   An interesting and very honest post, young lady. Can’t quite figure out how I got to it…something in Technorati.

   I was thinking this morning that probably in our day and age idolatry consists of trying too much to constrain our understanding or belief in God to be a being that we can fit into in our own very little minds. You know the Scripture “As the heavens are high above the earth so are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts…”. People don’t remember that often enough, especially religious practitioners.

   Regarding Hell, I figure that the job of Judge Of The World has been handed out, and I didn’t get the job. I’m happy with that, and try to remember that if I’m making a judgment about somebody else, then I’m trying to do somebody else’s job and they don’t need help from me.

   I hope you stick with your quest. Best Wishes,

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