I'm still trying

At around 11:45 every weekday except for Wednesdays the St. Mary of the Seven Sorrows Church at the corner of Union and 5th Avenue in Nashville opens its doors for Mass. But Mass doesn’t start until 12:10, and between 11:45 and 12:10 the church is quiet (and nearly empty, save the few dedicated souls who wander in for a midday liturgy). In this small space of time I like to occupy a back pew and soak in the sound of nothing beneath the frescoed ceiling, where you can find Saint Peter and the rest perched on white fluffy clouds (they’re all dead). I’m not catholic, and I leave before Mass, but this little part of my day is an oasis.

I don’t say this to seem pious, as half the time I’m sitting there wondering why it is I believe what I believe or if I believe it at all. That is of course why I go. It seems reasonable that I should devote at least ten minutes every day to the matter of eternity, and whether it’s an exclusive, all-inclusive, or non-existent place.

This is ten minutes too much for some, I’m sure. For much of learned society, the idea of God is an antiquated superstition that was explained away a long time ago by science. And if we will just give this science a chance, they say, it can provide us with a reasonable answer to the ultimate questions of the universe, one that does not come encumbered with a long list of “must-believes” and “must-dos” that ruin all our fun and take away our freedom and make enemies of our neighbors.

I am glad they found the God-particle. That’s very reassuring. Although I will admit that the big bang theory leaves me feeling a little dissatisfied. But the reasons for my faith do not grow out of this dissatisfaction. In other words, it is not for lack of proof that there is no God that I believe what I do. On the contrary, I find the concept of God just as or more incredible. But this too does not seem to deter me.

Still, being who I’ve become, I find it hard to accept something as true just because: just because what rejecting it would mean, just because of the alternative. As I strive to produce reasons for my faith, I try to step outside of myself, away from the interested part of me that wants a tidy explanation for existence and a ready-at-hand meaning of life. But I cannot deny that seeking part of my soul that wants to believe, and I’m not sure I should.

Because I want to believe that there is a first cause somewhere in the darkness. I have hope that everything that has ever happened, that every thinking person who has ever lived with the awareness of their own existence and experienced the uncountable number of thoughts and emotions and shared moments of joy and of pain—that this is not all simply particles in the wind, meaningless interactions among organized matter. I admit that I feel consciousness is part of something bigger, something that transcends life and death and that the soul isn’t just grey matter located in one of the four lobes. I want there to be more, because this world is so full of loss and injustice and goodeness and love that it pains me to think that the end is so empty, so full of nothing, no reunion, no continuation, no fulfillment. Call this weakness, call it ingratitude—this is what I want to believe. I need faith to believe these things, and I need it because I believe the story of humanity plays like a Shakespearean tragedy, its characters torn between good and evil, its history so full and running so deep, that the whole thing is utterly remarkable and it’s an affront to call it a coincidence. I need faith to believe in the reason for life, and I’m trying to find it.