"Fear the silence is the voice of God."

This is the verse I read when I feel that God is impossible to know.

Isaiah 45:19

I have not spoken in secret,
from somewhere in a land of darkness;
I have not said to Jacob's descendants,
'Seek me in vain.'
I, the LORD, speak the truth;
I declare what is right.

Today I feel like I don't believe in God.

(I wish it was because I was doing the "Temporary Atheist" challenge at The Embassy, but I don't need a challenge to wrestle with this right now.)

Faith is like breathing sometimes. It seems so natural, loving God, loving the Church...but not today, not this week, not this month.

(A bubble's burst, and I'm just sitting in the mess it left behind.)

The history of the church is horrible, disgusting, disappointing, surprising, and confusing.

I feel like I should know this by now. I've gone to church my whole life, I spent seven years in a Christian school. I feel a bit angry that it's not part of my faith tradition to engage with two thousand years worth of dialogue and debate and philosophy.

I've been placed in a bubble, a Sunday morning, youth group, stand and sing, sit and listen, bubble. No past, no future. Only the present. Only this month's sermon series, only next week's event. I don't think I'm the only one suffering from "Protestant Amnesia", as my friend called it. Part of me thinks our churches are too scared to address these issues. The scary questions about where we are, and why. To ask, what if what I believe is wrong? A necessary question.

At first it's terrifying. Christianity seems to be a religion that seems too human, finger prints all over it. The Greeko-Roman philosophers, middle-class America, Constantine, George W. Bush, this pope, that bishop, me. Nothing seems to be left untouched, untainted. Nothing that looks like the uninhibited voice of God.

I'm certainly still falling apart, but I've stopped being scared today. Walking through Waterloo Park, the snow and the woods calmed me down. I certainly don't expect to have any answers anytime soon, but I know this is a necessary place. Probably even given to me by the God I've ceased to understand. A God that loves me even in my unbelief, and my forgetfulness.

This is the song I listen to that makes me feel like I'm not the only one.

The Pearl

O the dragons are gonna fly tonight
They're circling low and inside tonight
It's another round in the losing fight
Out along the great divide tonight

We are aging soldiers in an ancient war
Seeking out some half remembered shore
We drink our fill and still we thirst for more
Asking if there's no heaven what is this hunger for?

Our path is worn our feet are poorly shod
We lift up our prayer against the odds
And fear the silence is the voice of God

And we cry Allelujah Allelujah
We cry Allelujah

Sorrow is constant and the joys are brief
The seasons come and bring no sweet relief
Time is a brutal but a careless theif
Who takes our lot but leaves behind the grief

It is the heart that kills us in the end
Just one more old broken bone that cannot mend
As it was now and ever shall be amen

And we cry Allelujah Allelujah
We cry Allelujah

So there'll be no guiding light for you and me
We are not sailors lost out on the sea
We were always headed toward eternity
Hoping for a glimpse of Gaililee

Like falling stars from the universe we are hurled
Down through the long loneliness of the world
Until we behold the pain become the pearl

Cryin´ Allelujah Allelujah
We cry Allelujah