Unsolicited Call
(Originally posted on 7/23/07 and then pulled and now it's back. I am closing the comments because some of you are still Crazy.)
I received an unsolicited call from a someone who I've not spoken with in a while. The call left me thinking about how quickly time passes and how fast our lives turn corners and choose to walk down different avenues and that sometimes no matter which avenues are chosen, we still manage to return to the same street corners.
When this individual and I met, they were struggling with many issues, most notably their faith and the moments of darkness they'd lived which had led them to question their space in this world and what it (life) all meant. By most standards, this person's life was and remains exceptionally blessed, but pain is relative and so what appears as 'perfect' on the outside has just as many fragments and cracks as the lives of others.
Raised Catholic and having grown into uncertainty, we had confused conversations along the lines of: "God damn the church. Not really. I don't know. That's sacrilegious. Right?", even though through it all, this individual believed in Him. What it boiled down to was a disbelief in the representation of Him as had been provided to this individual, and so they were unknowingly searching for a representation they could hold on to and in which they could believe - or at least, as with the rest of us, embrace and struggle with always, as the human condition demands of Faith.
For this individual, these issues seem to be slowly disappearing - they're not completely resolved, nor will they ever be, I don't think - but they're being faced and challenged with honesty. The person also understood that Faith can not be understood within the context of itself, but it must be understood within the context of the Self - past experiences, relationships, familial situations all shape what we look at and how we look at whatever it is that has to do with Faith. For this reason, and interestingly enough, they did not start with Faith, but all other 'baggage' - and now, some years later, they're able to look at the core, which is in this case: Faith.
It was also nice to hear that a catalyst for these changes was me, especially when I had no idea I'd done anything other than express my own beliefs when asked about them. Our conversation was centered around our individual understanding of 'when bad things happen to good people'. I hope I helped, if only a little. I was flattered to no end that I was asked and that what was said some time ago still resonated today.
While chatting, I had my radio on and was listening to a man on CBC argue vehemently against religion and express - among many other intelligent thoughts - that Muslim women are brainwashed and it was the duty of men such as him to enlighten and educate Muslim women on matters such as hijab. I put my phone up to the radio so that my friend could hear what was being said and they found it as amusing and as inconsequential as I did. They asked me to turn it off and said: "I wasn't sure what I believed about God, until I realised that I didn't need to believe in God for Him to exist...but He needs to believe in me, for me to be whole. And of all the people around me, I'm trusting the brain of a Muslim woman so I don't fu*king think of you as someone who needs to be enlightened. Just turn that off and tell me about your weekend. Also, when's Ramadan? I think I may try a day or two."
Life is weird and the people we meet even more so. That reality may very well be the pleasure of it all...
I received an unsolicited call from a someone who I've not spoken with in a while. The call left me thinking about how quickly time passes and how fast our lives turn corners and choose to walk down different avenues and that sometimes no matter which avenues are chosen, we still manage to return to the same street corners.
When this individual and I met, they were struggling with many issues, most notably their faith and the moments of darkness they'd lived which had led them to question their space in this world and what it (life) all meant. By most standards, this person's life was and remains exceptionally blessed, but pain is relative and so what appears as 'perfect' on the outside has just as many fragments and cracks as the lives of others.
Raised Catholic and having grown into uncertainty, we had confused conversations along the lines of: "God damn the church. Not really. I don't know. That's sacrilegious. Right?", even though through it all, this individual believed in Him. What it boiled down to was a disbelief in the representation of Him as had been provided to this individual, and so they were unknowingly searching for a representation they could hold on to and in which they could believe - or at least, as with the rest of us, embrace and struggle with always, as the human condition demands of Faith.
For this individual, these issues seem to be slowly disappearing - they're not completely resolved, nor will they ever be, I don't think - but they're being faced and challenged with honesty. The person also understood that Faith can not be understood within the context of itself, but it must be understood within the context of the Self - past experiences, relationships, familial situations all shape what we look at and how we look at whatever it is that has to do with Faith. For this reason, and interestingly enough, they did not start with Faith, but all other 'baggage' - and now, some years later, they're able to look at the core, which is in this case: Faith.
It was also nice to hear that a catalyst for these changes was me, especially when I had no idea I'd done anything other than express my own beliefs when asked about them. Our conversation was centered around our individual understanding of 'when bad things happen to good people'. I hope I helped, if only a little. I was flattered to no end that I was asked and that what was said some time ago still resonated today.
While chatting, I had my radio on and was listening to a man on CBC argue vehemently against religion and express - among many other intelligent thoughts - that Muslim women are brainwashed and it was the duty of men such as him to enlighten and educate Muslim women on matters such as hijab. I put my phone up to the radio so that my friend could hear what was being said and they found it as amusing and as inconsequential as I did. They asked me to turn it off and said: "I wasn't sure what I believed about God, until I realised that I didn't need to believe in God for Him to exist...but He needs to believe in me, for me to be whole. And of all the people around me, I'm trusting the brain of a Muslim woman so I don't fu*king think of you as someone who needs to be enlightened. Just turn that off and tell me about your weekend. Also, when's Ramadan? I think I may try a day or two."
Life is weird and the people we meet even more so. That reality may very well be the pleasure of it all...
Labels: Faith
posted by just a girl at 9:03 AM
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