Nancy’s Comments (group member since Mar 25, 2011)

Nancy’s comments from the Reading Through a Crisis of Faith group.

...and it may not fit with some people's theology that things "happen for a reason", but I don't believe in redemptive suffering anymore as a way to make 'sense' of why bad things happen to good people or even bad people. I am beginning to believe that "sh** just happens" and that FAITH HAPPENS, TOO, in that moment when the rock tumbles down the hill, AGAIN...and out of rebellion, OR FAITH you just get up and start pushing it again...because what else are you going to do? What seems closer to true faith to me, some people might call "no faith"; but I don't think I can believe in a God whose prime tool is to hurt his creation to improve it and save it.

"The absurd man says yes and his efforts will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is, but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which become his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.

...But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

Books that did not help...anything that promises to change your life just by reading it; that your mind, the way you think can change and in turn it will change everything in your life, in other words, mindless optimism.

This is from an article called "New Year’s Reading List: Books to Transform Your Sad Life" on a suggested 2014 reading list

"To worsen their condition of alienation and dejection, many Americans, in an attempt to feel better, read books that manipulatively sell mindless optimism and pathological hope. The cult of positive thinking turns out one hit after another, both secular—The Secret—and Christian—Joel Osteen’s prosperity gospel. The delusion that changing a life is as simple as believing it will change, and the poison that pretends God wants people who pray early and often to win the lottery, only raise expectations to unrealistic heights, and set desperate people up for a crushing fall with a crash landing."

Reading books helped me through a "crisis of faith" because some writers are willing to speak the unspeakable...things that everyone thinks about in their darkest moment. They drag them out into the light of day and as Camus says.."crushing truths perish from being acknowledged."
Faith will not be totally annihilated, but it will look different on the "other side of the "crisis". And is also will be more resilient, more practical and a much more solid foundation to rebuild your life.