"The one who commits themselves to the task of helping people really
enter into doubt, unknowing, and ambiguity needs to be ten, twenty, even
a hundred times better than those who sell certainty. They have got to
be prepared to walk a difficult and often a dangerous path if they wish
to invite people into this murky and uncertain world, for doing so they
bring to the surface a whole host of anxieties that we spend so much of
our time and resources repressing"~ Peter Rollins
I think as we grow to accept our humanity, with all our emotions of
happiness, sadness, peace and doubts, we tend to relate to others who
are open and authentic. Recently, I was reading this
blog, and I can
relate to the writer in this observation:
"In the past decade, I have read more than my fair share of self-help books.
Though I’ve enjoyed the ones with countless action steps and workbook
sheets to change my life, I’ve felt the most moved and inspired by
honest, personal stories of overcoming adversity."
I myself felt most
moved and inspired by honest, personal stories of overcoming adversity
whenever I read inspirational materials because I find that I can relate
to them better in the light of my own experiences, and take comfort in
the fact that I am not alone in facing my own struggles and doubts. It
also inspires me to come to terms with my own feelings, and form my own
conclusions and find my own answers in life, instead of feeling obliged
to follow a certain formula.
I also agree with the interviewee in the blog on this:
"I was also worried that I’d come off as self-indulgent, but all of my
teachers explained that healing from my own pain would make me more
compassionate to the suffering of others. I try to build that awareness
all the time now."
Yes, healing from my own pain also enables me
to be more compassionate to the suffering of others, and I am also
learning to build that awareness all the time now.
Here's sharing this
blog, which I learnt about the differences between a leader and a friend.
"The reality is that I am no wiser than them; I just happen to
publicize the things I observe and learn on a given day. And much like
them, I sometimes need a little help accessing the answers within.
Maybe that’s what it means to really help people—to help them help themselves.
None of us has it all figured out, and maybe we never will.
Acknowledging this, to me, is the difference being having followers
and friends. With followers, you lead the way. With friends, you support
them in discovering it for themselves."
I think it is perhaps
unfortunate that in the christian circles, a number of preachers tend to see
themselves more as leaders than as friends. As a result, they think they
have to lead the way all the time, and end up telling the congregation
what to do (or believe). Such sermons usually become dry
and formulaic, as in reality there are no seven steps to achieving a
better life and becoming happy. Also, from what I heard in a church institution, the preacher feels that he should look happy the
moment he steps up on stage, regardless of what went on in his own life,
whether it be an argument with his wife earlier that morning before
going to the church building or some other challenge, so that he will be
able to focus on preaching a faith-inducing sermon to help raise other
people's faith.
I feel that while this might be well-intentioned at first, it can inadvertently
become a subtle form of legalism because the people in the congregation
may feel that they also have to follow the preacher's example and act as
if they have faith all the time. It can become a performance-based
living, and instead of helping people in the long run, it may even cause
some people to feel disappointed with themselves for not being able to
match the preacher's level of faith.
Perhaps a better way for preachers/teachers to help people is to
treat them as friends rather than as followers, by giving them the space
and time to discover the way for themselves. For example, Rob Bell prefers to let people think for themselves and come to
their own conclusions about their faith instead of giving them certain
answers to follow without questioning. I think that is a better way of
helping people help themselves, so to speak.
After all, we all are already spiritual and we
don't need to become spiritual. I realise our journey in life is to
become more human instead - to embrace our humanness in all its
fullness.
I think one reason
that christian evangelical preachers tend to focus so much on faith is
not because they have a lot of faith themselves, but because they are
trying to have faith in their own lives. In other words, I am beginning
to think that the "faith movement" is actually motivated by fear. This
is somewhat ironic because one would think that if a preacher talks a
lot about faith, it means he is a man of great faith. This is not
necessarily so, because when I looked back at the sermons I used to
listen to, I recalled that the preachers tend to use old testament
examples, such as how the children of Israel could not enter the
promised land because they did not have faith and doubted their "god".
So maybe these preachers were afraid that they also could not enter the
promised land themselves because they thought the promised land was
referring to a physical place called heaven.
Yet I have come to learn that we are all already in the promised
land - it is the kingdom of heaven within us, not some physical place to
go to after we die. In fact, I realise there is no such distinction
between "believers" and "unbelievers" today because these are only labels in
the old covenant mindset. When the old covenant of law system became
obsolete in AD70, the symbolic lake of fire would destroy all the old
Adamic identities that existed in the separation mindset, including
"fearful, unbelieving, murderers, etc". In the new covenant mindset,
there is only one true identity - Love. We no longer see one another
(and ourselves) from the worldly point of view, for the old has passed
away, and the new has come - we are all new creations, made in Love's
image, and our minds are renewed to see this truth restored in our
lives.
Faith, then, is not something we do or have; faith is who we are.
So, in our day and age, our "faith" does not make us "believers", and our "doubt" does not
make us "unbelievers". Since every human being would experience ups and
downs as well as moments of faith and doubt in real life, it doesn't
mean that each person keeps changing from "believer" to "unbeliever" and
back again. Hence, the labels "believer" and "unbeliever" are simply
man-made concepts. To me, the truth remains that we are all spiritual
beings on a human journey, and whether we experience faith or doubt,
happiness or sadness, etc does not change the truth that we are all
beloved children of God/Unconditional Love/Universe.
