I just finished watching "Then She Found Me", which is a wonderful movie. It's rated "R" for language. It's got Helen Hunt, Colin Firth, Bette Midler, and Matthew Broderick in it. A main theme in this movie is adoption, from every angle. Another theme is infertility. And another theme is divorce and relationships, every kind of relationship, between families, lovers, etc. Another theme that surfaces is God and religion. It is a beautiful movie.
I haven't been religiously active for years now. There was a brief moment last year that I went to church consistently. It lasted 5 weeks. This blog post is not about what issues I may or may not have with religion, because quite frankly I haven't figured it out yet. I support my family and friends who are active in their religion. I am excited when my nieces and nephews participate in religious ordinances because it is important to them and I love them, so I support them.
There is this part in the movie where one of the main characters experiences a miscarriage after great difficulty getting pregnant in the first place and then begins the process of going through fertility treatments because of her difficulty in getting pregnant. Her birth-mother is at the appointment with her and the doctor wants to get started with the treatment and her birth-mother says to her daughter, "Do you want to pray?" and then at the doctor, "That's what she does, she prays a lot." Her daughter says she doesn't want to pray and this surprises her birth-mother who then asks the doctor if she could have a minute with her daughter. The doctor and assistant leave the room to give the patient a minute with her mother.
The birth-mother then starts asking her daughter why she doesn't feel like praying. The daughter gets defensive and gets up to leave the room to get the doctor but the birth-mother won't let her by. Holding her daughters hands she asks her for the fifth time, or so, why she won't pray at the most important moment of her life? Her daughter responds by saying something like, "Why would I trust this moment with someone I thought was..." and she stops. With tears in her eyes, crying a heart broken cry that we've all experienced at some point in our life, she says, "I thought God was loving and good... I had faith." At this point, I'm crying because watching this movie and seeing all that this character has been through, a lot of it relate-able, it was hard not to cry.
Her birth-mother responds, "What if God is difficult? What is He is awful? Even complicated?" Her daughter looks into her eyes and whispers, "like me." And the connection is made. This hit me hard. I know I've discussed religion on here before. The topic of religion is delicate and complex. It's a delicate place to be in when you know you've sinned, but from your sin comes your life's greatest accomplishment. How do you justify those feelings? It's also scary to consider trusting to someone else, anything else that could be remotely as important to you as your life's greatest lesson. And so, you just kind of go through life trusting yourself with yourself. I'm talking about being a birth-mother right now.
I could sit here and say that the reason I don't go to church is because the bishop I spoke to after I placed Baby Boy for adoption didn't handle it very well and punished me further after I had just made it through 9 months of spiritually self-refining fire. I could. Religious figures always make for a great scapegoat. I could think up a dozen issues I have and place the blame elsewhere instead of owning them as my own insecurities about religion. But really what it comes down to is that I once had faith. I once trusted that God was loving and good. Maybe that's ridiculously cliche for me to say. I mean, of all the scapegoats there ever were in the history of mankind, of course I'd be angry at God. There is no originality in that one. I get it. And maybe it's selfish of me to feel like I deserve a break. But, we've all been there. So, clearly there is enough judgment to go around in a situation such as this.
I had a dream about a baby girl the other night. I was holding this baby girl and she had raven-black hair. She was tiny. And I loved her. I could feel my love for her and it was radiating and I knew she could feel it too, even though she didn't know what it was, except that it felt safe. My entire dream consisted of me looking down into the eyes of my baby girl and being so proud of her. She was tiny and she was mine. Do you know how badly I want that? It hurts bad.
The main character of the movie ends up praying. She is Jewish and so her prayer was sung. She translates it for her birth-mother afterward because her birth-mother is not Jewish. Translated, the prayer meant: "Listen, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Listen, O Israel, the God of love and the God of fear are one."
To be human is to be a paradox. If it is human nature to be a paradox; to be awful and wonderful, to be complicated and simple, to be difficult and effortless and if we are to believe that we are creations of God, then wouldn't it make sense to believe that God is infinitely more complicated than we are? This is a huge thing for me because I have felt so much guilt about my anger towards God. And the fact that I feel guilt makes me even angrier. But, God created emotion and emotion is confusing. We know joy because we've felt sorrow. We know love because we know anger. And He created it all, so knowing that, I know he can handle my anger and desire to shut Him out right now. It's complicated. And this post could offer great offense to some of you out there; I realize this. But, if I am being honest, I don't feel safe in religion right now. And I don't trust God right now. And that's okay because God is merciful and He can handle my anger towards Him. Not many beings can handle this kind of anger, but He can. He can handle it because he is the God of love and fear. He knows the delicate difference between the two.
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