Faith

As a child I had a vehemence for God that only the young can bear. I really believed that God was all around me in everything I saw and did (and I still believe that).... that He was a personal God that would come to my aid and pick me up when I was down. He didn't disappoint... at least not then.

In recent years God and I have had a more subdued relationship.  Until three years ago I had been given a calling to reach as many people as I could through the practice of lay preaching. I had even begun to bring the reserve sacrament to shut ins. It felt like something that I should be doing and more importantly something that I wanted to do. But there came a point when the church decided in their wisdom (little bit of sarcasm there) to take away the power to take communion to those who have need of it. I lost the ability to offer the reserve sacrament to people though no fault of my own, and I began to get weary of the preaching because it was taking it's toll on me and I felt that I desperately needed a break. And so I stepped down as a lay preacher at St. Peter's here in HH. For the first year I put my feet up and didn't even bother to go to church because I felt that I really needed to step back from the church and relax for a while. I felt that God knew I had given as much of me as I could and that He would forgive me some indulgences. Then after a year I started to feel the inclination to go to church once again but as a parishioner and not as one of the movers and the shakers. By then we had visiting clergy coming in the form of a south African gentleman who preached for the Lutheran church. Our church is four denominational... Anglican, United, Lutheran and Presbyterian. I had been brought up as an Anglican but I began to take great pleasure in the sermons of this Lutheran Minister and found so much to learn and benefit me.  For the first time in years I felt that I was making progress again in my faith.

Since my separation with Sir Arsewipe I have looked around me and struggled with my relationship with God.  How could He have let this happen.... how could He have not intervened on my behalf... how could He not be with me.  I have begun writing, sometimes two or three times a day, a prayer to God.  It is my own book of Psalms... psalms that I write myself.  I realize that He is with me... all the time... but God and I have become like an old couple. We sit in our rockers on the front veranda and watch the sun setting but we really don't have much connection anymore. I reach out to Him but he is not listening.... He reaches out to me and I cannot give Him what he wants. He has been too demanding... and as a result I have become too resentful.

I have struggled with that... I am struggling with that.

But human beings are nothing more than a dichotomy of challenges and complex characteristics. We are fickle.... one of our greatest sins. I think it is better to sit in the rocker and be together than to turn our faces away from each other. God would never turn His face from me... but as a human I have faults enough... I am sure I could be lured.

So, where do you go from that?