Two years ago, I shared how IKEA candles helped me lose my faith.
To recap:
we had a regular practice at our church where we would light candles for a specific person and their family after a mass death.
It started after the Pulse Nightclub shooting. We had faces and bios on the wall with candles underneath.
49 people died in the Pulse shooting, so I put out 49 candles and printed out bios and pictures of each of the 49 victims.
Looking into the eyes of a murder victim while lighting a candle as a prayer for them and their family was an incredibly powerful practice.
So next time there was a mass tragedy, we did it again
and then again
and again
and again.
Week in, week out, there was another tragedy in the world.
Every time I had to pull out those damn candles (sometimes nearly every week), I was reminded that evil, devastation, death, suffering, and pain are always present.
And God wasn’t stepping in.
Every theology of suffering that I read or wrote over the years weren’t holding up to the reality of more faces and bios being printed.
More candles being lit.
More bodies buried.
More weeping parents.
More parent-less kids.
More trauma inflicted.
More rebuilding to be done.
I went to IKEA last weekend, saw the same candles, and started questioning what changed over the past two years.
Or IF anything changed
I’m still a pastor.
I’m still a Christian.
I’m just one who doubts a lot.
A whole lot
Sometimes I doubt so much that I’m not sure if I’m a Christian.
Or should be a pastor.
I’m a Christian who doubts so much he wonders if he’s a Christian.
Confusing, I know.
So, has anything changed between two years ago and now?
Kinda? Maybe? Also not really?
I still am not always sure if I’m a Christian.
Or if I even want to be a Christian.
The doubts haven’t stopped, or even slowed down really.
Sometimes I Google myself.
I don’t think it’s narcissism, and I don’t think it’s fear that people are saying things about me.
I think I just Google myself to feel good about myself.
I’ve been talking with my therapist for upwards of a year about how I was implicitly taught by every adult in my life growing up that my value comes from what I accomplish.
I think I Google myself to feel good about my accomplishments, because that’s (still) the only way I feel any kind of value in myself.
About six months ago I Googled my name and found a theology book by David Libby.
This David Libby lives near Portland, Maine.
The other Portland.
The Portland on the other side of America.
There’s another David Libby - another theologian and writer - from the other Portland.
The other David Libby wrote a book about God and grief.
I also talk often about God and grief.
So I bought his book.
I had to know, ya know?
I had to know how The Other David Libby thought about grief.
The book was….fine.
He’s very much an apologetics guy. Proof of God, proof of who God is, debunking atheist arguments, etc.
Very systematic.
Basically the opposite of me when it comes to talking about God.
Like, he did it well, but it wasn’t really my thing.
What was compelling to me was the story from which the whole book was birthed.
The Other David Libby’s wife and daughters nearly died from Lyme disease and other complications.
As I read the book - which again, is not the kind of writing I’m drawn to - I kept thinking about the ways in which we process grief.
The other David Libby dove deep into an apologetic for why evil exists if God is good.
The other David Libby continued to know and believe that God was real and true and trustworthy and good, but pursued the systematic framework for proving this to himself and others.
I, meanwhile, coped with the grief of absorbing the sufferings of individuals across the world week after week by admitting to myself that I wasn’t sure God DID exist, was real, was true, was trustworthy, was good.
The Other David Libby needed to get all philosophical to work through his stuff.
I needed to get honest with myself about my doubts that the God I’ve followed for 40 years is there.
Is real.
Is good.
And I don’t know if either David Libby’s ways of coping is better or worse.
Those crappy IKEA candles really, truly did deepen my faith.
For me, it was a depth that could only come through voicing the possibility that I was wrong for all these years,
That the life I chose was the wrong one,
That the career I pursued was for nothing.
That the reason I did everything I did, and the reason I lived the way I lived, was based on a fairy tale story about a dude who was killed because he loved me.
But while the candle lightings honestly did deepen my faith, I had to stop doing it in the way we did it.
Today, our church leaves a series of candles in the back of the sanctuary. They constantly sit there for people to light as a prayer practice.
But I don’t put out one out for each victim of each mass shooting or natural disaster.
I don’t print faces and bios anymore.
I can’t.
For too long I was too close - too face to face - with the sufferings of the world.
It hurt too much for too long.
It feels wrong to stop the practice.
It feels like I’m not honoring the victims and their families.
But I just can’t anymore. At least not right now.
In some ways, I feel like I’m depriving our church of a powerful prayer practice.
Maybe I’ll bring it back someday.
But that day isn’t today.
I think it might be because I don’t want to keep living with the thought that God may not exist.
I don’t think I currently want to stop believing in God.
Some of my good friends have left their faith recently. I’m not upset about them doing it.
Honestly, I think I might be jealous. It seems really freeing for them.
Maybe it would be healthier if I did.
I just don’t know if I’m ready to do so
.
What I’m listening to:
I always wished The Beatles had fit Her Majesty into the Abbey Road medley instead of tacking it on to the end of the album.
Did you know there’s an official version of the medley with Her Majesty in it? Probably. I’m likely last to the party, but I just found it this week, and it’s lovely.
I wonder if both David Libbys are needed. I’m glad you are you, though.
My sister gave birth to a stillborn baby in 2014, and instead of questioning God, she doubled down on her "faith" and told everyone she wanted no words of comfort unless it was Scripture. Three years later, she disowned me for being a heretic.