Not a Believer

My father said something today that hurt deeply, despite the fact that it was meant to be a compliment. He said "Katharine is a religion researcher, not a believer."

I know this was meant to be reassuring, both to my mother and himself.  Ever since I got involved in Unitarian Universalism they've been worried that their daughter has joined a cult. They've waited patiently for me to get over this phase, like my vegetarianism in college and a brief flirtation with evangelical Christianity in high school. (They don't know about the even briefer look into Satanism that followed.) As I did not simply get over it and have gotten even more deeply involved, they started asking questions about what Unitarian Universalism is. This is hard enough to explain under the best of circumstances. It is all the more difficult through the barrier of language. After trying quite a while to reassure my father that UU members are allowed, even encouraged, to think for ourselves and that there was in fact a great deal of theological diversity within UU, my father's face lit up in relief. "Oh, I see," he said. "You're not really a religion; you're more like a social club." "No, no!" I protested.  But ultimately it was easier to let him believe we are a social club than to have him worry about my being brain-washed.

That was over two years ago. Since then it's been an uneasy truce, where every "strange" thing I do, like giving up pork and beef, is met with concern. This time around, my announcement that I was going to church on Sunday renewed their fears. I could hear them thinking, "Are you so deeply involved that you can't skip this thing for a week?" The truth is that I can easily skip church for a week, or weeks.  I just didn't want to. So another round of probing questions ensued.  "What do you really believe?"  "What do UUs think of non-Unitarian Universalists?" "Do you talk with people of other faiths?" After asking several questions along these lines my father proclaimed, to reassure himself and my mother, that "Katharine is a religion researcher, not a believer."

I indignantly wanted to protest. But then I thought, once again, it would just be easier to let this be the diagnosis.

The truth is, the reason why my father's statement bothers me so is because part of me is afraid that it's true. And unlike my parents, I don't want it to be true. I want to be a believer. I think I am a believer. And yet I know there is almost always some part of me that holds back, analyzing the situation instead of simply living it. There is always some part of me that is skeptical instead of faithful.

Not that I think faith and reason are incompatible. Certainly not. But there is a difference between faith and reason. Thinking about God is not the same as having faith in God. Researching religion is not the same as believing. The delicate balance that I want to maintain is to be a believer, a person of faith, but not so much so that one eschews reason and doubt.  The delicate balance between heart and mind.  Faith based only on the heart and not mind is either maudlin or zealous, or both. And yet faith based only on the mind and not the heart is... not faith.

Sometimes, when a UU sermon sounds more like a college lecture than a sermon, or when our rituals don't ring true, I think we are maybe just playing at this religion thing, that we are going through the motions of faith for whatever reason but don't feel it. Certainly in some UU congregations, my father's description would be fine with them. I want more than that. I don't want to just study religion; I want to live faith. I want to feel every day that same feeling I've briefly had at moments - of being in relationship with God and with existence, and feeling immense gratitude and love.  I want to be a believer.