Testimony

Christian Science churches hold "testimony meetings" on Wednesday nights, midway between the regular Sunday services. After a short reading, the congregation sits in silence, eyes shut, on the ceiling, or unfocused, but senses in tune to the other seekers in the room. When someone feels compelled to speak, and senses that no one else feels the same, they stand and let their voice fill the silence.

Scientists testify about moments when they get a clear glimpse of the reality of things, the divine reality over this false reality we live in each day. They call it a moment of healing. It can be physical or metaphysical healing-- recovery from an illness, for instance, or a realization that brings your frame of mind closer in tune with the divine reality.

Testimony affirms the universe as it exists in Christian Science thought, a view of the universe that I don't subscribe to. More important to me, testimony is a sharing of a personal experience, or a newspaper article recently read, or an existential reflection triggered by a sight or sound or other person. They are affirmations of the sacred in the world.

My housemate S (a practicing Presbyterian) and I have occasionally discussed the presence-- and sometimes absence-- of moments in our lives that feel beyond us, feel profoundly important and profoundly sacred. S might chalk up these experiences to the presence of God or Spirit in our lives. I might call it stimuli that triggers our emotions and consciousness in a specific, surprising way. New nerve connections. A type of learning of the emotion.

Whatever its source, I still believe these moments are important. They are a moment of connection with the universe, imagined or not. Both of us tend to find this feeling in nature. Have we had those experiences since we moved to New York? we ask each other. And we wonder, how do we keep track of them and not forget? Does it matter if we remember them?

When a Scientist finishes the testimony, they sit and the silence resumes. But the story lingers. The other students (as they call themselves) turn it over in their minds, let it move or not move them. After a while, someone else stands and tells their own story.

Christian Scientists devote time every week to our tangible experiences of the sacred, and they go a step farther-- they share the wealth. The testimony is not written down, but if it touches anyone in the room, it will be remembered and used. I have overheard a member of the congregation approaching another member and thanking them for a testimony shared months or years ago.

In college, I interviewed a lot of 'religious' people by sitting down with them and asking them to tell me their story-- how did you come to be the Scientist, or the Twelve Tribes member, or the Greek Orthodox, that you are today? I had usually spent a few months with them already in worship, in washing dishes together, or in bible study, and so this question needed no addendum. Most people launched into a long, deeply personal testimony of their own lives, highlighting the moments of existential despair and triumph. I simply listened.

I have many of these interviews saved as transcripts or voice recordings on my computer. Even without looking or listening to them, I think to certain stories that touched me. I remember a woman sitting beside her partner on the edge of a lake, knowing her life was about to change forever. I remember a teenager realizing that she was wrong to feel tainted for making the choices she had. I remember a boy sucked under by a river eddy and clutching to a log, unsure if he would breathe again. I remember a girl sitting on the curb on a winter morning, her fingers running through a rosary for the first time as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

I hold none of their faiths. I can not claim those testimonies for my own. But I was a person touched in the room, and I remember those stories and use them.

Faith in gods and in God

An old religion professor of mine assigned us to read “Faith in gods and in God,” a chapter out of H. Richard Niebuhr's book “Radical Monotheism and Western Culture.” I tore it out of my course reader before recycling the rest. It lives in a folder in my room, folded in half, which I use to carry cards and friendship notes from apartment to apartment, city to city.

If anyone will convince me that it makes sense to believe in God, it is H. Richard Niebuhr. That man is an intellectual force. My professor called him and his brother Reinhold Neo-Catholics. I don't remember what that means; but if the brothers are representatives of the movement, it must be pretty hardcore.

Here's the gist:

It's difficult to tolerate the feeling that you lead a meaningless existence, right? Humans look for a sense of purpose, whether it's an ultimate purpose or a purpose for getting up in the morning (on low days, mine is coffee. Just coffee and a silent kitchen table).

So we bestow faith in these purposes. These are gods. At any given time, I might be living for my friends, for myself, for sex, for the thrill of exploration, for writing, for running, for money-- so on and so forth. A lot of people live for the church, for their spouses or children. In fact, we all devote ourselves to multiple purposes. In this way, we are polytheistic.

This can work for people. But eventually two of your purposes are going to be at cross purposes. Do you choose to stay home because you're exhausted and really need to take care of yourself (i.e., shower) or do you stick to your commitment and go to a show that your friend is dying to see but which you aren't interested in? Do you stay in a job you don't like because it supports your family and gives you money? Do you seek relationships, do you seek sex, or both, or do you ruin a relationship in a night of sex-worship without your partner?

Some gods easily trump other ones. But the problem is, no purpose is entirely un-trumpable, if not by another god, then by circumstance. Take the single father who lives for his children. But what if his children die in a freak car accident? Take the musician, who will carry the guitar to his grave. What if he goes deaf, or gets carpal tunnel, or suffers a massive breakup in which all of his beloved music reminds him of his beloved and he can't take solace in it anymore? So not only can one god be trumped by another god, but no god is permanent. It is transient. It can always die, fade away, go somewhere else, be otherwise.

What is that force that is powerful enough to take all of your pretties away from you? The nature of the universe. The void.

So if the void can trump every god, and every god eventually disappears into it, then in a way, the only thing you can really put faith in is the void itself. The void will keep trumping and the void will keep calling your gods away. In this way we are called to put faith in our greatest enemy, our god-killer, because there is nothing else as reliable or powerful.

This sounds dismal, but that's the great challenge of faith. Love the void. Make your enemy your friend, even though it can slay you. And then, H. promises, you might start to find the void familiar; your might see the void as God. God/void is where all of your gods come from and where they all return.

And this doesn't mean you should stop caring about your gods. It just affords a perspective that allows for benevolence for all the gods, in their measure, rather than pitting one against the other for primacy. H. calls it finding a new sacredness in the relative.

I feel like a polytheist all the time. Making hard judgement calls, choosing between commitments, asking myself, what do I really want? But sometimes, when I am writing, or deep in thought, or entranced by a massive desert canyon-scape-- a frame of mind that I would call meditative, out of body-- then I feel that the void is a full emptiness, maybe even God.