(Laon et sa cathédrale, Aisne, France)Photo de Jean-Pierre Gilson
I have been thinking quite a lot about God lately, probably because of The Power and the Glory, which is a sort of long meditation about faith shaped into a thriller. A "whisky priest" running away from the police in Mexico when the clergy was persecuted.
Anyway yesterday night I had a conversation about faith and God with a friend of mine who is a firm believer. I told her I'm really not sure I believe in God, but that I think about God a lot, and she said "if you think about Him then you believe in Him." She looked and sounded so positive, like it was completely obvious, that for the first time in years I really don't know what to think. All this time when I thought I had lost my faith, did I really only have a different faith of my own? It is always so difficult to distinguish culture from the cult, and the cult from the individual faith... that deep feeling when I walk in a church and light a candle: is that faith, then?
Then, as the conversation went on I realized we have a rather comparable feeling of what the faith in God implies/should imply. There was a moment when we deviated, because she clearly defines God as a person, and I don't -- I have a more abstract vision, I guess. But we both agreed that it is an absolute that can only transcend human understanding, and that at the same time God is the essence of humanity, with all its flaws and weaknesses.
I still don't know... but God has to be the most beautiful story ever written -- whether that proves His existence or not.
(St Quentin, Aisne, France)
Photo de Jean-Pierre Gilson
Anyway yesterday night I had a conversation about faith and God with a friend of mine who is a firm believer. I told her I'm really not sure I believe in God, but that I think about God a lot, and she said "if you think about Him then you believe in Him." She looked and sounded so positive, like it was completely obvious, that for the first time in years I really don't know what to think. All this time when I thought I had lost my faith, did I really only have a different faith of my own? It is always so difficult to distinguish culture from the cult, and the cult from the individual faith... that deep feeling when I walk in a church and light a candle: is that faith, then?
Then, as the conversation went on I realized we have a rather comparable feeling of what the faith in God implies/should imply. There was a moment when we deviated, because she clearly defines God as a person, and I don't -- I have a more abstract vision, I guess. But we both agreed that it is an absolute that can only transcend human understanding, and that at the same time God is the essence of humanity, with all its flaws and weaknesses.
I still don't know... but God has to be the most beautiful story ever written -- whether that proves His existence or not.
(St Quentin, Aisne, France)Photo de Jean-Pierre Gilson
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