Prodigal Wannabe

It would be easier, really, if I were an atheist; even better, a prodigal atheist. Then I could descend into profligate living, waste all my substance, wreck my health, spend years wallowing in sin and, at the end of it all, return home to have God forgive all and kill the fatted calf for me. As it is, I'm stuck with being the older one, you know, the brother (or, in my case, the sister) who stays home (read: goes to church), cares for the family estate (read: spends my life writing about the Christian tradition), and has to watch as all the returning younger siblings get all the attention and food.

I'm not even any good at pretending to be an atheist. I have no intellectual qualms about believing in an Ultimate Reality that exists in and of Itself and yet loves its creatures. That's easy. It makes infinite sense, much more so than all of the tortuous efforts atheists usually make to try to prove that what we sense and can measure is the only thing that is. Okay, yes, they (the intellectual atheists) might accuse me of wanting imaginary friends, but I'm with Anselm on this one: I can imagine this Being-in-Itself even though I can't sense or measure it; therefore, I am confident that it exists.*

My problem, however, is exactly the reverse of Anselm's: I have understanding, but no faith. I'm not sure where this leaves me, exactly. Perhaps I'm not really the elder sibling taking care of things while the younger flirts with secular materialism, self-realized spirituality, post-structuralist theories of interconnection, and other such diabolical delusions (sorry, I'm feeling a bit less than even-minded today). Maybe I'm the one wallowing in sin, refusing to acknowledge my blindness and ingratitude.

On reflection, that actually seems more likely. See? It would be better if I were an out-and-out atheist: then, I would not be deceived by the appearance and behavior of belief. I would have the chance of waking up one day, looking around at my life and saying, "Oh, my goodness! It's all been a giant mistake!" And then off I'd be to the font for baptism, my sins washed clean and ready to start all over again. As it is, I've been baptized--as a child, to be sure, but I remember my baptism quite vividly; even worse, I believe in the sacrament and do not think that it should be repeated, so there you go. I'm a Christian, but not a very good one.

What do I mean by that? Well, yes, there are sins in my past that I'd really rather weren't, and I know there are things about my life that I should probably change now and haven't. But what bothers me more is my efforts at trying to change and failing so utterly. I've been saying my prayers in the mornings once I get to my office for some months now, more particularly, reading a Morning Office of psalms and prayers along with other spiritual reflections, but it still doesn't really feel like prayer. It doesn't seem fair. I believe in regular prayer! It's what I'm researching and trying to explain, but I can't do it, somehow.

If I were a true prodigal, it should have had some effect by now, right? My failing in faith would then be simply one of ignorance, cured once I learned all the answers and got the right texts to pray. Instead, I know all the answers (well, okay, most of the obvious ones that people seem to stumble over, as well as many that haven't occurred to most people to ask for some time), but I'm still out here in the cold, watching the party from outside. I know that part of my problem is precisely this feeling of entitlement, the elder sibling wanting the fatted calf, too--the irony being that the elder sibling already has all that the father owns and somehow doesn't realize it. On reflection, though, I think maybe the bigger problem is that I think I can actually do something about any of this, that I can control my awakening to faith.

Ha! how's that for a conundrum? The more I want the experience and not just the intellectual conviction of faith, the less likely I am to achieve it. Because, of course, it isn't something that one can achieve; it's a gift.

Which brings me back to my initial complaint: where's my party, anyway? Haven't I been a good kid?***

*Otherwise how could I have come up with this idea in the first place? Even unicorns aren't wholly imaginary, after all; they look like horses.**
**I wish I were a better theologian; then I might have a chance of explaining this assertion as something other than just a conviction. For the purposes of the present argument, however, what matters is that I don't have an intellectual problem with faith in God and never have.
***Well, no, otherwise I wouldn't be asking this question, now would I?