I believe in...

Twice in the last week, someone has said to me in genuine surprise, "Oh - I didn't think you prayed any more... given your beliefs."

I think what they mean is, given my LACK of belief in the Church of England God. I can see why they might say that, but I do feel more than a little surprised, even slightly insulted, that they assume my journey ended when I left the C of E.

I have only myself to blame. For many years I was the kind of Christian who believed that other people's faith wasn't the Real Thing - and now that former arrogance has rebounded, so I suppose I must welcome it as a life lesson! But... there are plenty of studies and polls which show that although churchgoing has fallen, people still count themselves as having faith in God, and many still pray. In my former Frightfully Christian days, I suppose I might not have counted prayer in extremis as really genuine - why weren't they praying at other times, I would have pondered. Whereas now it seems to me that the cry of the heartfelt is possibly the most genuine prayer around.

I have been mulling over writing a Creed - my Creed - in recent weeks. Perhaps the time has come. I've always had a problem with the Creed, particularly since knowing a very 'High Church' Anglican who told me that he wouldn't countenance taking Communion from a Woman Priest but would have no problem if a Roman Catholic were to receive it at his side. Apart from a quick conversation pointing out the holes in his theology, I left it. But it made me realise that quite possibly I shared less with those around me in Church than I had thought.

Last week I attended Communion in my friend's church. I quite often help them by making up numbers in the Choir. It's not easy because unfortunately I don't really enjoy their service or the sermons (I was brought up on huge, solid helpings of Evangelical theology, and ten minutes of tweeness leaves me as unsatisfied as a Navvy with a salad). On this recent occasion I realised that my beliefs had moved on enough for me to have to really think as we said the Creed. (As an aside, I have always deplored the practice of asking Baptism families to say the Creed, when they are attending for that day only - if it is really the bedrock of the Church's faith and teaching, how can it be treated in such a shallow way?)

Anyway we set off. I was fine with God the Father, I believe Jesus existed, am less sure about some of the rest (my knowledge of Language and Oral tradition asks for a truly stupendous miracle of total recall, if accounts were true in every detail when written down 'only' thirty years later. I used to proudly proclaim this as a proof of the New Testament's accuracy, but these days I'm far less certain).

The Holy Spirit, well I got round Him with a little semantic wriggle. But a lot of the rest, I was unable to say in all conscience (do I take it more seriously than the average Churchgoer, perhaps?) and so didn't.

The key for me (as a Linguist, it would be) is that word Semantic. My understanding of semantics helps me to see how people might make the assumption that I don't pray. THEY are talking about prayer to God (1), where (1) = 'The God commonly referred to in the context of Christianity and more particularly, the Church of England'. Whereas these days my prayers are addressed to God (2), where (2) = the Numinous, unKnowable Figure to whom I tend to address my wishes and desires; in shorthand, 'prayers'.

I'm not even sure I believe in a 'personal' God any more, and this is where I part company with many in the Church (although not ALL - I know this because of conversations I had as a Clergy wife when I spotted people who didn't believe 'properly'...)

I do believe in a life force, and I'm sorry if that is too arty farty for readers here. I see no reason why that life force cannot be your God (1) and at the same time my God (2).

What DOES intrigue me is that quite often, God (2) seems to offer me comfort which eludes those who worship God (1). They say all the right things about how God takes care of them, how He is there for them, and how His Peace passes all understanding... but when it comes to the crunch, that isn't always the case. I have known God (1) and it's true that He was wonderful at offering solace and peace - but so is God (2).

It's just the old 'Muslims don't believe in the same God as me' in slightly different clothes. I am unnerving people who thought they'd packaged me neatly into a 'Lapsed' box. I refuse to stop praying. I don't always call it prayer, out of deference to those whom I think might be offended.

I see prayer differently these days. My shopping list has been torn up. I expect no neat endings. I spend much more time listening than talking. And I accept whatever comes in, I suppose, a rather too fatalistic way for my old Church friends to be comfortable with. I no longer have to make excuses ('perhaps your God is in the toilet' I remember from the Good News Bible!) because God (2) doesn't work in quite the same way.

I'm still searching for my path through life. Well, I'm ON it, actually. I don't see any reason it should be the same as yours. Or hers. Or his. It may very well be that we are ALL projecting our own ideas onto something which doesn't even exist, and if so - what a silly thing to fall out over!

Through a glass darkly...?

Someone asked me recently about my interest in Tarot and Astrology. I suppose for someone who was a deeply committed, Evangelical Christian it is a slightly odd path I've trodden, although I know many who have gone the reverse route. Indeed, I used to pray for people to be 'delivered' from belief in the Occult, oblivious to the fact that I believed some pretty strange things myself, such as having a God who came to heel (and heal), Words of Knowledge, Prophecy, etc. But more of that in a moment.

As I've said before somewhere on here, I became a Christian from a very non-Churchy background. I read tea-leaves as a child (fairly accurately sometimes) and believed absolutely that I was from a 'psychic' family. I had a dramatic conversion and renounced all that side of things. I was now in a Flagship Evangelical Church, and it took me a few years to discover the contemplative Christianity which in fact was my more natural habitat. I had come to faith in a small attic room, with a candle and a crucifix and silence. As a ten year old, that was instinctive to me. As a new Christian it was all Noise and Halleujahs, which I also enjoyed but which I now realise never quite fitted who I really was. As the last child in a very noisy family, I somehow had a strong sense of the Numinous which I retain to this day.

I eventually came under the influence of the Charismatic Church, and began to experience what are known as the Gifts of the Holy Spirit - speaking in tongues, having prophetic visions, healing, Words of Knowledge, etc... There was a very strong anti-Occult teaching around, and certainly Tarot/Astrology were considered Satanic. (Which was ironic really. I realised many years later that the Charismatic Church does all the things which Psychics do, but as it's in the name of Jesus that's okay.)

Anyway I was a fully paid-up member, with many experiences of accurate Words of Knowledge, a few prophetic visions and even a couple of healings as part of my Christian experience. I had yet to discover Mother Julian of Norwich and her amazing metaphysical visions, which remain dear to my heart to this day.

In the Eighties, my Ex went on a course paid for by the Church, which was an exploration of Myers-Briggs personality typing. He came back very enthused and explained it all to me. I felt there was some incongruity which I couldn't quite put my finger on... it wasn't for a few years that I realised there was very little difference between the cold reading of Astrology and the prescriptive practice of Myers Briggs. I've been 'typed' several times and nobody is ever quite sure whether I'm INFJ or ENFJ - but they are happy to tell me all about who I really am, based on a label - just like Astrology. Yet this was accepted by the Church although it has a far shorter pedigree. There seemed to be a dichotomy between the spiritual and the secular, and it was okay for Spiritual people to use secular means to predict how people might behave in certain circumstances. Interesting.

I must say here, I do believe that Sun Sign Astrology is ridiculous. I think I share a birthday (not the year though) with Cameron Diaz. So what? However, when you have had the experience of someone looking at your birthchart, asking about your deep love of religion, whether you've finished writing the book and telling you that you almost died at birth, it does sort of impress. All these, of course, can be clever cold-reading guesses, but even so it makes you think.

I don't believe in predicting the future. Not particularly because the Christian God forbids it, but because it rules out free will. I think we can spot trends in our lives, and for me that's where the Tarot is interesting, I know very little about it, but I have been fascinated for years by archetypes. Jung used the Tarot not to predict, but to make sense of the personalities he was working with, As far as I'm concerned, it's a shortcut for stimulating self-awareness. It works for me.

I'm the kind of person who is drawn to what at one time I'd have called Mumbo-jumbo. It doesn't mean I believe it all, but it does mean that I've grown past the point of needing to Be Right and Know The Truth. I increasingly suspect Truth is not as easily pigeon-holed as I once thought. When I became a Christian (having told the Sunday School teacher that I was FAR too intellectual for that rubbish, when I was 12 - cringe...) I decided God would be my working hypothesis unless or until I knew differently. And there came a point decades later when suddenly it didn't quite work for me. By 'it' I mean The Church. God, I take as a given. I still love liturgy and the thought of the link to generations of worshippers - it's just that I hate what I see in the Church today and I simply don't believe that Jesus would have encouraged the judgmental, self-seeking practices of some. That's not to say I'm any better, just that for now I choose not to keep their company.

My situation over the past few years - moving away from friends, settling in a new area with a very poorly child, my own injury and surgery the other year - left me the time and space for much soul-searching. I spent time in silence - the blessed silence for which Evangelicalism never seemed to leave space.

I've read a lot of Deepak Chopra. I've thought a lot about how Quantum Physics really might affect my world view. My sense that it is arrogant to dismiss all other possible world views has grown. I trust that whoever God is, my ship will come to the right harbour for me. We are all on a journey and I no longer feel the need to be the one who is most sure of the route. It seems fairly clear to me that all the 'special powers' which various parties claim as their own preserve must be fairly natural human attributes, and that we ignore them to our detriment.

As the old joke goes, "Faith, Hope, Love abide - and the greatest of these is Tongues." Love is definitely the mainspring of life as far as I'm concerned, in all its many forms, and hopefully if we seek Love, we will learn to be enabling of others rather than condemning them.

I know this can lead to Liberal namby-pambyism but I continue to search my soul, and I continue to do my best. That's all anybody - even God - can ask of me, surely?