So we’re into November, sailing past Halloween and Bonfire Night. It’s wet and mild. Welcome to Wales in late 2009. As usual it’s been too long since my last post. All sorts of reasons for that which I’ll probably get into below. It was this time last year that I first came to Carmarthenshire to see this house which is now my home. I remember arriving and being amazed by the beauty of the place, all the trees and the streams and the air so incredibly clear and fresh you could literally taste the difference from London. It still amazes me to this day. Every time I step outside I’m filled with such happiness that I’m able to live here. Yes the house is old and wooden and rustic and needs a big repaint, but who cares? The whole landscape is utterly gorgeous.
Steps In Autumn
Growing season for the year has pretty much come to an end. There are still one or two new raspberries in the raspberry patch every time I go outside, but everything else has ground to a halt. My lovely woodland steps which I was so proud of in the Spring, are now completely covered in leaves from the big old oak tree that looms ominously over both garden and house. At some time this winter I’m going to have the oak cut. I feel very bad about this, but as well as blocking the light, it could easily drop branches onto our LPG tank, or even the house itself, if a storm was bad enough. Anyway, I’m putting off the inevitable.
Still no woodstove installed, so this winter we’ll be relying on gas for heating. Expensive, but installing woodstoves isn’t exactly cheap either. Financially, things have improved a little as I’m working through a 3 month contract with an indie iphone software developer I met on twitter. This job has been hugely enjoyable for me. Initially I was going to be spending half my time on .NET business applications, and half on iphone stuff, but instead I’m full time on iphone game development, which is the most fun I’ve had at work, like, ever. God willing, the game I’m working on will be a success and provide the finance to allow the boss to re-hire me again next Spring. I’d never have imagined this time last year that I’d have downshifted my way out of soul-sucking investment banks and into something fun and creative, working with lovely people.
Not only that, but I’m getting to know all kinds of people in the local community. It feels so much like home now. I don’t think I could ever live in London again. I’m still occasionally getting offers to go back to work in London, for hedge funds or banks, but why would I? That part of me is dead now. Eight years ago I encountered a group of young people trying to live in community in an eco-village, and that completely changed my dreams. It’s taken all this time for reality to catch up, for my addiction to career to unravel. And now the old conditioning is done with, the real me is starting to take flight.
A couple of weeks ago I had my first training day for the hypnotherapy/counselling course I’m doing in Cardiff. This is something else I could never imagine myself doing a year ago. I have essays to write, and books to read, and I need to practice. Fortunately a couple of people have already come forward who are willing to let me practice on them.
Dave has been away in London for the last few weeks, finishing the long painting job on his boat (can you believe he started on it last February if I recall?) and working on passing his driving instructor exams. He has a re-test in a week or so. So I’ve had the house to myself and have taken the opportunity to go out and socialise rather than stay in and watch tv. As a result I think I’ve done more miles on my motorbike in the last month than in the whole of the previous 12!
My last significant post on this blog was the 21st September. You may recall I was engaging in some religious soul-searching. Three days after that post I started attending the local Anglican church’s Alpha course. Alpha is a weekly evening of talks, food and open discussion about Christianity. I decided to go along because despite not believing in God, I’d come to realise that unlike most other atheists, I actually did want to believe.
It’s easy to ridicule religious faith as crazy and unscientific, full of made-up bigotries in the name of dogmatic tribalism. So often the only time Christianity (or Islam for that matter) appears in the news is when its adherents are engaged in behaviours that secularism finds offensive. One easily gets the impression that religion is just about crazy beliefs and oppression of others and repression of oneself. But on the other hand, when I think back to the people in my life that I’ve most admired, the people I’d most like to be like, they’ve been exclusively Christian.
These are the people I look at and say to myself, “If only I could express love and care for others the way they are able to. If only I could give of myself like they give.” These are the sort of people, who, when you see them in a room, you cannot keep your eyes off them because they are shining inwardly with some kind of peace and joy most of us never experience except for the briefest moments. Maybe you’ve never met anyone like this. Maybe you meet them all the time. As for me, I found I couldn’t easily dismiss Christianity in the way that most of my atheist friends rejected it. 
For a start, I’ve always had a strong religious or spiritual streak. Religion has always been the most interesting subject for me in any conversation.
I’ve studied Advaita, Buddhism, Taoism (what’s left of it). I’ve read the book of Mormon and the Qu’ran. I have the Catholic Catechism on my bookshelf even though I thought belief in God was the sign of mental delusion. I definitely felt that God-shaped hole in my life. I needed a reason to live and love that was beyond my own selfish desires. So, yes, I wanted God to exist, desperately so. And I wanted to know how anyone could claim to have a relationship with a God they couldn’t perceive. How could anyone experience such a thing with sufficient certainty that their life would be transformed?
So I started asking every Christian I could about their relationship with God. Now you’ve got to bear in mind that I had previously been a Christian of sorts myself back in my early twenties, and at the time I came to the conclusion that everyone was simply faking faith, pretending for the sake of belonging. I figured that really, behind the shiny shallow smiles and homophobia, no one really believed there’s a God ‘out there’ who loves us. I mean, surely they’re just playing along for the good community and the authority that society gives to religious leaders to speak into our lives?
I posed this question to an Anglican vicar: “How to believe in God when there’s no evidence?” He wrote back thusly:
1) Coming to believe in God is not the product of a rational process. Any God believed in as a result of a rational process is an idol, a product of our own minds. There is an inescapable element of intellectual surrender involved, a ‘giving in’. 2) Believing in God is undoubtedly a matter of the heart – but that doesn’t make it irrational. It’s a delusion of Modern society that bringing emotion into play makes for a less rational debate, the truth is in fact precisely the opposite, but the heart itself needs to be educated. (That’s one of the things that religious traditions do, eg through prayer and meditation etc.) 3) Why is evidence so important for you? What do you think evidence can achieve? Are there any _really_ important areas of your life where you have made a decision based on “evidence”? Would you be willing to choose a life-partner on the basis of “evidence” or would you examine your own heart and trust that? If so, why have a different standard for God? I came to believe because I realised that I had been deluding myself about ‘not believing’ in God, and that, in truth, I had been in love with God all along – it was the love for God that was motivating everything else, especially the search for truth.
I wrote a reply to the vicar that on re-reading now seems so painfully intellectual that I’m surprised he continued talking to me. I now consider that his first reply was perfect and complete but I didn’t grasp that until much later.
Almost simultaneously, a couple of other Christian friends gave me very similar answers. I felt a little dumb. After all, I’d been a Christian for 5 years myself after college, but never experienced any kind of relationship or communication with God. I’d become a Christian back then because of intellectual arguments that seemed to make sense, but I really didn’t get how those around me seemed willing to completely throw their lives into the service of an intellectually unprovable idea.
Something changed for me when I realised that I might not need intellectual scientific-style evidence in order to believe. Several people told me that faith is from the heart, not the mind. I began to think, ‘I feel such an urgent need to love God that I no longer care if faith is fiction. I’m going to act as if God exists and see what happens.’ Part of me felt this was intellectual suicide, but I felt there was no longer anything to lose.
I felt very comfortable at the alpha course meetings. I found it easy to make friends. I found the people easy to love. At some point between the second and third weeks I started to pray. I’ve prayed before. I prayed a lot in my twenties, most prayers of frustration at God’s silence. But I never prayed a prayer of love. I never expressed gratitude for my life, for the beautiful creation around me. I can blame it all on the gorgeousness of Wales drawing it out of me! So there I am, saying thankyou thankyou thankyou and for once it’s like there’s no doubt in my mind that I’m talking to someone. I go to sleep happy. The next morning I wake up, and the sun is shining through the window and immediately I feel an urgent need to start praying again. Thankyou Father for this awesome day! Thankyou for my life, that I can experience and be aware of this incredible universe. I’m so sorry that I ignored you for so long. Please forgive me. Thankyou for waiting for me! This went on for about an hour. Just this continuous stream of joyful thanksgiving.
I realised fairly quickly that I’d just fallen in love with a God that only days before I would have mocked anyone for believing in. Moreover, I noticed that what I was experiencing explained the behaviour of all those emotionally attractive Christians I’d found so mystifying. I suddenly knew how they could act the way they did. I dusted off my old bible – 15 years unopened, and suddenly the character of God that I’d experienced in prayer was evident on page after page. I felt like I’d slipped sideways into a faith I had no right to, and of course I don’t.
I used to pray for wisdom in my twenties, but now I realise I should have prayed for faith. Faith is a beautiful gift. You can’t capture it by intellect. I spent years trying and only achieved a fake sort of faith that had no reality or depth. The vicar was right. I was in love with God all along. And when I realised that, and sought after Him with all my heart, he opened the door, and granted me the faith I needed. I guess I expected it all to wear off after a few days. Emotions would fade and intellectuality would reassert itself. But… no. I’ve realised that the more I keep my mind focused on God, the more I talk to him, the deeper the joy becomes. Prayer is like the energy powerhouse that transforms the rest of our lives. In my experience it’s the only thing that can.
It’s hard to express the strength of the love I feel right now for my God. I find it amazing and wonderful that my experience of Him matches that of all the other believers both in the present and in the historical scriptures and writings. So for the first time in my life I know I have as much faith and belief as anyone has ever been blessed with in all of history. No more and no less. And that perhaps is the most joyous thing of all.
I would gladly be God’s friend forever. I’m still an innocent child in Christian terms, and I’m happy for things to stay that way for a while. I’m Just. So. Joyful. It almost explodes out of me. There just aren’t the words. I’d go to church every day if I could find one holding a service. High Anglican, low church, pentecostal, Catholic – doesn’t matter. I just love God. I love the way he says I Love You in the most unexpected moments. I love his tenderness, and his majesty; the soaring beauty of the way he revealed Himself in such a way that every type of person with every type of personality and talent can find a way home to him.
Love God, that’s the key. Love God and love others. And if you don’t believe in him, love him anyway; pray anyway, with all your heart and strength.