Tuesday: Unreality.

"God, have mercy on me in the blindness in which I hope I am seeking you."
--Thomas Merton

I have prayed that every morning of Lent as I put on what I can only consider some variant of a cross I once received from Karen. In the evening, I would generally pray, "Lord, be present with us in the nighttime" as I took the cross off for bed. It is the only consistent thing that I have ever maintained throughout this season.

The prompt is to give a summation of Lent. I think summaries are to be of the brief nature. My summation will not be such, so if you will indulge me in the length of a somewhat philosophico-metaphysical entry (or don't, I suppose you do have the option of exercising full autonomy in reading posts):

About halfway through the period of Lent, I came to realize that for all intents and purposes, I was no longer operating under the belief that God is real. This is only somewhat problematic to me because I still hold absolutely that God exists. The problem only arises in the disjunct between the theory in my head and the practice at church. It is more or less incompatible (as far as I can tell) to hold in one's head the belief of the possibility that God is not real (though existent, ontologically) and still engage in corporate prayer, and the consumption of body and blood.

There are many terms here that warrant definition before I continue, but for the sake of brevity: real is simply how I am describing the way in which God is tangibly impacting life, specifically mine (apologies for the phrasing - the definition does not imply that I think it to be God's job to necessarily make...God [someday, I will find an appropriate pronoun] known to me and for me to in fact know); and existence is simply that God is an ontological being. I am intentionally avoiding the phrase, "that God is really real" to describe my conception of existence, but it could be conceived in that manner.

I have no problem at all presupposing that God exists--for any level of my life. God's existence is both external and independent of however I may conceive of and interact with God. This is problematic in itself, but I do not have the capacity to engage this tonight. In other words, God's existence is safe and free from any sort of personal, convoluted, nonsensical doubt. But I am having a difficult time trying out work out what it means for God to be (un)real in the midst of said personal, convoluted, nonsensical doubt. And so Merton's prayer has been significant to me these past few weeks. There is blindness. There is a hope that I am seeking. And there is a great need of mercy in all of this.

I am anticipatory of Good Friday. It seems to be the most fitting day in which I can feel comfortable with God's lack of reality. I want that physical manifestation of...lack. And I really want to take that day to sort out what that has meant to me, currently means for me, and what it will mean to me for the season of Easter.

So ends my participation in this Lenten blog.
Gratia et Pax.