Because there are no do-overs. There is no shortage of forgiveness and penance, but there are no do-overs, because we must learn to be accountable. It is only by being accountable that we really learn. To learn mercy, we must know the pain of weeping and to know forgiveness we must know the shame of our own deliberate blind eyes and failures. If we were able to go back and ‘fix our mistakes,’ we would never learn the things that validate and confirm us as being ‘made in God’s image.’
This is true for everyone, regardless of professed faith.
Siggy quotes The Anchoress who often writes on these issues, and whose faith is often inspiring to a struggling godless person like myself.
Between the writings of SC&A and The Anchoress; and the fascinating, non-traditional escapes into vertical reality from Gagdad Bob at One Cosmos, I notice that I have spent quite a bit of time in the last year thinking about the existence of God and the need for faith.
A year ago, in his "On The Couch" interview series, Siggy asked me, "Do You Believe In God?" Why? My answer at that time was:
I guess I have to say that I’m an agnostic and don’t take a position on whether God exists or not. I am aware of a very strong emotional part of me that wants very much to believe in an all powerful and all good deity that cares about me and all of humanity. But I also a very strong scientific and rational part that demands objective evidence of the existence of a Supreme Being. These two parts of me exist in a sort of dynamic tension right now and I expect that some day I might find a way to integrate them. Or, maybe not.
That dynamic tension remains and the struggle continues unabated. I don't seem to have progressed too far along in resolving that conflict, but I have progressed. And, it is reassuring to realize that Siggy is correct when he says, "To struggle with faith is as much a part of faith as anything else."
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