Honest Spirituality

A few years ago I was part of the editorial team of a small Christian newsletter. Few weeks after we released the third issue we received an e-mail from one of our readers who preferred to remain anonymous. We did receive a emails, and a lot of encouragements and suggestions. But this was one of the most interesting and engaging email we ever received. And disturbing too, because the person who wrote it was apparently feeling very redundant about church services and this thing called 'Christianity'. As I read the mail a second time, I discovered that the core of his (or her?) struggle was for meaning in life. The writer had lost it, or somehow never found it. At the end of the mail was this poem:

I want to break free,

The world is too

complicated for me.

What have I done to myself?

What have you done to me?

My mother surely did not labour

so painfully for me

simply to expect this little return

(oh I pity her).

What of this life then,

is so special, is so gifted?

Lingering with basically

no life in me - neither

talent nor spirit,

I only wait,

torturing myself to feel my mind

sink into the darkest

pits of insanity.

So tell me, my friend,

Am I worth living?

Or am I right to think of such things?

After reading the mail, I felt sad, but at the same time, I was glad to have found an honest person. Today people seem keener on showing that everything is 'okay' with them. I have attended meetings where people have shared, 'Oh, if I were to write the faithfulness of God in my life, I could go on writing.' Impressed and challenged, I came back home and tried but could not go beyond two sentences. Maybe this only exposes my spiritual bankruptcy. But all of us can easily identify with our friend here when such expressions and cry for meaning in life is uttered. Many times-satiated with Christian clichés, which we hear and read repeatedly-we limit God to vain repetition of choruses and Christian activities and walk around with hurts, fears and insecurities inside.