Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Is Unexamined Belief Worth Believing?

Today on facebook, a young woman that I've loved since her conception posted this quote from Harry Potter“This boy will be famous. There won’t be a child in our world who doesn't know his name.” – Professor McGonagall. This young woman is a dedicated, devout, practicing Christian who has read the complete Harry Potter series over and over again. In seeing this post, I asked myself whether she had gotten the same messages from the Harry Potter series that I had gotten, a restating of a message of scripture in a world to which adults and teenagers can relate in modern times.

This may only be that I find scriptural connections in every book I read and conversation I have, always attempting to find some new avenue to universal truth. I can even talk about a recipe and find some biblical message to paraphrase. This often makes people very nervous, as if I'm attempting to ridicule their biblical "beliefs." But are unexamined interpretations by others really beliefs, or are they simply words that have been memorized? 

I know many women who have spent their lives studying the bible, and yet few of them reveal their interpretations of their studies. I have asked many to do so, and have usually been told, "My faith is a private affair, between me and god." I have attended bible studies led by clergy, and invariably, the group defers in their opinions to the "expert." Perhaps the only way to become familiar with what others glean from their reading is to have bible studies operate more like book reports, where the books are read in private and reported on in papers independently written by the readers. 

For this reason, I enjoy the blog by dear friend Gayle Nolan OneBirdWatching.blogspot.com, in which Gayle relates her everyday life to scriptures stamped on her heart. I also enjoy several blogs posted on Patheos.com, which hosts conversations on faith from every angle imaginable to my mind. What better way to open our souls to universal truth than by hearing The Sacred Spirit as heard by all ages in all religious traditions on earth?