love and oppression

so i'm finally getting to the point where i can articulate what i'm feeling about the whole faith crisis of 2007. it's still choppy and it doesn't quite make sense, but it's a little more logical. i'm posting it here because i feel like its something other people experience, too... that's the whole point of blogging and dialogue, isn't it? to share what inspires us, knowing it may lead others to be inspired, too?

i explained it to a friend yesterday... i've stepped back because my experiences this year have taught me a whole lot about love. if we love purely to our finest capacity, we should be loving God with all that we are... and that's the whole point of life, isn't it? i've realized a lot of my faith has been squeezed out of some form of oppression... the pressure of guilt, the drilling of dogma, that sort of thing. while guilt can be the fruit of a properly formed conscience and dogma is downright essential... that's not the proper way to form faith.

"faith, hope, love, these three.. but the greatest of these is love"

so i've decided that guilt shouldn't be my reason for doing or not doing things. my conscience will never be perfectly formed, and with guilt really just being a feeling of violating some social norm (thank you, psych 45), it's a form of social oppression. yeah, it keeps us in line.. but is that really the best way to do it? we all have different experiences that form our consciences in different ways. if we rely on guilt alone to govern morality, we're never going to all be on the same page.

now, if we focus on the one experience that is universal -- the experience of love -- we can be driven to an even greater experience of purity, a more beautiful pursuit of God... simply because love, true and pure love, isn't tainted by our improperly formed conscience. while guilt pushes all of us differently, love drives all of us the same. true love and the guilt (that stems from a properly formed conscience) function to do the same thing -- bring our imperfect selves to Truth. one oppresses us, one inspires us.

i choose inspiration.

so that's why i've stepped back... i'm relying too much on my improperly formed conscience rather than on love. so i've chosen to approach my faith differently now. i'm still Catholic, i'm still helplessly in love with the Church -- i just don't want to live a faith based on oppression. i don't want to live a life based on oppression. so it's taking awhile to figure out the difference.. how to love God freely rather than out of avoidance of a feeling.

so here i am. it's a new adventure, but it's a good one. just thought i'd share :)