This I Believe?

Boston University runs two "This I Believe" services, both through the School of Theology and Marsh Chapel.  This was my submission.

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Like many of my fellow friends and colleagues at the Boston University School of Theology, the last few years have been filled with blessings and challenges.  Seminary can be a confusing time when your every belief is brought out into the harsh light of day and closely examined.  Some beliefs did not survive the attempt while others were only made all the stronger. 

As a result, I can be inconsistent at times.  There are days when I am still a die-hard Trinitarian, in part because I’m such a Holy Spirit hipster fanboy.  Other times, I am at least a sturdy theist, though admittedly my God likes to shift from an old man with a beard to a youthful brunette woman.  But then again, sometimes I turn into an agnostic with closeted hopes of a universal consciousness not unlike some kind of divine iCloud.

Sad to say, “I don’t know” does not a good statement of belief make – or, at least, it would be difficult to stretch that into five minutes.  And after all, this service is called “This I Believe”.  So, what do I believe?

In no particular order, and EXTREMELY inexhaustive: 

I believe that people are inherently good, even in the face of human evil, especially in the face of human evil.

I believe the children are our future, but they’ve got a lot to learn.

I believe in a thing called love.

I believe that comics are art too.

I believe that watching YouTube videos of idiots playing video games will always make my day better.

I believe in silence and brevity, and I will gush breathlessly about it for ages.

I believe there is something sacred in laughter.

I believe that the Bible is the divinely inspired Word of God – except for the parts I don’t agree with.

I believe that “the cat is cryptic, and close to strange things which men cannot see,” and that kittens will never not be adorable.

I believe that Barenaked Ladies is the greatest band ever, provided your #1 criterion is how much I like them.  And I believe that Queen is the greatest band ever, provided your #1 criterion is that you have ears.

I believe that life is almost entirely composed of gray areas, and that’s only as terrifying as we make it.

“I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.”  And I believe that Neil Gaiman wouldn’t mind me borrowing those words, considering the circumstances.

And perhaps, most importantly, I believe that, in the end, it’s going to be okay.  And sometimes that’s enough.

Some of these things I believe because they are true.  Others I believe because they are nice.  And sometimes I believe simply because I do.  Rarely do these ever align.  It’s important to make that distinction.  Because belief is never simply something done based on reasoning.  It’s not all about warm fuzzies, and it’s not all about being a huge downer.  Maybe your beliefs even contradict themselves at times.  Believing is funny that way.

So let me give my nerd cred one last bump.  There was a much-beloved and unfortunately-cancelled sci-fi show Firefly, and a movie which took the place of its finale.  One of the characters, Book, is a pastor – in their world called a Shepherd.  Like myself, he’s a man of faith who has found himself often in the company of the most unlikely individuals and dealing heavily with doubt and, frankly, reality.  During a pivotal scene that I refuse to spoil (regardless of how old the movie is), he desperately pleads with the lead character Mal, “I don’t care what you believe in, just believe in it.”

See, for all my high falutin’ theological trainin’, I can’t help but love this.  It’s easy to think that doubt is somehow the enemy of faith.  But there are so many kinds of faith, and so many things to believe – how could you not suffer from doubt??  It’s natural, and normal, and you’re not alone.  When you find your beliefs in conflict, or shaken; when you face doubts… face these things head-on.  You may come out the other side a different person, but you will come out alive and well.  This… I believe.