Fear, Faith, and Floundering

I dreamed that I was forced to die, and in a way, that's true.

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On Saturday night, I had a a dream that I had to do something, some kind of ritual ingestion of an unknown drug, that I knew with certainty would bring about my death.

I don’t know what drug it was. I don’t know what the point of the ritual was. It was a dream, and it’s rare that I remember those at all, let alone the fine details.

But in the dream, knowing death was imminent, I became deeply concerned about the fact that I still didn’t have any answers about God. I found myself praying in desperation. I wasn’t ready to go. I didn’t know what my eternal fate, if there even was such a thing, would be, but I didn’t want it to be a horrifying one.

This continued with such intensity that I woke up praying prayers I haven't prayed in a long time.

After I came to my senses, I realized this was not really the manifestation of some latent faith, buried beneath hurt and frustration, so much as it was an upwelling of fear. Fear of death, fear of hell, fear of finding out that despite the fact I can’t know anything for certain about the truth or falsity of any of it, I would still be held accountable for failing to believe.

For me, fear and belief have always been indistinguishable. Faith for me, often as not, manifested as begging God, perpetually, to help me be better, or do better, or save me from whatever I thought might befall me, his wrath being the thing I feared most of all.

I do not relish the idea of a universe without loving God. I do not wish to face the trials and travails of life alone, without a higher power to call on for help. I do not like the idea of nihilism, of a life that is not a part of any overarching plan. I want to say "everything happens for a reason" and actually mean it.

But I like even less the idea of a universe where there is a God who hides while threatening us and making non-negotiable demands.

A God whose wrath is legendary — wrath that only his beloved Mother can just barely restrain by means of her insuperable favor.

A God who is supposedly the paradigmatic embodiment of love, but who is nevertheless content to consign the majority of his "beloved" children to eternal conscious torment, a great many of them through no voluntary fault of their own.

I would rather no God than a God like that.