There are as many paths to God as there are individuals. This series on Huffpo's Religion Page looks at six of the most well-traveled paths for contemporary seekers.
This final path to God crosses all the other ones at various points. People on the path of confusion run hot and cold with their childhood faith -- finding it relatively easy to believe in God at times, almost impossible at others. They haven't "fallen away" but they've not stayed connected. They cry out to God in prayer and then wonder why there doesn't seem to be an answer. They intuit God's presence during important moments, and perhaps even during religious services, but find themselves bothered by the problems of belonging to their church, synagogue or mosque. They may pray from time to time, particularly in dire need, and they may go to services on key holidays.
But for this group, finding God is a mystery, a worry or a problem.
The main benefit of this path is that it often helps people to fine-tune their approach to their childhood faith. Unlike those who consider themselves clearly religious or clearly non-religious, these people have not yet made up their minds, and so are constantly refining their ideas about a religious commitment.
But confusion can lapse into laziness. The feeling that makes a person avoid worship services because a particular critique easily mutates into a decision not to do so because it's too much work, or because it takes too much energy to belong to a group that demands charity and forgiveness.
Much of my adult life, before entering the Jesuits, the Catholic religious order to which I belong, was spent on this path. As a boy, I was raised in a loving family with a lukewarm Catholic background. My family went to church regularly but we didn't engage in those practices that mark very religious Catholics -- saying grace at meals, speaking regularly about God, praying before going to bed, and attending Catholic schools. But in college I grew increasingly confused about God.
After a friend's death and another friend's mysterious response to his death (see "The Path of Exploration") moved me to give God another chance, I returned to church, but in a desultory way. I wasn't sure exactly what, or who, I believed in. So for several years God the Problem Solver was replaced by a more amorphous spiritual concept: God the Life Force, God the Other, God the Far Away One. While these are valid images of God, I had no idea that God could be anything but those abstract ideas. And I figured that things would stay that way until I died.
I want to send you an mp3 file and do not know the best way to get it you. A woman I know has composed a truly beautiful modern hymn and has sung it at Mass. It moves the attendees tremendously as more than once they have applauded her. She has a professional voice to go along with her composing and song writing skills. She has sang on Broadway in minor parts but her real gift is as a composer of modern hymns.
Let me know how I can forward this to you. I am looking for advice on how to promote this. One is that I will put up a youtube video using her song as the voice track.
The funny thing was that the solution came to me as I was teaching Marketing at Fordham. In my attempt to explain what benefits were and how Marketers tried to solve them with product characteristics, I came across for me why bad things had to happen and why God must let them happen. Not quite the usual path to this part of the understanding of God but a fruitful one.
In its highest form through Faith, this definition becomes apparent in the love-life of the Blessed Trinity, wherein resides perfect togetherness, devoid of all confusion. To those of us who try to love as God loves namely, in total unity to God, to neighbor, to self, passing through times of confusion on the path to God becomes the Gospel's "narrow road" leading to Light. How hard it is to persevere in that "purgatory" where inordinate selfishness is scraped away, in pursuit of the ultimate good - God! But try we must because we livein Faith, a dark light, but fortunately a light nonetherless
But after all is said and done, Thomas Merton probably said it best "My Lord God, I do not know where I'm going. I do not see the road ahead of me. ...Therefore will I trust You always ...". Yes, ALWAYS!