BUT WHY AREN'T CHRISTIANS... CHRISTIAN?

Christ Healing the Blind — El Greco (c. 1570–1575)

“But why aren’t Christians….Christian?”

Before I was a Christian, this question plagued me, like it does other social justice warriors.

Why aren’t these bloody Christians Christianier…or even slightly Christian?

I genuinely didn’t get it.

Like almost everyone who has lost a sense of the spiritual in this tech-heavy, materialistic world, I was starving for meaning.

Famished for something that actually tasted alive.

Nothing I sank my teeth into satisfied this eternal, internal craving.

My art, theatre, and writing seemed hollow. So eight years ago, when I was asked by a Catholic friend if I wanted to go and volunteer at the immigration centre, my ears pricked up.

An opportunity for something real.

It was a dingy hall next to the inner Madrid city church, and I plodded along one evening, wondering if I had anything at all to offer these mostly African or Bangladeshi undocumented immigrants. It turns out…I didn’t. They were there to learn Spanish or get their paperwork in order, and I knew nothing about either of these things. I was a tit on a bull, as the Australians would say.

The Tuesday evenings were run by Catholic women aged between fifty to seventy, and even though I was useless, I did observe these women, and I was struck by the light they carried inside. It was undeniable, they had something I wanted. Even though I was not helpful, the experience awoke something in me. I began to see a pattern: people of faith glistened in a world bored by itself.

At the end of the year, they held a Christmas party, and my husband and I went along with some plates of food, and when we told his Catholic family of this event, they were not impressed. They did not immediately see this as good Catholic work with their concerns for their religious tradition and mass immigration.

My brain almost turned itself inside out.

However, instead of taking my usual route of anger…I let my curiosity fly.

“But, I don’t understand. These Catholic women are doing exactly what Jesus said one should do. What the dickens are you reading in the bible that I’m not seeing?”

My sister-in-law answered, “Well, I was taught that Christianity is about your connection to God and helping your family. Family first.”

This gave me some insight, but I was still so confused.

However, if you have lived an easy life, if you have not had a crisis rip your insides out and left you hobbling to the church bleeding, looking for light…then yes, all of this would not make sense.

You would see Christianity and Christian teachings as purely an intellectual idea, political.

So for years, I sat confused and judgmental of Christians that seemed anything but Christian, so openly and devastatingly hypocritical.

But now, after walking my own path to the feet of Jesus and the mystery…I don’t see Christians as unChristian. I just see all of us imperfect people doing our best as vulnerable and beautiful.

My father, who is a very strong socialist-minded, atheist man would get quite upset with the Christians and their inability to be Christian.

“What you have to understand,” I explained. “Is that we are not all the same. We do not all come from the same experience, age, time and place. A man who was beaten and abused as a child who has found his way to the church could be saving the world, so to speak…purely by choosing not to kill himself. That might be his journey and the Christian teachings and the connection to God could be the very thing, the only thing, that stops him from slipping a noose around his neck. Now that to me is quite something. Maybe a bitter woman is simply trying to find it in her heart to smile at someone and soften into her true nature…maybe another person is using this rich tradition to stay close to God and help them be the glue that holds their family together in a troubled world. This holding together could save several people and go on to impact many more lives. And then of course, you will find a priest who dedicates everything he has to the community…or a saint who sacrifices all because something astonishing has appeared to them and they trust that they can completely let go….

You might hear of a wealthy family whose faith is so deep they forgive a drunk driver who mowed down their children and ripped away everything they loved and worked for in an instant.

All of these people are Christian.

This is a spiritual practice that goes beyond simplistic concepts such as tax the rich and open the borders.

This is a way of living that eggs one on to the impossible and deeply complex idea of forgiveness.”

He could hear some of this, I think.

I hope…

But this to me is why the Christians are Christian.

And I have faith in all of us.

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