A little housekeeping first, for those of you who would like to read with me, my copy of Choke came in today, and I shall be starting it tonight. I don't know if I'll be able to have it finished to discuss on Tuesday, but just a little heads up for those who might like to read along.
Anyway, for today's blog Katie and I will have a little discussion for you. Katie will go first:
Sometimes I think that Nate being a religion major in college might have ruined the spiritual side of our relationship. Whenever I try to engage Nate in a discussion about our faith and beliefs, I get the same response: Nate simply shrugs his shoulders and says with exasperation, "I don't know." I honestly can't remember an attempt to discuss something spiritual with Nate in the last 3 years that has not ended in me crying or yelling. For me, it is incredibly frustrating to have an entire area of my life that I can share with Nate but cannot discuss with him. Even more frustrating when I think about the fact that his faith was in fact the very thing that initially attracted me to him. It is in these moments of extreme frustration that I wonder if discussing your faith in such intellectual terms day after day might burn you out.
Surely when you discuss something over and over again- questioning, defending, rethinking- there must be a point when you begin to feel like you're beating a dead horse. Is this what LaGrange College did to my husband? I know that the college's religion department had a HUGE role in Nate's religious development- I know they did for me and I wasn't even a religion major, but there's a part of me that wonders if they take it too far. Are we meant to dissect our faith bit by bit? Surely we are meant to question, to search. That's usually what prompts me to ask my husband's opinion.
I'm not looking for a concrete answer from him, just discussion, sharing, but it seems that Nate has already thought about ALL of the things I bring up (thanks to LC) and his conclusion to it all is that he simply doesn't know. I guess this is a safe answer. It often seems like a cop-out, a way to get out of having to think or share. Is Nate just lazy? Does he just love to see his wife frustrated? Those are both distinct possibilities, certainly ones that I am not above accusing him of, but I really think there MUST be a deeper reason. Hopefully through this blog we can get to the root of this issue.
Nate says:
I honestly don't think that the school is what the root of the problem is, although I do think that it is likely part of the problem. Though not necessarily a bad thing, my religion courses taught me to discuss religion not only on emotional or spiritual levels but also on (that I think can be lacking in some churches) that intellectual level. I'm not saying by any means that I'm intelligent or even smart about religion, but I do like to hear things spoken with research and bits of history behind it.
However, it has also (as Katie pointed out) made me hesitant to discuss faith on a daily basis. I honestly don't know the answer why (although I will admit, I like to frustrate the crap out of her sometimes, just not in this situation). I think part of it just comes from the situations, I know that we talked about faith at my home when I was growing up, but never on the level that Katie wants to talk about and part of that scares me. As I said in my first Religion Friday post a while back, I hate being wrong and whenever I talk about faith, particularly my own I get the feeling that anything I say could mess something up.
I don't know why I think this, and I don't know why I clam up when discussing religion, I just do. I know it's a cop out answer, but I'm working on it. I promise that the next time Katie brings up something about religion, I will do my absolute best to say something besides "I don't know," even if it is just "I'm not sure."
Anyway, for today's blog Katie and I will have a little discussion for you. Katie will go first:
Sometimes I think that Nate being a religion major in college might have ruined the spiritual side of our relationship. Whenever I try to engage Nate in a discussion about our faith and beliefs, I get the same response: Nate simply shrugs his shoulders and says with exasperation, "I don't know." I honestly can't remember an attempt to discuss something spiritual with Nate in the last 3 years that has not ended in me crying or yelling. For me, it is incredibly frustrating to have an entire area of my life that I can share with Nate but cannot discuss with him. Even more frustrating when I think about the fact that his faith was in fact the very thing that initially attracted me to him. It is in these moments of extreme frustration that I wonder if discussing your faith in such intellectual terms day after day might burn you out.
Surely when you discuss something over and over again- questioning, defending, rethinking- there must be a point when you begin to feel like you're beating a dead horse. Is this what LaGrange College did to my husband? I know that the college's religion department had a HUGE role in Nate's religious development- I know they did for me and I wasn't even a religion major, but there's a part of me that wonders if they take it too far. Are we meant to dissect our faith bit by bit? Surely we are meant to question, to search. That's usually what prompts me to ask my husband's opinion.
I'm not looking for a concrete answer from him, just discussion, sharing, but it seems that Nate has already thought about ALL of the things I bring up (thanks to LC) and his conclusion to it all is that he simply doesn't know. I guess this is a safe answer. It often seems like a cop-out, a way to get out of having to think or share. Is Nate just lazy? Does he just love to see his wife frustrated? Those are both distinct possibilities, certainly ones that I am not above accusing him of, but I really think there MUST be a deeper reason. Hopefully through this blog we can get to the root of this issue.
Nate says:
I honestly don't think that the school is what the root of the problem is, although I do think that it is likely part of the problem. Though not necessarily a bad thing, my religion courses taught me to discuss religion not only on emotional or spiritual levels but also on (that I think can be lacking in some churches) that intellectual level. I'm not saying by any means that I'm intelligent or even smart about religion, but I do like to hear things spoken with research and bits of history behind it.
However, it has also (as Katie pointed out) made me hesitant to discuss faith on a daily basis. I honestly don't know the answer why (although I will admit, I like to frustrate the crap out of her sometimes, just not in this situation). I think part of it just comes from the situations, I know that we talked about faith at my home when I was growing up, but never on the level that Katie wants to talk about and part of that scares me. As I said in my first Religion Friday post a while back, I hate being wrong and whenever I talk about faith, particularly my own I get the feeling that anything I say could mess something up.
I don't know why I think this, and I don't know why I clam up when discussing religion, I just do. I know it's a cop out answer, but I'm working on it. I promise that the next time Katie brings up something about religion, I will do my absolute best to say something besides "I don't know," even if it is just "I'm not sure."
2 comments:
Hi Katie and Nate. I feel the same way about religion sometimes... and the frusterating 'i don't know' feeling after class is why I switched to psychology. Although, I'm not sure if we find out any more answers when studying humans than when trying to figure out God, but at least I can see them. haha. But I liked this post format. Blog on.
I know at least for me it's hard because after discussing my faith on such an academic level for so long, it's hard to talk about it personally. As students it was our job to see all sides of the argument and give them all a fair chance, but as Christians sometimes that's the opposite of what we should do. I'm glad I'm not the only one who has that problem though!
P.S. I read your blog now. :)
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