Leaning On Other People's Faith

This is the season of darkness, literally. We go from about 15 hours of sunlight a day to ten then six. I appreciate the beauty of this season: the golden glow of the turning leaves, the angle in which the sunrays hit in the morning on my drive to work, the way sunlight extends its arms to reach into my special upstairs corner. Still, I prefer the summer solstice. 

With the drop in sunlight comes a drop in my energy and a downcast mood. My anxiety rises as if dark days were a prelude to bad things happening. There is no rule which stipulates that the things I fear have to come to pass during this dark season, yet evil and fear grow larger in my mind. 

What to do, then, to keep fear in check in the long dark months ahead? I am already on anti-anxiety medication. It helps, but it is not enough. I noticed that as the days started to grow dark my need for reassurance of God's presence increased. The activities I enjoyed in the summer lost their appeal, including my appetite for reading novels. I have wanted to wrap myself in a cocoon and know that I and those I love will be safe.

David Brooks (a political columnist for The New York Times) states in an interview at The Trinity Forum that he has learned that "sometimes doubt is expressed in nearness and farness; as the presence of the ineffable, or the seeming absence of the ineffable... Sometimes it's not even an intellectual doubt, but, is God close, or does he feel absent?" I suffer from this type of doubting. I have no problem believing that this world and everything which inhabits it came to be because God desired it, whether be it through evolution, or a literal understanding of the creation story. That doesn't worry me the least. What worries me is feeling God absent. Darkness, and fear, foster that sense in me. 

"How do you deal with doubt? What does it do for you?" Francis Collins (former director of The National Institutes of Health) asks David Brooks. Brooks goes on to explain his understanding of doubt, which I quoted above, and then he adds, "That's why I keep a spiritual book going on all the time." 

That is precisely what I have been doing to deal with my anxiety and doubt over the last few weeks. I was wondering, though, if this practice would be considered a "crutch" by some. After all, I have been a Christian for more than 30 years, and here I was leaning on other people's faith to reinforce mine. But if David Brooks does it, I am sure millions of other Christians do as well. Reading spiritual books saturates my mind with the messages I need to start filling that void, that emptiness, which fear and doubt create. Is this a crutch, or a band-aid? Maybe. But just like you need crutches while a broken foot heals, or a band-aid to keep germs from getting in, we Christians do well to lean on the faith of other saints in times of doubt. Thus, in this time of darkness, I plan to read books which will bring me encouragement and hope.  

What spiritual practices help you when you doubt, or when you are afraid? What spiritual books do you recommend? Please share them with me. 

Find below the link to David Brooks conversation at The Trinity Forum.

Evening Conversation with David Brooks in Washington, DC