Plymouth Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Fort Collins, CO
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Youth Sunday
2006
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Emily Schiola But have you ever wondered where Linus got that blanket of his? Was it a gift from his parents on his first birthday? Or did his grandmother make it for him? It is sort of like my belief in God. Where did it come from? I mean, I believe in evolution, and the big bang theory. I don’t believe in hell, or even purgatory for that matter, and I’m not even sure where I stand on the whole heaven concept. I believe in reincarnation and karma instead. Some people would say that since I believe in these things, I couldn’t possibly believe in God. And they are sort of right. I mean, I don’t believe in God in the conventional sense. Not some guy in the clouds waving a magic wand controlling our lives. More like a feeling, or sense. God has just always been a part of me, a concept that helps through tough times. Like Linus, I can’t really pinpoint why it helps me, why it brings me safety, it just does. It is something that has been there all my life, and I can’t say why it has, or where it really came from. I guess I just like the idea; I like that extra support every once in a while. I can’t trace my belief in God back to one particular moment of enlightenment; I just know it has been there my whole life, acting as my giant blue blanket. Protecting every aspect of my life. Something warm and fuzzy like a blanket, that keeps me warm when I get cold. I can’t say that this blanket has always kept me warm though. Sometimes it feels small, and drafts of questions come through, and give me a chill, and often times it fits again, but sometimes it doesn’t fit for a while, doesn’t seem quite right for long periods of time. But that is all part of my relationship with my blanket. I mean, when Linus gets older, will he also outgrow his blanket? Or will he ALWAYS need something by his side. Will he bring it to college? Will it be with him at his wedding? Although I don’t think the Peanuts kids will ever grow up, it’s still something to consider. Personally, I like that security; I still like having my blanket, and will continue to like it, at least for now. I thought that Linus was my favorite character, because he always seemed to have the answer to everyone else’s problems, but now I think he has always been my favorite, because I can see myself in him, especially his dependence on a security blanket, like my dependence on God. |
Jake Joseph It takes a period of severe doubt and questioning to truly believe in a mature way. Think of this time in one’s life as being like when Jesus was in the tomb for the disciples. Before he died they had always taken him at his word that he was the son of God…then he died and they went through the days of waiting, and no doubt questioning, of if what he said about resurrection would come true. Then after the “event” of the resurrection, the disciples were able to believe on a new and mature level, which allowed them to be teachers of others. Similarly, in what I will call the age of doubt, we go through a period of spiritual Limbo. At this time one finds himself directly confronted with the question of whether to believe or not to believe. Like with the disciples in the interim between the crucifixion and the resurrection…God seems to have passed away and been replaced with logic. As a younger person, I attended a large evangelical church (that will go unnamed) and believed as they believed without questioning (which is how they liked it), but puberty changed all that for me. While my body was attracted to those like it… my Calvinistic belief said that this was an immoral path to hell. That was the time when I started into a time of utter disbelief, for I found it impossible to reconcile both the God is love clause of evangelical faith and the God is sending me to eternal damnation for something that I cannot control clause. I stopped going to church, stopped calling myself a Christian, and stopped believing. Then God resurrected himself in my life, much like he did in the lives of the disciples over 2,000 years ago. When I came to Plymouth for the first time God completed a spiritual contract with my heart. Though questioning will never end, I have reached a point at which I can say I am at a relative peace with God. There was a moment when I knew I had found him again. After wandering in the desert, I had found the promise land. Not to say that this church is perfect (nor it’s roof), but like Plymouth Colony was a haven to the Pilgrims, so has this church been a haven for my spiritual being. I think that there is a fundamental difference between belief and faith. One is taught to believe, but one grows in faith. Faith is what unites us. Our common faith in a divine. Belief tends to divide us. For example, I believe in destiny. I was destined to be gay, go to this church, drive my old jeep, and be speaking here today. But even if you believe as many do here in complete free will, we still share the same basic faith in divine being. Faith is a mature form of belief that can only come of age after doubt. Some resist the doubt phase and therefore become hostile to the beliefs of others because they cannot accept alternate beliefs as a form of faith. God speaks to our beliefs all differently, but there is a moment in life when he will speak and open the door to faith. This is a time when we move from belief to faith and from intolerance to tolerance. We become new Christians of God’s love and understanding. Santa may freeze when making toys, rabbits cannot make chocolate, and ladies who collect teeth are called dentists, but God does not pass us by. He leaves us alone to discover him by our own faith and path. May God Bless and Reveal Himself to you in your journey. |
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Will Sampson Because of this lack of drive to personally reach the higher power there are two different types of believers. The first are those who find something lacking in their life and venture on an internal quest to find meaning, to understand the binding force that is buried beneath existence. When they find faith, they find god. When others observe the internal peace this person has found, they want it for themselves. This is our second branch of believers. God is mysterious and baffling to them, they do not understand but still want a piece of the pie. Thus they create a system of basic rules that they can follow in order to earn god themselves. They generalize god into a simple good and create a character to be a simple bad, turning the world black and white with a list of religious do’s and don’ts. People begin to see religion as a system instead of an idea. They fight over differing rules in their separate religions, persecute those who don’t follow their laws, all the time not realizing the core of their belief. What binds us is the want to believe, what separates us is our varying laws of belief. What has created the separation is misunderstanding: Many see religion as an investment not a way of living life. I believe that God is found not earned, and it is our goal to obtain understanding not just participation, to see beyond rules that have attempted to make the search for god thoughtless. A day in the world will show anyone that there is no pure good or pure bad, nothing is black and white and that includes god. Why you believe is of course your choice, but the choice should be made not for the system but for yourself. The search for God is up to you, what you formulate in your own mind, not steps in a book or walls in your head. Justice, truth and love would mean nothing if you did not take the time to think about their meaning. Thus it is with god.  |
Peter Koziol Sometimes people say, “seeing is believing,” but I cannot see God. Not only am I unable to see God, I cannot touch, hear, smell, or taste God either. So without any physical evidence why do I believe? Maybe God is something that does not need physical proof. But then I just ask myself why don’t we need physical proof of God? After all, we are all only human and wanting proof is part of our nature. I suppose we may not need proof because God is so different from everything else out there. I think that even though we can never directly see God, we know that there is something higher because there really has to be. There are so many things in the world that we often take for granted, but they are God’s masterpieces. For instance, the other day I was looking at a cherry tree in my back yard. As I examined the seemingly impossible intricacies of one of the flowers, I saw with shear amazement jus one example in God’s world. The stamen was in the center of the flower, and it had a light dusting of bright yellow pollen all around. Around the center sat five brilliant white flowers. Then I saw that at the end of that branch alone there were almost a dozen flowers. On the entire tree, there were not hundreds’ but thousands of these tiny intricate flowers. I thought to myself that only with a God could something this amazing occur in my own back yard. I think we all have some kind of cherry tree in our life, something seemingly mundane that upon further inspection helps us to believe. We cannot see God, but when we simply open our eyes, there are signs all around us. Look into your life and see if you can find what makes you believe. |