doubt and faith

an ode to the Cloisters museum

Two weeks ago, I met a friend at the Met Cloisters––a branch of the Metropolitan Museum dedicated to medieval art and architecture. Unlike most museums in Manhattan, the Cloisters is secluded and quiet. Instead of yellow cabs and halal carts, it’s surrounded by the hills and trails of Fort Tryon Park in upper Manhattan. When I got off the A train, I almost forgot I was in New York. I passed quiet Bodegas and laundromats as I meandered my way to the park. The Cloisters isn’t visible from the road, but is built on the side of a hill overlooking the Hudson River. A web of trails snake up through trees and grass and, on that day, snow. I had forgotten the soul-filling nature of silence and trees; I never thought to look for them in this city, but here there are.

I began the steep climb up, following a trail that wraps around the back of the hill. The sun was out and the sky was a brilliant, joy-filled blue. I passed a lamp post, a bench, and clumps of snow left over from the storm. The path curved up and to the left, my body breaking a sweat under my coat, my breath heaving. I came to a low stone wall that overlooked the Hudson. A mini-pond of melted snow had formed underneath a park bench. I couldn’t sit down without wading in, so I stood to the side.

I was alone, just being. The faint rush of cars threaded in and out of the silence like waves. I closed my eyes and savored the quiet. I had forgotten what it sounded like, felt like. A breeze rustled in off the Hudson and I sleepily opened my eyes to water and sky and the Jersey shore. The sun: hot enough to burn my skins through my jeans. The air: cool enough for a winter coat and hot breath on my fingertips.

I felt like I was in Colorado or Chattanooga. Alone and elevated. Chest heaving from the steep hike. I didn’t want to leave, and I didn’t have to.

I found the castle and the entrance to the Cloisters and met my friend. Lucky for me, she is a medieval art enthusiast and a wealth of information about the development of religious iconography, cathedral architecture, and the church’s impact on the political spectrum in medieval times. We looked at caskets of saints, jewels and challises from the treasury, reliquaries, and hand painted manuscripts. A few families, couples, and other museum go-ers shuffled around, lingering around stained glass windows and European depictions of Christ. Hushed conversations swirled around the damp air and were absorbed into the stone walls. A tour group gathered around an early Old Testament Hebrew manuscript, the guide pointing out bits of historical significance and nothing else.

faith and doubt

My heart felt both awe and a heavy darkness––a nagging sense of doubt, an utter sadness that this might not be true, an overwhelming sense of despair at the unknown. Something gnawed at my faith. I saw these artifacts and this God through the lens of modern intellectualism, and faith fell flat. It felt fake, old-fashioned, irrelevant.The thought that Christianity might be made up haunted me. Through the eyes of the twenty-first century, faith looked useless and pointless and oppressive.

It scared me, and I felt very, very alone. If this faith doesn’t make sense to me anymore, then what does? Where does that leave me? Where does that leave my family?

I don’t like it, but I’m used to it. The doubt. The questioning. The wondering if my entire faith is for real or for fake. In a city like New York, people believe in what they can see, in what they can make sense of and defend.

It’s been months of wrestling, and I’ll continue to wrestle. But there is one thing that keeps me coming back. Not to religion, but to Jesus. Not to a tradition or an institution, but to a personal relationship. My doubts turn toward faith when I spend time with God, alone, reading what the Bible actually says: that God is not demanding perfection or goodness from us, but offering us His.

Anyone who claims to be good enough for God is lying. None of us are. And that’s the point. He is the goodness, and He offers it to us.

In my experience, belief in God comes out of three things: faith, humility, and following. Three things that I can’t muster up on my own, but I can ask. And when I ask, God provides.

So I still feel afraid sometimes. I still feel doubt. But when faith in God feels too hard or big or confusing to be real, I look at nature and the universe and conclude that there must be a God who made all of this. I remember how He has comforted and strengthened me in the darkest times of my life. I see that the most satisfied and joyful people on the planet aren’t religious people, but simple people who believe Jesus loves them and died for them.

When I look at the Bible, I find that God is actually not demanding perfection from me, but He’s asking me to trust that He is good and He is everything.

Doubt and faith are not opposites. I think they go hand in hand. They make me dependent on God in a whole new way, and it’s been the sweetest, hardest thing.