Struggling between my two worlds

I return to the country of my birth, education and first 28 years every seven or eight months and each time it’s a bittersweet experience. Sweet because I see my closest friends, am wined and dined, rub shoulders with contemporaries who have become newspaper editors, television personalities and leading politicians. Bitter because I have to leave them. 

It is all, I suppose, a little artificial because if I lived in London again reality would bite home and work and routine would replace play and adventure. So I remain between two cultures and two countries, happy in both but not, truth be told, ever quite content. 

And contentment brings us to faith, God and the Christian Church. Are we supposed to be content or is that something for another world, the one beyond the shadows? Or to put it another way, surely Christians are not made for earthly fulfilment but designed for struggle, created to do battle in a conflict not for immediate triumph but for eternal victory. 

We see this manifested all too often in quasi-political battles over moral issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion. We sometimes define ourselves, and our Catholicity, not by our commitment to Christ but by our determination to stand firm on single issues. There is a terrible danger in, for example, abandoning the unborn but an equally pernicious risk in seeing the entire world, all of God’s creation and His creatures, through the prism of specific themes and campaigns. 

I was reminded of this while having tea with the man responsible for the Archbishop Cranmer blog, one of the most influential Christian sites on the Internet. He reminded me that Jesus actually says a great deal about money, economic injustice, poverty and the duties of the wealthy; far more, in fact, than He does about issues of life and sexuality — which He refers to hardly at all. The Church of England and Canada’s Anglicans speak about such challenges frequently and are just as frequently criticized for it by conservative Catholics. One has to wonder what Jesus would have said. 

None of this is written to condemn or judge but to highlight what I like to call “the contentment of struggle.” It’s a constant temptation, especially when it seems that the struggle is being lost. Nothing pleases such people more than the notion of comfortable martyrdom. I suffer fighting for my unwinnable cause, but not quite enough for it to really hurt. 

I’m a dreadful Christian but to paraphrase Evelyn Waugh, imagine how awful I’d be if I weren’t a Christian! What I find most difficult is the most basic: turning the other cheek, genuinely loving my enemies, showing mercy and justice to those who seem not to deserve it, avoiding lust, greed and envy, authentically helping the poor. Maybe I will conquer some or even just one of these before I meet God in the face, but it’s the attempt rather than the result that He wants. 

None of this gives me any contentment but it does give me certainty. I know God loves me, I know what He wants of me, I am sure that while He wants me to defend the unborn and stand for committed, life-long relationships He does not want me to single out, isolate and judge various groups and people merely for who they are. See Christ in everyone, see His love in everything. 

So I wander and wonder not only between two countries and continents but between two worlds. That of the flesh and the soil, and that of the Spirit and the cloud of unknowing. The older I get the more I see nuance and complexity all around me, and the more I travel, learn, pray and worship the more I question not my faith in God and Christ — which is stronger than ever — but the best and most faithful way to live life as a Christian. I am a voluntary exile, a privileged immigrant, a spiritual refugee. Content? I’m not sure I was made to be content, and in my more honest moments not even sure if I want it. 

Oh Lord, keep shaking me by the shoulders and forcing me to think and think again, in Canada, Britain and the world over. 

(Coren’s latest book is The Future of Catholicism. His web site is www.michaelcoren.com.)