Doubting Teresa

I have always been a huge fan of certainty. It's neat and clean. And although I've found much of Catholic doctrine to be nothing more than political manipulation and emotional terrorism, I've always sort of respected the rigidity and certainty of the Catholic faithful.

This week news surfaced that the personal documents of Mother Teresa detail her crisis of faith, at one point quoting her as saying that she feared she was living the life of a hypocrite. The news stories I've read seem to indicate that she went to her grave questioning the existence of God. Later on television I heard Michele Martin speculate that it wasn't any wonder she had a crisis of faith, facing the horror of humanity on a day to day basis.

I am a faithful, if not particularly religious person. I believe in God and in the good of most people. I sometimes think that the people I know would find that hard to believe, I can be quite negative and judgemental. But by and large, I start out believing the best in people and have a difficult time changing that belief.

And I believe in God. I won't bore you with all of the details here, but suffice it to say that I do believe I've led a blessed life. Not all of it has been easy and I've no doubt handled certain challenges with more grace than others. But in the final analysis, I do believe. I believe I've seen evidence of God in my life and I consider myself privileged to have seen that evidence.

And, ultimately that's what it boils down to. Privilege. Recently PBS had a special from a Dr. Wayne Somebody talking about the Tao Te Ching. I recorded it and watched parts of it over the course of a week. His talk boiled down to the same simple principles espoused by just about every other "positive thinker" who can operate a computer and put out a book. "You control your own destiny." "Yes, you can if you think you can." All of those books, tapes, and television shows are empowering and always leave me feeling better about myself and life. I feel like I've achieved quite a bit in my life from sheer will, and I'm no where near ready to stop trying new and daring things.

But, I'm privileged. I'm in a good home. I have money in the bank and food on the table. I have a very expensive education and am making plans to expand that education. My life isn't perfect, but I'm also not wandering the streets of Baghdad wondering where my family is, what happened to my home, or if I'll be vaporized by the approaching woman who may be concealing a bomb. And I'm confronted with the question: how does positive thinking, prayer -- faith -- improve that situation? It's easy to have faith when comfortable.

I don't have an answer. The formula for a good essay dictates that I pose a question and then offer a solution. But there isn't one. And any solution to be offered would be, at best, uncertain. The best that I can come up with is that for as long as man has been able to form a declarative sentence in an effort to give definition to life, he has failed in absolutely answering any question. Nothing in life offers absolutes. Nothing. And as I get older each question presents even more uncertainties. With my expensive education comes the ability to ask more questions and the ability to distinguish variables in any answer, virtually insuring a life of "yeah, but" and "why?"

This afternoon I wandered down Sheridan Avenue to treat myself to a burrito for lunch. As I approached the Loyola campus I became aware that the area was swarming with returning college students. Those three falls that I returned to campus are golden in my memory. That first month of school was always so full of possibility. That golden feeling was something I missed when working on my masters. As I get older I become more aware of the fading promise with waning youth and more acutely aware that now is the time I need to fulfill that promise of my undergrad days. Again, I find myself questioning if my continuing my education isn't really just some way to delay the fulfillment of that promise. Can promises of youth ever really be fulfilled?

I want to read Mother Teresa's letters and diaries. I want to know exactly what questions she was asking, and if she doubted God who was she asking the questions of? And I want to know that if she truly doubted God if she felt that her life was a waste. Because, ultimately if you don't or can't believe in God, isn't it all just a waste?

In my undergrad days I had a professor who'd made it very clear that he regarded me as a second-rate talent. He only cast me in one of his productions, and I'm sure it was because the actor that he truly wanted had been lost to another director. I saw gaining this professor's respect as one of my most important goals in college. I went to him and asked him why we never studied any French theater, or German, or Asian. Why was our curriculum so English- and American-focused? I don't remember his answer, but he asked me what I wanted to study. I wasn't prepared for that question, but I said that I wanted to know more about French theater, so he offered to do an independent study. I jumped at the chance. The first thing he had me read was The Myth of Sisyphus.

I'm sure that nearly ninety percent of it went right over my head, but it was my first exposure to existentialism, and I loved it. Those French writers were brilliant at asking questions as if to challenge God himself. Camus and Sartre did nothing to weaken my belief in God. They solidified it. A couple years later I challenged a world-renowned Eugene O'Neill scholar whose entire thesis was that O'Neill was an atheist. I asked, "If O'Neill's writings are all just rants about the nonexistence of God, how could you possibly say he was an atheist? How can someone be so angry about something he believes doesn't exist?" The professor had no answer for me and I believe gave me an A just to shut me up.

I guess all of this leads me to believe that Teresa ultimately did not doubt the existence of God. Although that may have been how she viewed it, I think she looked at the daily misery she worked so tirelessly to alleviate and began to doubt her effectiveness in the eyes of God.

I have to believe that her crisis of faith was a crisis of faith in herself. And hope she found nothing but joy and all of the rewards in heaven that she so richly had earned.