A Brief Dialogue About Faith
A Little Background
This dialogue, faithfully reproduced here, took place about ten years ago. I must have been in my mid twenties then. I was recently going through my writing archive from years back when I stumbled on it. Reading it again filled me with an indescribable feeling of nostalgia about those years of both fervency of spirit and innocence, and served to remind me that I’ve always been who I am even now (which fills me with the pleasure of having been consistent, especially as I have always maintained that people don’t change, they merely evolve). I remember very well the circumstances of my life when it took place: I was in the middle of my seven-week undergraduate internship at a federal neuropsychiatric hospital in Nigeria. It was the first time in a very long while I’d be socially interchanging with people outside the cloister of my university. I often come across as “weird” or “strange” or “different” (both then and now) mostly on account of my lifestyle preferences and worldview which often stand in sharp contrast to what is culturally expected or dominant. And this contrast is usually rendered more stark and shocking by the fact that both my formative background and social circle were very conservative, sometimes ultra-conservative. This makes it difficult for many people who interrogate me to accept that who or what I am today isn’t a product of some hurt, accident, or grievance from my past. They do not think that anyone could become so divergent in their personal philosophy and lifestyle as to retain very little from the culture and environment in which they’ve been formed.
The tone of this dialogue is peculiar and may at first strike the reader as contrived and fictional, but I assure you that it is, in fact, very representative of how I communicate, back then more than now. During the time that this dialogue took place, I was a social recluse, though one with a lot of friends and distant admirers. My favourite and only pastime was reading all sorts of books and imagining various life scenarios that I sometimes transferred into my writings (was once an aspiring writer!). I was terrible at face-to-face or voice conversation, mostly because my verbal communication was crude relative to my written communication, and also because my thinking was usually too slow and belaboured to ever keep up with the spontaneous fast-pace processing that most social exchanges require. Most time, I was conscious of the paradoxical impression I made on certain kinds of people (specifically those cut from a different intellectual and attitudinal cloth from me): they were often charmed by my apparent immaturity and naivete but also by my obvious depth. Ladies especially liked the former aspect of my personality. But, predictably, I was most uncomfortable to the point of anxious distress in the presence of girls, less so with girls who had some intellectual inclination or at least an appreciation for it in others.
When it comes to communication, I was only comfortable in two spaces: when conversing with like-minded friends (of which I had enough) and when chatting on WhatsApp. I was particularly very devoted to chatting on WhatsApp with people who were inclined to tolerate my ponderous and serious style. Hence, my chat archive from those years was a treasure trove of highly personal and intimate content most of which I’ve lost. But a few survived, and the dialogue reproduced here is one of such. And this dialogue, in its tone, frequency of occurence, and subject matter, was by no means unique at that period in my life.
My interlocutor, in this instance, was a significantly older but single lady who worked as the secretary at the clinical psychology department of the neuropsychiatric hospital where I was observing my internship. I was always too happy to oblige whenever anyone was inquisitive enough to loudly express their curiosities about me and it wasn’t different in this case. This particular exchange centred on my attitude towards faith and religion. And even though not much has changed since this dialogue in that regard, a lot has changed about my social and lifestyle profile. Socially, I’ve become more outward-oriented and better able to communicate in-person with people whose interests and intellectual level span a very wide spectrum; but my lifestyle has become even more countercultural (let’s just say I’ve become better adjusted :-)). But in spite of these liberal tendencies, I’ve always retained a significant conservative element when it comes to how far I’m willing to go in the pursuit of my inclinations (which I put down to my genetic heritage).
NB: The dialogue, as reproduced here, ended so abruptly that I suspect that a portion of it must be missing. But that is all I got from my archive. I have only effected minor editorial corrections regarding lax spellings and shorthand style characteristic of social media communication. However, my own part remained mostly unedited as my style while chatting remained rigidly formal and punctilious back then, and it often rubbed off on whoever I happened to be chatting with. So enjoy!
B: Are you good to chat a little more?
S: Of course. Tell John I’m saying hi.
B: Okay. John isn’t here yet. But he should be on his way now. I’m being very careful not to disturb you, knowing your person.
S: And please be careful not to be too careful. Contrary to what you may think, I respond very well to chatting.
B: Yeah you do. Just that I am being careful not to disturb your quiet moment. What caught my attention is your person, and most importantly, your reaction whenever God is mentioned. I honestly don’t think I have ever met someone like you. You sound so strange… I remembered you on Sunday and I wondered if you’d ever thought of going to church. I’d wanted to chat you up then but… I have been unable to fathom what could have caused the change in your Christian life. Are you still there?
S: Sorry. I had to attend to some urgent matter. Please feel free to chat me up any time. I don’t shy away from discussing my religious inclinations, or better still, disinclinations. But preferably with someone not too invested in religion to the point of passion. And I do go to church once a while but more out of curiosity and charity than interest. I feel more and more out of place in any religious setting. The whole atmosphere, and most of the activities, strains me too much and doesn’t agree well with my preferred mode of worship which is primarily contemplative. I am hardly made for the Pentecostal atmosphere.
B: Hmmm. “I do go to church once a while but more out of curiosity and charity than interest”…that’s in Sam’s voice. What do you mean you go out of “charity”?
S: When people dear to me insist I do them the honours. And to think I’m thereby making someone glad feels me with pleasure.
B: So you’re not glad because you are in church but because you yield to someone’s invitation?
S: Someone’s insistent invitation and someone dear, yes.
B: Could you try change going to church out of curiosity rather than interest?
S: I could not summon interest anymore than happiness can be summoned. Interest, now so dead, is not at present as potent as curiosity and charity in taking me to church.
B: Ah! Let it be curiosity and charity then. But could interest be so dead as to leave no room for hope on my part?
S: In church attendance and activities, yes. But not in contemplation of God.
B: I know I really might not be qualified to preach to you, but do you think you can be convinced to give God another trial?
S: You talk as though God is a product and you’re His salesman. Of course, not saying that’s how you see it except that’s how it seems to me. No, I cannot be “convinced to give God another trial”. However, if you feel strongly about making a pitch, why not tell God to give me another trial.
B: Sam!!! The one wish I have and pray for is to see you serve God again.
S: Your wish, your prayer (which I am strongly persuaded came from a genuine desire to see me pursue the right spiritual course in this life), to “see me serve God again” can hardly come to pass. I simply find it difficult to go back to my former believing attitude. And while not disbelieving, I refuse to acknowledge an unseen entity by whose dictate and decree I am supposed to conduct my life.
B: Well, I did not pray to you. I am only praying for you. The decision for the prayers to be answered might not be yours.
S: And I’m all too glad not to be thus burdened. If I may ask you a question; do you think a man can ever live a fulfilled and peaceful life without being a Christian?
B: I don’t think one can live a fulfilled life without God.
S: But you tampered, though slightly, with my question. My question was whether such life is possible without being a Christian and not whether it is possible without believing in God. Though I’m aware that, to you, the two are the same.
B: That a man can be fulfilled without God, I still don’t think so. And yes, the two are the same. I like this your statement: “…borne out of genuine desire to see me pursue the RIGHT spiritual course in life”. I like the RIGHT part of it. That means you know what is right as touching the subject under discussion, do you not?
S: No, I don’t. I do know, or rather suspect, there is a right spiritual course for every man. Surely, if I know the right spiritual course, I should not hesitate to prescribe and proselytize. And no doubt I envy you your conviction of the right path, but the rightness of such a path is by no means obvious to me.
B: Before I move on, am I permitted to say exactly what’s on my mind? Am I allowed to express myself?
S: Please I would appreciate nothing less than your exact and candid opinion.
B: Thank you. From the look of things, I am beginning to deduce that there was never a genuine conviction back then when you used to be a fervent Christian. It seems to me you merely rode upon the privilege of being born into a Christian home, following your family’s religious tradition and growing into Christianity without a personal encounter. You know why I say so? I can’t imagine someone who had attained the height you had then in the knowledge of God and suddenly firmly believes God never exists. I understand it when someone backslides, because I’ve been in that shoe before. But this your total renouncement baffles me, and even terrifies. And that only leads me to this question: Sam, who exactly are you?
S: And I have to wonder if you, too, would be a Christian today if you weren’t “privileged” to be born into a Christian family. To be a Christian from a Christian family is not the miracle. The miracle is in being one having not come from one. But you talk and seem to think that the Christian faith, as the sole and right spiritual path, is incontestable and self-evident. And there is nothing more normal than for you to question the solidity of my lost “conviction”. After all, Thomas doubted and Jesus, though forbearing in his response, could not resist taking a subtle dig at his “little faith”. But a man who doubts, though could be a man of little faith, could also be a man of great faith – perhaps, even too great. If great faith can produce great devotion, it can also produce great doubt. So you have been inspired to cast aspersions on my earlier conviction as per its depth. But if by “conviction” you meant a total cessation on my part in asking skeptical questions, I would have to but agree with you that, indeed, I was never consistently or once-for-all fully convinced. However, if by “conviction” you meant absolute trust, confidence, and repose of heart in the utter sincerity of my belief and spiritual exertions (coupled, all the while, of course, with the innocence of my still simple doubt), then I must be counted among the most genuine of all believers. Remember I told you my passion was so great that, twice, I was driven to the edge of abandoning my education, and, once, was led to the point of almost renouncing my career for the life of a missionary. The details, and the excitement of spirit that attended these spiritually turbulent periods, I would not like to bare here. In the end, if such kind of total passion in the pursuit and realization of one’s faith could have been borne of a shaky and dubious “conviction”, you be the judge of it.
B: Eh, don’t misconstrue my intention. Who am I to be the Judge?
S: And who are you not to? I do not wish, contrary to your fears, for you to take leave of your judging faculty. For only by and through it can I ever hope to bring you to a cherished point of reasoned understanding. The word “judgment” can be used in two senses: of condemnation and of reasoned conclusion. I meant the second.