Love the conversation.
I was in much the same boat as you both. Grew up Catholic, “outgrew” the faith pretty early and became agnostic. But as I came out of the sunshine of youth and college, I saw increasingly that the beauty of the world was marred by so much terror and death. Even the passing of time is a savage brutality in a way. And many of us on the conservative side of the spectrum have enough sense to see that drowning ourselves in hedonism is not exactly the best way to deal with that.
I was at the point where I didn’t see any purpose to the whole business. Terrifying, that thought. It occurred to me then that the only sliver of hope I had to rescue some meaning out of life was that old antiquated concept called God. So I cracked open some books and started to look at the whole question fresh.
I don’t want to be preachy here but I could not BELIEVE the profound intellectual and spiritual wisdom in Christianity when I started to delve deeply into it. There were such great writers and great thinkers (Augustine, C.S. Lewis)—and all the weird strange questions I had in all different fields of human life (morality, love, science) seemed all to come together and make sense under the umbrella of a rational, loving God. So I made my confession and came back to Church. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a finished work by any means...I still have my questions (tough questions sometimes) and I still have my difficulties. But overall, I do not regret that journey one bit.
Godspeed to you both, I’ll keep you in my prayers.
This is a key point in the logic of faith. I most often hear it when some innocent, like a beautiful 4 year old child, gets killed in an accident or is murdered. A frequent refrain is, "How could a loving God allow that to happen?" The obvious, to me, answer is that it is only tragic if THERE IS NO GOD. A loving God with a plan and a loving hereafter takes the sting out of that.
... I could not BELIEVE the profound intellectual and spiritual wisdom in Christianity when I started to delve deeply into it.
I used to work with mathematicians and other scientists and engineers. We drank together and raised Hell when on out of town trips. (And with generous expense accounts.) However, when I would bring up my Christianity they were completely turned off. I often admonished them that Christianity was a much more sophisticate and exciting intellectual pursuit that they could imagine. They just waved me off and I doubt any of them ever explored it.
Yet, were we all believers there would be no market for the thousands of self help books and rehabilitation centers. There would even be less need for our massive medical system. There is a lot behind the words with Christianity.