I found nothin' to believe

On this week's Revolution 21 podcast, I play "Mother, I Climbed," written by the late Dave Carter and featured on Tracy Grammer's Flowers of Avalon album. The melody is absolutely beautiful; the lyrics, absolutely haunting.

It struck me as utterly appropriate in a week that saw a friend announcing he and his family had been scandalized right out of the Catholic Church. My church. A sampling of the lyrics illustrates the appropriateness:

on tomorrow’s painted wagon, in a yester-dreamin' day
i rode to heaven never thinkin' i’d be back this way
now i’m standin' at your doorstep with my halo turnin' grey
open up your gate, marianna

lay me down in the dark womb of your love
mother i sought the chosen people, but i found no one to comfort me
lay me down in the dark womb of your love
mother i climbed the highest steeple, i found nothin' to believe

when they called my faults against the wall, i took my place in line
and put my trust in priestly men to break the ties that bind
but their straight and narrow highway’s just a row of billboard signs
open up your gate, marianna

lay me down in the dark womb of your love
mother i sang the sacred psalter but no savior came to comfort me
lay me down in the dark womb of your love
i went naked to the altar, i found nothin' to believe

so i set my feet to walkin' from the sidewalk to the sand
in search of any saint or sage who knew the master plan
yeah, i wandered every backroad in that broken promise land
open up your gate, marianna

lay me down in the dark womb of your love
mother i kept the plain and simple, but no shepherd came to comfort me
lay me down in the dark womb of your love
i stood shiv’rin' in the temple, i found nothin' to believe

And I think of all the young people we run across at church, mainly in religious education and youth ministry. I think about how, yes, they're there . . . but still, they're not.

They may or may not actually go to Mass on Sunday. Many have so little knowledge of what the Church believes -- so little about even the basic nature of Who we worship -- they scarcely, in any objective manner, could be called Christian . . . at least in terms of actual belief.

They're there. They call themselves Catholic. But that has so little impact on how they live. I don't see that young Catholics drink, drug or (ahem!) at much different rates than committed secularist youth.

One youth-minister friend once told me he thinks there might be more drug abuse at Catholic high schools than at the (cue menacing organ music) eeeevvvillll public schools.

Yes, all of us -- even the most committed Christians -- screw up. We fall. We're, as Derek Webb sings, crooked deep down.

But increasingly, it seems to your Mighty Favog, there is a disconnect between professed faith and actual life. There is a meltdown in what we know -- what we care to know -- about what we say we believe.

That's nuts. But there we are. We've gone naked to the altar, we found nothin to believe.

And whose fault is that?

Not God's, I don't suspect. And not the kids', I don't reckon.

sticks and stones might break this body and words might wound my soul
and phantom visions fly me where the faithful fear to go
but when this story’s over and my sun is sinkin' low
open up your gate, marianna

lay me down in the dark womb of your love
mother the years pass outta countin' but no prophet comes to comfort me
lay me down in the dark womb of your love
mother i climbed the holy mountain, i found nothin' to believe
mother i climbed the holy mountain, i found nothin' to believe

[Lyrics: Copyright 2000, Dave Carter/Dave Carter Music (BMI)]