by Karin Breuer

Created on: May 26, 2009   Last Updated: May 28, 2009

Letter to Don Unbeliever

Dear Don: It's been almost three weeks since you wrote your letter to me asking for suggestions that will help you find out about the truth about God and Jesus as a divinity. I hope that you will forgive me the long delay. The sincerity of your letter was such that a hasty note was not sufficient. I kept the letter on my desk so that I was reminded daily to pray for guidance in how I might answer your questions. Today I start with prayer that the Holy Spirit guide both my words and your thoughts as you read this letter.

You had enrolled in the Alpha course at the church in the hope of finding faith but instead, you felt emotions tug at your heart and you were suspicious at a program that evokes emotion rather than just intellectual discussion. You believe that we are ensnared by religion because it taps into our emotions. Don it is not religion that evokes the emotional response in us, it is God. It is the same with the person in your life that you love with your whole being; that too is emotional. It seems to me that feeling emotional is a good indicator of the reality of God; we cannot be emotional about nothing. Love is transitive; it needs an object.

As a teenager I lived in a large house in a remote village buried between two mountain ranges. The window in the upstairs room that my sister and I shared opened like French doors wide. I would often sit on my desk with the window open and look into the night and whisper my thanks for the beauty around me and I was filled with overwhelming love, a love that came towards me and one which required my response. I fell in love with God not in a church, not through religion but in the great wilderness that shaped me. You may say that it was the emotionalism of teenagers but as a teacher I have been surrounded by teenagers these past 32 years and know that they are very skeptical and hard nosed about things that don't seem to make sense. The love I experienced coming toward me in the open window was as real as the love I experienced from my parents.

Recently I read a book called The Voice of Knowledge which is written by a Toltec Indian, Don Miguel Ruiz. He starts his book with an interpretation of the story of Adam and Eve that I found quite intriguing. Ruiz states that each of us is an Adam or an Eve at the time of our birth we are innocent to the world but curious and eager to learn. And while we are yet unable to discern right from wrong, our parents plant the seed

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