Help My Unbelief

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Liza and the group on 18 August 2015.

Flannery O'Connor

Later in your letters, you kindly affirm that my struggles are "symptomatic of a faith so unrelenting it's seeped beyond your existence and into your essence." Let me disabuse you of these notions with a quote from Flannery O'Connor's letters:

For you to think this would be possible because of your ignorance of me; for me to think this would be sinful in a high degree. I am not a mystic and I do not lead a holy life. Not that I can claim any interesting or pleasurable sins (my sense of the devil is strong) but I know all about the garden variety, pride, gluttony, envy and sloth, and what is more to the point, my virtues are as timid as my vices. I think sin occasionally brings one closer to God, but habitual sin and not this petty kind that blocks every small good.

Lest you waste any more of your precious time trying to rescue me from spiritual despondency, I also believe what she says next:

However, the individual in the Church is, no matter how worthless himself, a part of the Body of Christ and a participator in the Redemption. There is no blueprint that the Church gives us for understanding this. It is a matter of faith and the Church can force no one to believe it. When I ask myself how I believe, I have no satisfactory answer at all, no assurance at all, no feeling at all. I can only say with Peter (sic), Lord I believe, help my unbelief. And all I can say about my love of God is, Lord help me in my lack of it.