This past weekend, I went with my friends Andy and Aaron to Washington DC for John Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.
It was a pretty sweet time. The rally was a ton of fun. Crazy costumes, hilarious show with a really good message (don't believe anything you may have heard on the news about the rally).
The main theme of the rally, in my opinion, has two parts. First, the fear/sanity part. Stephen Colbert played the antagonist, talking about how there are all these things to be afraid of, showing clips of people in the media freaking out about all kinds of ridiculous things, including something about flip-flops and spiders. John Stewart played the protagonist, arguing that the media blows things way out of proportion, and, even though there are things to fear, that the American people can overcome the problems we have. The other theme was how people in America work together "every damn day" despite our racial/ethnic/socioeconomic/political/etc. differences, and that the only place where people don't work together is the media and in government. It was pretty legit. (And contrary to what Fox News says, the crowd of 200,000 people was pretty tame and accepting of everyone).
I thought it was great. We all do work together every day. It felt in some ways unifying to hear it. We can disagree on many things, but still be on the same team. Liberal, conservative, black, white, purple, other, Christian, Muslim, Jew, atheist, man, woman, straight, gay, unsure, tall, short, whatever...we are all people and we all matter.
This all being said, I did feel a bit out-of-place at times. I was out of the Bible Belt. Most people were not Christians. And though I probably agree with most of these liberal folks on many things and admire them for their activism and (whether altruistic or not) concern for things like the environment, poverty, etc., my beliefs about God are very different.
And all weekend, God felt fake. I felt like my beliefs were ridiculous and silly.
It's interesting how God feels real when I'm around lots of Christians, and fake when I'm around lots of people who don't believe in Jesus.
I know God is real. I was weak this past weekend, but I'm not questioning the truth of God. I am, however, questioning my faith, in a good way. I wish I was more exposed to the world outside of Christianity. I wish I had more experience with the "trial" of following something against the majority, which would build up perseverance in me for when I feel ridiculous for believing in Christ.
It's important to have a community of believers. But it's also important to be strong in your faith when that community is momentarily absent.
Praying for more experience in this particular trial, in order to build up my faith.
