Confession of Faith (Inspiration from Masters)

I was writing a sort of love letter yesterday and it came absolutely natural to me that I incorporated God, disguised as a painter though, in that piece. I mean, some 3 years ago this would have been unthinkable. Like most Czechs, I considered myself atheist. When I slowly started approaching my faith, and this process I think became tangible here in Malaysia, I realized it would be a long-distance run. People either acquire religion (not necessarily faith I suspect) from their parents as they grow up in a religious environment or else have to think and reason their way through to God. And for an analytical mind this turns out to be an arduous trek as it is often about giving up the analytical bit and in a sense trying to reverse the analytical approach: understand to believe!

That is why I recently bought a couple of books that I had been craving for a while. First, it is Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis in which he recounts his journey "from a traditional Christian childhood to a youthful atheism and, finally, back to confident Christianity". I want to find out what this icon if Christian literature had to go through and am somewhat pleased to see that struggling was an inevitable part of his 'surprise'.

Second, I bought The Inner Voice of Love by Henri Nouwen which is a sort of secret journal of a Catholic priest and one of the world's best-known spiritual writers which was written when he lost his hope in God and energy to live. I suppose that for anyone who makes themselves so vulnerable that they surrender to God it must bring tremendous anguish to suddenly find themselves deserted. And something is telling me that if I want to tread the same path as C.S. Lewis did I need to be prepared to experience the same pain and misery as Henri Nouwen did.

Finally, since I already embarked on a spending spree, I picked another book by C.S. Lewis - The Four Loves...