"When the bottom falls out..."

I've been reading a large number of spiritual memoirs or autobiographies lately, and yesterday I finished one entitled My Faith So Far: A Story of Conversion and Confusion by Patton Dodd. Like Renee Altson's Stumbling Toward Faith, Dodd's story doesn't resolve. And, I have to admit to a great deal of confusion regarding my thoughts on what he had to say about his faith journey, about the Christian church, and especially about the charismatic portion of the church.

However, I do want to share some excerpts from his last chapter with you. While I'm not as much in this place at the moment, I certainly have been here in the last few years, and even in the last few months, and I found his comments insightful. I've pared them down, giving you only a few sentences here and there. He expounds on each of these thoughts somewhat longer than what I've chosen to include. However, you'll get the gist of what he was experiencing from what I'm including here.


When the bottom falls out you free-fall. You clutch and grab. You scan about for some place to stand, some small piece of firm ground.

Whn the bottom fall out, you form a new library. "Read this book" people suggest, offering C.S. Lewis or Max Lucado or the Pope...

When the bottom falls out, hands are laid on. The accompanying prayer can be a deep and lasting solace, but it can also aggravate because the way things are prayed only adds to the questions...

When the bottom falls out, the Bible is an unwieldy book that is impossible to read. You read it anyway because you feel guilty if you don't...

When the bottom falls out, you realize that all your questions are banal. They are overasked... People tell ou that Christians have been struggling with these questions for years, and you can see that, yes, it is true. But why do the questions persist? Why do they feel so vital?...

When the bottom falls out, you stay home Friday nights and pray. You fall on your face and scream to God for mercy, for a supernatural gift of faith. You ask why what used to come so simply now has to be so hard. Was it something you did? You ask for some assurance, some indication of His presence...

When the bottom falls out, you are not sure how to conduct yourself in worship services...

When the bottom falls out, you fantasize about what life might be like if you had no faith...

When the bottom falls out, you want to reconstruct it however you can.
(My Faith so Far, pages 155-157)

This section was perhaps the most insightful of Dodd's entire book. Would I reccomend the book? I'm not sure. It was an interesting read, raises valuable questions, particularly about the charismatic movement. It was an easy read - I polished it off in an afternoon and an evening. Dodd's writing style is straightforward, if occasionally complicated by theological and scholarly language. But, it left me unsatisfied. I'm all for not resolving everything in one grand "my world's now perfect" chapter, but I wish Dodd had given some indication of how he was seeking to answer his own questions - of how he had continued to live a life of faith, despite the "bottom falling out." In short, I would have liked a Stumbling Toward Faith type of ending - some hope that this faith is something that can be valuable and lived, in the midst of the unresolved. Worth reading? Yes. But unsatisfying.