Two books I read almost one after the other was Paul Wallace's "Stars Beneath Us" and Mike McHargue's "Finding God in the Waves." Both books are about losing faith in God and rediscovering faith and how science and the Christian faith intersect each other. I read Wallace's book first which focused on the story of Job. A very fitting parallel since most people find themselves on an ash heap like Job in some great crises and rise out of the ashes with a bigger view of both God and reality. Wallace is an astrophysicist and loves how God takes Job on a cosmic tour. Job's faith and view of reality and God are changed by the great suffering he endures through.
Mike McHargue says its his study of neuroscience that brings him back to God. The mysteries of the brain and how it points us to God consolidated Mikes faith but I would argue it was a mystical experience of meeting God in the waves of the ocean one night that changed Mike life forever. He still has the mind of an atheist but his heart is now for God. Each one of these books is biographical in nature that speaks of the divergent journeys people take through faith, doubt, and faith again. When one goes through the darkness and comes back into the light, their faith and how they live and believe are transformed greatly by these mystical intuitions and experiences we have with God's presence and the mystery of God's universe.
What I keep discovering is God is always present to us be we are not always present to God. We often kill God through bad religion and atheism is often generated from bad theism. Mystical awareness is where we wake up to the constant presence of God in our lives. God enlightens our imaginations, purifies our perceptions, and bring us into union with all reality. I resonate with the Catholic writer Ronald Rolheiser who said, "Death brings about final purification, not by making us as cosmic angels who no longer have bodies, but by making us pan-cosmic spirits with the entire cosmos for a body" (Shattered Lantern, p.90).
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