Lately I feel like I don't believe in God.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not giving up yet. But winter gets me down so much, makes everything grey and flat and meaningless, so that I don't believe in God and I don't even care. The only thing keeping me from throwing in the towel on what has heretofore given my life its only meaning is a small Katie-shaped puppet, a talking head, in my brain admonishing me, "Remember? This has happened before. Trust what you know--that summer will come back and you'll see the world right again."

To which I nod and sigh, "Okay, puppet. Whatever you say." I must really be apathetic; I'm agreeing with voices in my head.

Tonight, with the small group, I watched a Rob Bell video: "Everything is Spiritual." I was reminded of Eddie Izzard in the way Rob is a gesturer--lots of movements and miming. He also starts at the beginning of everything (literally, Genesis) and spins out a bunch of random, highly interesting facts, all of which he connects masterfully by the very end. Also, he's funny. Just like Eddie, minus the lipstick.

Rob was talking about how God created the world, and how he rested at the end of it, and how the sun/moon/stars bit is right in the center (in Hebrew chiastic poetry, the center is important), and how these celestial bodies are the way we measure time--days, weeks, seasons. And he goes into how seasons are important to God. There are seasons of creating, and seasons of resting. And how God crafted it that way to remind us that we're human, not machine--part matter, part spirit. We need rest now and then.

These seasons, which can be the bane of my existence at times, are here for my good . . . er, right? It sure doesn't feel like it sometimes. Especially since, as a teacher, I've got it all backwards. In the winter, when I'm supposed to be hibernating and rejuvenating, I'm actually expected to have my highest output--lecturing, planning, grading. And in the summer, the time of creativity, life, abundance . . . that's when I get to rest, to go dormant. It doesn't seem quite fair.

I was talking to Kirk Brown about this today. Fairness, and God, and my whole existential apathy of late. "Where did we get this idea of fairness, if not from God?" he asked. Good question, Kirk. I don't have an answer. All I have lately are a bunch of complaints about what's not fair. Not really where I want to be, but here I am.

The sad thing is that, by and large, it's not okay to talk about these kinds of questions in our church. Many people I know would rather hear about financial, relational, sexual, or even drug-related difficulties than my spiritual struggles. Those have pat answers. Spiritual problems leave many people walking away puzzled and condescending: "Wow, I thought she was a better Christian than that."

In our Adventist neck of the Christian woods, it seems like happiness and peace are markers of one's spiritual walk. If I'm doubting Scripture, here's a Bible text to calm and quell those pesky questions. If I'm afraid there's no God, pray harder to him for answers. Read more, pray more, and all will be okay. The flip side of that is if everything isn't okay, then I must not be reading or praying enough. Is that the God I don't feel like I believe in?

What I wish I had was an Adventist model of believing doubt. Someone who says (and lives) that it's okay to not know, to not hear God's voice, to even question his existence at times. Other Christian denominations have these role models. Fyodor Dostoevsky. Henri Nouwen. C. S. Lewis. Heck, even Mother Teresa, as we've lately found out, had years of doubt--and she's a saint, for crying out loud!

I know that Ellen White was trying to lead a church, encouraging them to believe and trust God more, and showing them the glorious and uplifting experience she had with God, but it would be nice if, somewhere, in some obscure letter or memoir, she admitted to dark times of doubt and disbelief herself. And maybe she does and I just haven't read that volume of the Testimonies. But all I hear are quotes where she says that if I don't feel close to Jesus, it's because I haven't been having daily worship. It would be nice to have an Adventist role model whose favorite hymn wasn't "Tis Love that Makes Us Happy," or "There's Sunshine in My Soul Today," but "Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior"--where one can sing my current favorite line in the whole Bible . . . "Help my unbelief."

There are a few corporations of which I'm a total fan: Wells Fargo, Apple, and Taco Bell. Wells Fargo I've already written about on this blog. Apple is a no-brainer. My computer is like the best kind of boyfriend; I'm still physically and mentally attracted to it, even now, after one and a half years (we have a fulfilling relationship, me and Mac). Taco Bell is what I'd like to gush about today.

There are no Taco Bells in South Korea. When I worked there, I had a recurring dream that, while I was on a field trip with my preschoolers, our bus passed a Taco Bell and we all got off and I bought my kids their first taste of a truly American food. Once a friend of mine was invited to the U.S. military base in Itaewon (technically on U.S. soil) and brought me back a burrito from the Taco Bell there. I wasn't at home when she delivered it, so she gave it to my neighbor, a co-worker of mine, to give to me later. He ate it. When he told me this the next day ("I thought it would go bad!," he said, to which I replied, "You have a refrigerator!"), I went to the bathroom and cried a few homesick and self-pitying tears.

One of my favorite feelings in the world is being super-hungry and eating a warm, well-made Taco Bell bean burrito. You know what I mean by well made--the beans, sauce, and cheese are evenly mixed, no layering of tastes but a perfect blend. I almost always experience this feeling in a car, on a road trip, because I hardly ever eat fast food unless I'm on the road. It's imperative that I be VERY hungry for this trick to work its mojo; for a full or semi-full Katie, a bean burrito is just food. Good food, but ultimately just tortilla, beans, sauce, onions, and cheese.

But to a hungry Katie, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The very smell of the burrito makes me salivate; the comforting weight of it, solid yet squishy, in the belly, is ambrosia. When I'm starving, the burrito itself takes on an almost holy aura; it's wonderful to want something that much and then satisfy my desire. This is food at its greatest, when spirit and matter combine to raise one's consciousness to a higher level of euphoria.

After that spiritual experience, I almost always come down to earth with a more solidly material (but still satisfying) 7-layer Burrito or a Baja Chalupa, no meat. (Even I admit, Taco Bell meat is straight-up gross.)