(This weblog creates, for us all, a chance to meet at the interaction of Life and the New Spirituality. It is written by the author of Conversations with God, the worldwide best-selling series of books. The “New Spirituality” is defined by the author as “a new way to experience and express our natural impulse toward the Divine without making others wrong for the way in which they are doing it.”)

HIGHLIGHTS OF TODAY’S BLOG…
* A birthday gift: It’s okay to doubt God
* The heart rending story of Mother Teresa
* Jesus disappeared from her reality
* The dark night of the soul

Even saints have their doubts.
Maybe, especially saints…
And so I certainly do.
One of the questions I most frequently hear is, “Neale, do you have any doubt that you have actually had a conversation with God?” My answer is always the same. “Yes, of course I do. The day that I stop having doubts is the day that I become dangerous. And I have no intention of becoming dangerous.”
Today is the celebration of my birth, 64 years ago. It does not seem to me as though I am 64. It seems as though the numbers got inadvertently reversed. It’s a typo, a slip of the fingers on the keyboard. I’m actually 46. Right. Right?
That’s certainly how I feel. And even younger. Especially in my mind. And in my heart. And my soul feels so…eternal.
And yet, on this day especially, among all the days of the year, I find myself looking back over the whole of my life, and exploring it in my mind, piece by piece, event by event (certainly, all of the major ones), and looking deeply at the single most important event of my life — which is, of course, my conversation with God.
Is it real? Is it what it seems to be? Of course it is. Unless it’s not.
I have doubts. Sometimes.
Sometimes I think I made it all up. Not as a piece of deliberate fiction, mind you. But just as a part of my mental journey. I mean, what if there really is no God? Or what if there IS…but that this God would never in a million years talk to regular human beings like you and me? Or what if God DOES talk to human beings, but that we continually mis-hear, misunderstand what is being said?
I was musing about all of this a while back when I saw an extraordinary news story. It was about Mother Teresa and her struggle with faith. DId you see this one? It said that…

…Mother Teresa was so doubtful of her own faith that she feared she was being a hypocrite, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips. In a new book that compiles letters she wrote to friends, superiors and confessors, her doubts are obvious, the news story from CBS said.
The world has been shocked by what the CBS story went on to say.
Reporting on the new book, CBS says that shortly after beginning work in Calcutta’s slums, the spirit leaves Mother Teresa. “Where is my faith?” she writes. “Even deep down … there is nothing but emptiness and darkness. … If there be God — please forgive me.”
Eight years later, the CBS report said, she’s still looking for the belief she’s lost.
“Such deep longing for God,” she writes. “… repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal.” As her fame increased, her faith refused to return. Her smile, she says, is a mask.
“What do I labor for?” she asks. “If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true,” CBS reports the book says.
The book was compiled by a Catholic priest from the letters which had been kept in an archbishop’s house. Teresa wrote the letters to friends and superiors through the years. It was her wish that the letters be destroyed upon her death, but church authorities apparently decided that they were too valuable, offering insight into the internal struggle for faith of even the most saintly among us — and acting, therefore, as a source of courage and hope for the rest of us.

I, for one, am glad they made that decision…and I feel at some level at the essence of Mother Teresa is happy, too, if others have gained strength from now observing her journey.
I sure have. What a wonderful gift to know that the apparently strongest among us in faith had severe, serious doubts about the most fundamental truths.
We can now all move forward, comfortable in our discomforts. I feel certain that my conversations with God were just that, and I always feel that way — except when I don’t…
Whew. Good news! I get to doubt, guilt-free.
Gee, did I ever doubt that?
(Ha!)
And so, on to another year. Looking forward to its gifts and its joys! And YOU make it a great day, even if it’s NOT your birthday!