3 posts tagged “religion”
Yesterday, my dear friend Derrick asked a question that I've been battling with in stages for the past six years.
In a discussion on religion and faith, I told Derrick that I considered myself more spiritual than religious. It's been the safer answer for me coming from a family that has been Christian and remains so. Not because I question if there is a God. I've actually got a pretty firm understanding of my beliefs in that regard. I am not an atheist. I don't judge those who are, but for me, living without the belief that there is a divine meaning and order to my existence would suck the wind out of my writing, my art and all the places my mind travels while I am still.
I do believe in God. More specifically, I believe in a divine influence and a malevolent one. As a child growing up with Episcopalian & Baptist parents while attending a Catholic school, I got more Jesus than you could shake a stick at. And elements of each were unspeakably beautiful to me. Wandering the mysterious, solemn halls of the sisters convent at Cecilian Academy back in Philadelphia, I learned restraint. I understood charity. I learned fear. I was immersed in tradition and the overwhelming sensation of being in the presence of something bigger than all of us.
In the quiet of my mother's childhood Episcopalian church as a very little girl, I fell in love with a Pastor I called, "Church." And years later I still adore that Pastor with all my heart and feel a twinge of anxiety when I face the fact that I am no longer willing to accept everything that falls from his lips as infallibly correct.
In my Grandmother's home, in her serene grace and quiet reverence, I learned forgiveness, tolerance and endurance.
So how do I find myself today looking back on the dogma of all those subsets of the Christian faith and embracing a term that is a little more nebulous than the more stringent "religious?"
Religion = Church. And let's be clear. I don't have any issues with God. I do, however, have issues with organized religion. Lots of them. Too many of them for me to include in a solitary post. But even as a child, the one thing that stood out to me in bible study, in mass, in christian summer camp and in the pew...was this book, our Bible, no matter the version, was God's word interpreted by the very fallible, the very flawed and the very power starved human. How many times have we all "misperceived" something in the favor of our preferences? Our needs? Our desires? Our biases?
When I was 16, my Uncle committed suicide. He had just entered the full blown stage of AIDS. And he was a gay male with a homophobic father. While my mother received the news, I was sitting on the couch in the livingroom, listening to her wails of heartache echoing down from the bedroom above my head. My grandfather entered the house about twenty minutes later, sat beside me and took my hand. I've always been an extremely private mourner and even with that, I have an odd acceptance of death - even when it is horrific and unexpected. Still, I was shaken and trying to process what came next all while wanting desperately to go to my mother and console her. My grandfather looked me over, reserved and solemn as he asked me if I was okay. I nodded.
My grandfather then patted my hand and remarked, "I know it's upsetting to you, but you know your Uncle has gone to hell, right?"
I still hear it in my ears today. And it still sounds as wrong as it did then. I didn't answer him in that moment and though I adored my grandfather for all that he was, I still was well aware of all he was not. To my grandfather, my Uncle was going to hell for three reasons. He was a gay man, he was a practicing Buddhist and he had ended his life. All sins, according to what my grandfather learned. All sins, according to his religion. That moment reminded me of all the other moments when the topic of God felt religious...but not at all spiritual.
Spirituality = Aspiring to Enlightenment. In a variety of beliefs, I see the themes of divinity that speak to me. The notion of Gaia. Of an earthen mother who loves us, nurtures us and requires in return only our care for this gifts she has bestowed. I adore the notion of Earth as a single, living organism. The concept of karma as deeds that all warrant a subsequent action based on the intention of the originating act. I love conceptional representations of faith that do not use emotional manipulation, fear or shame to drive positive behavior. I don't want to be "good" because I'm going to go to hell if I don't. I don't want to give, to avoid being frowned upon by those I respect. I don't seek forgiveness with hopes I will collect golden crowns in heaven. I want only to live my life with a purpose that speaks to love, light and goodness because it feels better than nursing anger or living in darkness.
There is no big bad wolf with spirituality - no threat beyond the repurcussions of your own actions and the understanding that in all things there is balance. There is only the raw ugliness of the human spirit that we see everyday in the face of war, greed and even apathy. Religion uses fear to control, largely because it fails to have faith in its own kind. It suspects what it asks of us is simply too much (or too ridiculous) for us to possibly embrace, so we are instead ruled by fear, fire and brimstone. Religion is the scarecrow to our murder.
I celebrate the neopaganistic appreciation for the changing of the seasons and the transitions they bring all of us. I love the idea of life and spirit being alive in the trees, in every blooming flower. I love frankincense and sage and smudging myself and my home to cleanse my spiritual palate and prepare me for meditation. I love the deep, hynotising patience of the Hindus, the reverence to gods feels similar to the notion of saints. I love the tenets of the Buddhist faith and it's commitment to spiritual evolution.
I love spirituality. And I consider myself to be deeply spiritual. But religious?
I'm afraid not.
I've been thinking a lot about spirituality as of late.
I was raised Baptist, but during my lifetime I've also attended Episcopalian, Catholic and Presbyterian churches. I attended Catholic school for nine years. I dated a man in my youth who was on his way to becoming an ordained minister. He has since become a Evangelical leader of several churches. And I shake my head in silence when I know what I know of him and others like him.
There is so much spiritual crisis in this world. It's overwhelming.
These days, I have taken to classifying myself as Spiritual, but not Religious. And I've been asking myself, what lead me to that point? Was it years of seeing people falter in their own faith? Was it watching others lie about their true natures while quoting scripture, bible thumping and making very visible overtures so that they would be regarded as "good Christians?" Was it the observation of people professing to be strong in their faith only to castigate others repeatedly for walking their own path to spiritual enlightenment? Was it the strict limitations some placed on faith and spiritual laws that would tell me that my Uncle was in hell because he was homosexual...and Buddhist? Was it that the people offering advisement on how to be a better Christian seemed unable to take their own advice?
For the past several weeks, I've been reuniting my spiritual self with the Pastor who has owned my heart and earned the title "spiritual teacher" since I was five years old. I have only but to see him, hear his voice and I nearly feel like I'm communing with God. He ministered at my Grandfather's funeral a few years back. I'll never forget that day. I hadn't seen him since I was in my early teens...and so much in my life had happened since then. Things I told everyone. Things I told no one. When he appeared in the doorway of the funeral home, I was overwhelmed by the feelings that slammed into my chest. Joy. Shame. Guilt. Love. Humility. Fear. A sense of being so completely lost. I crashed into his embrace, completely unintelligible, and unable to stop babbling as I sobbed. Not for the loss of my grandfather. For the loss of something deeper. My innocence. Specifically, my innocence in my faith. I thought in that moment, if this is but a fraction of what I will feel regarding this man of God...how in the world am I going to come undone before God?
I still have so many questions. So much of the Bible, I believe is tainted with the bias and motivation of man. I find myself wondering constantly what is truly God's law...and what is man's interpretation of it (and was that interpretation designed for his own gain). I remind myself that the basic rules are simple in the most complicated of ways. But then I also listen to hundreds of different experts who each interpret fine language a hundred different ways. Which is right? And am I allowed to trust my own sense of what I'm being taught? Or am I negotiating with God to make it more palatable?
I'll admit, I tend to frown on those who profess a blind and unyielding embrace to all they are taught in church. I frown when people use the popular catchphrases to demonstrate that they are down with the spiritual cause. I frown when people make a big production of their faith. I question if it's about truly loving and serving God, or simply being seen as loving and serving God.
We live in a very visible world where many of us spend the bulk of our time trying to "appear" to be certain things without actually applying the same weight in actual effort. Being seen as something, offers immediate and surface gratification. Good parents. Caring spouses. Flashy professionals. Brilliant thinkers. God fearing, spiritual souls. Funny, charming, people about town. But at the end of each day, when we stop posturing and posing and talking and listening to ourselves talk and planning how to keep up the parade each day...we are left with our truest beliefs. Our understanding of who are. What truly is most important to us. What we value. Sometimes, we're truthful with ourselves in those moments of quiet undisturbed reflection. I'm willing to bet most of the time, we aren't.
If there is so much out there, that can be interpreted so many different ways...do you ever know what you truly, truly, truly believe in? One of the things, I love so dearly about my childhood Pastor, is his assertion that believing in anything, means careful, deep introspection. Soul searching. Taking a belief and finding it's resonance within. It means asking difficult questions. No walk of faith, in my opinion, is fully traveled unless you are completely willing to ask yourself...what do I believe in? What do my actions, thoughts, words and habits indicate I believe in? Do they ever match?
I don't always agree with everything I've been taught about religion. I am a Christian, but I can appreciate the beauty and spiritual integrity of other faiths. I think we get lost in classifying the differences to the point of ignoring the overriding similarities. I guess a few of our missions during our time in this life include: 1) identify what we choose to believe, 2) be willing to explore it, review it and study it to learn all we can, 3) aspire to be the best people we can be, based on those beliefs.
Its probably the most significant thing we could ever do. And I don't think at the end of that journey it's going to be about all the ways you said you believed. I think it's going to be about all the times your actions proved that you did. The actions no one sees, but you and whoever you hold yourself accountable to.
A nugget of wisdom that Pastor passed on to me:
Don't waste time trying to impress your faith on me. Just make sure you believe it with every fiber of your being.
Thy will be done.
She knocked on my door, cold and puffy eyed. How could I turn away a friend in tears? I stepped aside, got off the phone and made a place for her on the sofa. She's always strong as a rock this one. Young, but a wise soul who has taught me more than I have been able to teach her. She started clicking together legos (didn't I tell you those lil jewels are therapeutic) and tried to piece her thoughts together among reds, yellows, blues and greens.
"God spoke to me this morning, gave me some insight." She offered finally. She glanced up at me furtively to see if I would offer any recognition or say, "hey, me too!" When I did neither, she continued. "I was watching this sermon this morning on television and the pastor was talking about relationships and how to heal them. That we have to be willing to listen, and to apologize when we're wrong." She went to explain some other elements of the sermon.
I already knew where she was going, perhaps better than she did, She broke up with a guy about four months ago. And on our way to have lunch on Saturday she mentioned how proud she was that she had been able to keep her commitment to staying away from him. This came across as an indication that lately he was on her mind. She had been reflecting a lot on the past lately, which for her means she's still not at peace with her decision.
She proceeds to tell me she knew that sermon was for her. It was God's way of telling her she needed to contact him, and to really make peace with their closure, she needed to apologize to him - for any wrongs she may have committed and communicate that she also was forgiving him. My look of dubious disbelief sprang to my face before I could stop it. She stopped mid sentence, then proceeded to the end of her nicely package deliverance.
"Did your parting end particularly badly?" I thought back and remembered the mature way she told him what she was looking for in a relationship and how he carefully explained he didn't want a relationship at that point in his life. I struggled to sort out what she needed to apologize for.
She shook her head. I paced her through a series of questions about any ill words, deceitful actions or angry tirades or accusations she might have made. She answered, no, no, no and no. I struggled to find where she needed to make amends. She answered she wasn't sure about what...but God was clearly telling her she had to do it.
I chewed on my words thoughtfully. I didn't want to sit on them, but I did want to choose them wisely. "You've been talking a lot about him lately. So I know how much he must be churning around in your mind. You've still got some feelings, because you're still angry. Is this call about closure...or is this call about something else?"
She stared at me with blank eyes. "What do you mean?"
I waited. "Is this about you just wanting to call to initiate a conversation in which you can feel him out? See how he's feeling now? See if maybe there's something left other than goodbye?"
She shook her head adamantly. "No. I don't want to talk to him, that's just it. I hate having to do this. But I realize now that this is what God wants me to do. And so I have to set a strong example to him of what a proper goodbye is, and that's when I'll really have my closure. I just want to say, I forgive you...I hope you can forgive me..and we can finally be done with this."
"Doesn't that fact that you've been out of touch for months after you both said goodbye indicate that you both are done?" I asked. She shook her head again. I studied her face. She grew angry. Defensive. Didn't want to talk about it anymore. I told her I'd support her as her friend no matter the choice she made. And I will.
But I tell you...what I "heard" was....He's on my mind. It's the holidays, I miss him - but I'm ashamed to say I miss him because the world will think me a fool for it. I need to hear his voice. I need to hear if he's as done as I wish I was. I need to call him, to know for sure. I need not to just say that though, because I don't want to have to defend my logic. So, I will wrap God around it. Make this desire not my wish, but God's want. And you won't dare dispute that. Not if you call yourself a believer in HIM.
God may want closure, but what she wants is another chance.
Thy will be done.
The danger with trying to interpret God too heavily, is the temptation to make your thoughts his commands. In the name of God, we can find the motivation to do many things. And oft times, God's will didn't have a thing to do with it.
