I’m invested in spirituality, not religion or dogma. No matter how my parents protest, I wasn’t raised in a religious household. Although we celebrated Christmas and Easter, didn’t eat fish on Good Friday, and prayed before meal and bedtimes, I was never taught scripture. We went to church once, a passion play. I was four years old. I cried until my parents took me home. “Why are they beating that man?” I wouldn’t get a sufficient answer until later in life. As a kid, I knew God lived in the sky and Jesus helped the poor and died on the cross. That was it.
Then grandparents began to pass away. My parents, lapsed Catholics soured to the Church by a priest who insisted they were marrying for lust, began to attend church services once more. I didn’t go at first. I was intimidated. God was like a club from which I’d been excluded. Yet, even if an invitation were extended, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a member.
Tired of feeling like an outsider, the summer of my freshmen year of college I picked up my parents’ Bible and read it cover to cover. My life changed.
I didn’t fully understand what I read. Yet, the concept that stuck was that something out there was watching over me. It loved me, wanted me to do well. So, I prayed for things. I got them in rapid succession: a girlfriend, a major that was right for me, writing awards, straight As. Everything lined up bam-bam-bam.
My prayers became more outlandish. I wanted more.
Family members died, family drama ensued. It drove me nuts. Writing got tougher. Relationships became harder to manage. I read different spiritual texts, not wanting to understand them, but for them to tell me how to get what I wanted. I thought there was something wrong with me. Maybe I had somehow earned God’s disfavor. Maybe I was Job. Maybe this religious stuff was all bullshit. Ultimately, I lost belief.
The truth is I lost belief in myself.
I’m glad I did. To quote Kabbalah, “How is wisdom found without first stumbling over it?” For me, this stumbling has been essential. It’s opened my eyes. I’ve realized prayers are not always answered and even if they are, it doesn’t mean your personal deity answered them. In fact, it most likely means you believed enough in yourself to get the job done. I don’t necessarily believe there is some great being watching over us all day, loving us, making sure we’re doing okay. Some days are just better than others. And I don’t believe there is some kind of cloudy toga party or fiery inferno awaiting us after death. I live in the present. Yes, I look to the future, but as Buddha says, “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” Yet, there is still something mystical about our world, some dream-like reality I find woven into our everyday, physical, plain Jane lives of “reason.” Since the belief systems that have grown throughout history are so intrinsic to our species’ development, and can enrich lives if one don’t dismiss all of it as bullshit in an effort to be “right,” I can’t ignore them.
This summer I’ve read religious text after religious text, from the Bible to the Bhagavad-Gita to God is Not Great and many, many more. I’ve pursued scholarly articles, discussions, and histories to supplement my understanding. I’ve found it fascinating. Most eye-opening has been the scholarly views that eschew the scriptural literalism of the crazies we see every day (May 21st, 2011, the day we all had a good laugh) in favor of truth. My respect and understanding has been elevated not only for these texts’ ideas, but for their impact on literature and thought.
I’ll be sharing my findings piece-by-piece. Don’t expect them to be in chronological order or grouped by faiths. I’ll start with Genesis in the Old Testament, move to Buddhism, Kabbalah, etc. What is most important is not to prove which religion is right or wrong (a futile exercise), but to help more people understand what has become garbled. “Wisdom is the path to enlightenment,” Buddha says. I just want to turn on some damn lights.
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