Sharing

I feel like sharing today, so please leave your debate hats at home and read with a loving heart. I'll apologize in advance for the length. If you're looking for a quick light-hearted read, you might want to try the next blog in your list.

A friend recently asked me if I had visited a church I had mentioned wanting to try. It's a Unity church, and the friend commented that her understanding is that they say everyone can believe what they want and lets just all be friends.

I haven't tried this church yet, because I hate going new places by myself and haven't yet roped someone into going with me, but I want to...mainly because they are so open to all beliefs. I haven't been to church regularly for about 10 years now. I was very involved in my church in high school, always going to youth group, participating in the praise and worship team on Sunday mornings, leading junior high youth, volunteering for the youth director, etc. I was on a spiritual high. I went through some rough patches my senior year, which may or may not have been related to this spiritual high. I'm still figuring that out. When I got to college, though, I never found a church home. I tried a few churches in the area, but they all made me feel wrong. That feeling has plagued me to this day whenever I attend church, even the church I attended in high school. I just feel anxious and defensive, like someone's going to hit me from behind.

Something changed in me. I think it might be that I finally had to find my own spiritually instead of going along with the crowd. That's not to say I didn't feel all those feelings I had in high school...I was committed down to my soul. I think I relied to heavily on what I had been taught growing up and never had really questioned what it was I believed. Being on my own at college, where no one cared if I went to church or not, made me finally question what it is I felt.

My freshman year of college, I took this general education course called Religion and Meaning. One of the things that I clearly remember is a discussion on how people use religion to define their world. It is a tool. My interpretation of this is that long ago, people knew there was a deity and wanted to honor that deity. Man seems to have been more simple in the beginning...life was lived on the first level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs (food, shelter, sleep etc.). As man became more complex, he also started needing more guidance. How do I honor this deity? Do I talk to it? Do I bow down? Then those guidelines needed more guidelines. If I bow down, do I close my eyes? Do I use certain names for this deity when I talk to it? And so on and so forth...

I concluded that religion was the tool developed to help answer these questions and meet man's need for specific guidelines. How else would you know if you were doing it right? I can understand this need, and I say this not to belittle religion. For something we cannot see or hear in the physical sense, you gotta have some way of knowing what it is you're suppose to do to get it right.

So if religion is a tool, and there are hundreds of religions with thousands of variation throughout the ages, how do you know which one is right? I grew up Christian, believing that Jesus is the Son of God and through his sacrifice saved our souls if we accept it. I believe this is true and that these events happened. I have come to believe, though, that these are not the only souls that are with God after we die. I haven't studied other religions in depth yet, but from what I've read about so far, I just cannot say "that's not right." How would I know? One of the fundamental things in the Bible is that we cannot know God's master plan or fathom His ways. If that's the case, then how do I know He didn't actually create the world using a big explosion? How do I know He didn't create a whole bunch of religions that would appeal to a whole bunch of different kinds of people (He did bust up the party and make everyone speak different languages with that whole Tower of Babel deal). I'm sure people have arguments for these things, but my answer is how do I, me personally, know? I have taken to heart that you shouldn't put God in a box. If He really is all powerful, He COULD feasibly have done these things.

I like possibilities. It's optimistic and hopeful. I was introduced to some ideas several years ago that I first was freaked out by. I had been brought up that things like astrology and healing with crystals or energy was weird and maybe even of the occult. I was open minded enough though to read about them and make an informed decision. Nowhere did I read that you have to denounce belief in a higher being to believe any of this. That's where my search through the possibilities started. I believe God created the stars. Why couldn't He have a plan for how they are placed in the sky in relation to each other and how the planets move around? Why can't people have the ability to study them and maybe give themselves a little guidance for moving forward? Those wise men followed a star to Bethlehem, right? That's not to say that I read my horoscope everyday to see whether to leave the house. I do think it's interesting to see that my birth chart predicted that I would go through a major personal change in my late teens (totally happened). If I would have known that before, maybe it would have reassured me that this is something I was meant to go through to change myself instead of being freaked out when it hit.

So where does all this leave me spiritually? People talk about having faith. Faith to me is a decision based on logic and emotion. If something doesn't sit right or make sense, when how can you have faith? I come to my conclusions that the things that settle comfortably in my mind and soul will be the things I will believe.

I don't really fit anywhere at the moment as far as organized religion goes, and I'm okay with that. This blog is about my journey through this life, and I think one of my major paths is finding my spiritual place. I can't say if I'll ever find a landing spot, and I don't know that I want to really. My beliefs should be challenged everyday to make sure they're my own. I have never felt more comfortable than I am right now in this muddle. I do know this...I believe in a higher being that I call God. I believe God does have multiple facets, including a mother God side that provides us with the comforting, empathetic love we need as well as the father God side that provides guidance. I believe we are all here for a purpose. I believe our souls come to this earth many times, each time hoping to learn something specific and grow. I believe we chart our course before we get here with the goal of learning that specific thing, but that our course can be altered by the decisions we make when we get here. I believe we are not alone down here. We have God and other souls from "home" helping us as well as the earth-bound souls we wanted to cross paths with down here. I'm sure I have some other specific beliefs, but I'll wrap this up.

I have this internal discussion with myself often, and it helps me to clarify my beliefs to myself. I share this with you, because

1. I think friends shouldn't be afraid to share themselves with each other.
2. I'm not ashamed of my beliefs. I just don't like confrontation, so I don't talk about it since it's such a heated subject.
3. If it causes even one person to think through their own beliefs and make sure they are making an informed decision, it was worth it.
4. It was my next step to start voicing my beliefs to more than just myself, and I will admit I'd rather this be a one-way conversation at this point.

I'm not opposed to talking about anything of this in person. If you are interested in how I came about any of my ideas, I'm happy to share with you. If while reading this you came up with points you could debate, keep it to yourself. To me, there are two things never to discuss: religion and politics. You can't change someone's mind just by talking about it, so why create a bunch of useless tension? These discussions should only happen because both parties want to explore the possibilities the other has to share. I think I've said enough about this for the moment.