First, a disclaimer. I don't actively condone or push any one religion on anybody. If it sounds like it, I'm sorry but I didn't mean to and I don't want to offend anyone. This is strictly my reflection and my internal argument about the whole faith issue. Please don't accuse me of anything here or persecute me for my own beliefs. Thank you. Now, I can go on.
Religion... Faith... Belief.
I turn on the television and am greeted with commercials showing people rushing about. It's that time of year again when people go about trying to find the perfect gift for friends and family members, making plans to be with people they care about and love... Churches are more packed than usual and you know what that means. According to someone I know, it seems like there are a lot of Christians only during two times of the year. One is this holiday season based around Christmas, and the other is Easter. For a long time, that comment never seemed to bother me that much but these days... It irks me that someone like him can say this when not everyone has the same strong belief as him... People like me. And I'm always left wondering now, would he think of me any less because I just feel I can't believe in something as remote as God?
For the past seven years of my relatively short life, I have struggled to find out for myself what theology is all about and how I feel it fits into my life. I am still struggling for that matter, but it wasn't always like that. My household is a Catholic household and one of my earliest memories is going to church every Sunday for mass. And every night before I fell asleep, my mom or dad would remind me to pray to God and I did as I was told. I didn't know back then that there were people out there who didn't go to church or who'd never even heard of the God I'd grown up knowing about. That all came in the future. But now imagine yourself being five years old again. What would you pray for?
I remember thanking God for what I had, like my toys and the house, and my family. I remember sometimes asking for things I wanted, which was usually for more toys and things I wanted for Christmas. But what I remember most is asking that He watch over me and my family. If I asked God for something, it was most likely this. Why? I was afraid of what was on the news. Always one disaster or another. Drought in my younger days... Never ending rain in others... Brushfires, wildfires that couldn't be contained... And of course, living in such close proximity to the infamous San Andreas Fault, earthquakes. I was terrified for my mom who worked at nights. I didn't want her to come home and see that the house had been reduced to rubble with my father and myself and soon my sister still trapped inside. In the daylight, I didn't worry so much with my dad at work because just the fact that there was light and I knew what was going on made me feel a lot better. It was the uncertainty that comes along with night that scared me.
However, there was one night in third grade (amazing how I still remember that, although I'm not sure exactly when) when I was a little more afraid of falling asleep than usual. I remember that my younger sister was already asleep by that time and my mom was watching some TV, waiting for me to fall asleep. As luck would have it, I was as far away from sleeping as I could get. I remember thinking and being scared of not knowing what happened when I fell asleep. I think that's what I hated the most about it, the idea that something big and terrible would happen and I wouldn't know about it until it was too late. Well, that night, I told my mom that I was afraid of going to bed and she told me that I didn't have to be. Why? Because I had my guardian angel watching over me, as well as Mary and Jesus and God... With all those powerful beings watching over me, I needn't be afraid.
Well, what was supposed to be a few comforting words to get me to drift off turned out to frighten me even more. Now, no longer was it natural disasters I feared most. I feared these holy beings that were only supposed to protect me. I didn't like what I couldn't see. I feared what I could not touch for myself then. I only trusted those who I knew to be physically with me. I had my parents. I had a safe home and a safe school to go to. But spirits? Angels? The idea overwhelmed me and even though I brought it up with my mother a few times later growing up, she always made it sound like I was being foolish. She's certain that there are beings out there only meant to help us out, and to fear them would be, not only wrong, but laughable. These days, she works even harder to remind me to pray whenever I'm in trouble or in need of comfort. She tells me personal experiences where she's been watched over. She believes so strongly. I know it'd break her heart if I even hinted at my lack of conviction for Christianity. So all I do is turn the other way so she doesn't see the anger in my eyes when she reminds me once again of my prayers and lie to her when I tell her that I do. Because I don't.
A few more years passed and I didn't dwell on my fear so much anymore. The only times I did think of religion were during those hours when I went to church every Sunday, or those few minutes right before I went to bed, saying my prayers. But then I transferred from a public elementary school to a private, Catholic school. When my parents told me that after graduating from sixth grade I'd be going to HSS instead of joining all my friends at nearby TJHS, I was devastated. 'How could they?', I asked myself countless times. 'Don't they care about me? Don't they want to see me happy with my friends? My friends! What will they think about me?' It wasn't so much as I understood that the education would (supposedly) be better at HSS than at the public school. It was more of the idea of coping without my friends, some of them who I had known since kindergarten. I couldn't bear the thought of going separate ways. But split, we did in the end, as if a twelve year old girl could really stand up to her parents then. Right.
So many emotions ran through me that summer before junior high. I was scared of going to a school where I knew nobody. I was bitter and angry at my parents for telling me what I was going to do, never questioning how I felt. And God? I felt like he'd let me down. When I first stepped onto HSS grounds, knowing that this wasn't just to go to church but to go to school now, I felt like God didn't care. Yes, for purely selfish reasons, I felt like God had turned His back on me and my friends. How could He do this? Didn't he feel my pain?
I cried myself to sleep those first few nights. I missed my friends and made sure to call them every single evening that passed, just to let them know how miserable I was without them and to hear how they missed me. But, as time always passes, so does the pain. After some lonesome weeks, I began to trust this group of thirty-some students that was 'my' class. Maybe I trusted them too much as time went on, but at least I was fitting in somewhat in my own little way.
Seventh grade theology. My first lesson on worldly religions. Can you guess how naïve I was about anything outside of Catholicism or Judaism? Oh sure, I read a bunch of fiction dealing with Native American beliefs and some basic Greek and Roman mythology, but to hear about Buddhists and Muslims, Hindus and others... Too bad I don't remember much of what I learned back then. All I know is that I found myself relating more to some other beliefs than my own. This was when I started questioning what I believed in. The focus was less on why did all the bad stuff seem to happen to me and blaming God for it and more on trying to figure out who God was in my personal life.
For those two years I was at HSS, I participated in a few of the activities, trying to find a way to get closer to the belief I'd grown up believing in. There were masses to plan, homeless to help out (I miss volunteering with the Saint Vincent de Paul group...), and plenty of class opportunities to help us on our spiritual journey... Our eighth grade field trip to Yosemite is a prime example. To be surrounded in nature's glory in the dead of winter... I felt like I had to attribute that wondrous feeling and almost ethereal atmosphere to God. It's not completely that I felt like I had to as much as I actually wanted to then.
But once I left that close-knit community to move on into MCHS, I lost pretty much all connection I had felt with God on a personal level. MCHS was supposed to be another school that'd help me out with the religious journey I was taking but there wasn't much to it, actually. Frosh and sophomore theology classes reinforced things that I'd already learned before. It wasn't until the summer after my sophomore year that I tried something new. My mom had picked up a book at the library on meditating and I began practicing it. Through the first quarter of my junior year, I continued meditating into the middle of second quarter. By the end of December though, I got lazy and stopped doing it as much so that by the end of the month, I didn't meditate at all. Personally, I hadn't really felt a difference, or rather, noticed any difference, but my friends saw it. One spoke to me, telling me that I'd been more relaxed earlier in the year than later. I'd just laughed it off, blaming my stress on SAT's, AP exams, and finals that were looming ahead.
However, during that same year, also in the beginning of the year, I was given a more in depth look on worldly religions when I took my first theology elective: Major Religions. That class was an eye opener for me. Not only did I begin remembering what I had learned in junior high, but I felt a stronger connection between myself and the other, worldly religions that I was studying. Our class activities, which ranged from meditations (I miss being able to stretch out like that, even meditating on my head... all of it was so relaxing...) to writing poetry outside on the football field to just talking with each other about what religion was for all of us opened me up to a bigger world. In one activity, after looking into the eyes of senior students who didn't know a thing about me, we reflected on what we'd seen and what kind of feelings we got about other people. Personally, I'd seen my fellow students as they would appear older, aging slightly before my eyes. But that wasn't what caught my attention, although that revelation had unnerved me for a few moments there. When I stared into the eyes of the people before me, I was trying to see inside them, wanting a feel for their personality. Some people had bright eyes, active minds... There were some who couldn't meet my eye at all. When I looked into my teacher's eyes, I saw wisdom and mirth... A good mix that further told me how much I liked this man as a teacher and a person. Afterward, when we were each reflecting on what we'd seen in each other's eyes, I was too shy to admit what I'd seen to my classmates. After all, half of them were seniors in the class above me. And for my own peers? Well, I was afraid of what they'd think. I didn't know many of them that well, and for my couple of friends... Well, I didn't want to risk anything. But the comments a couple made about me, well... One senior mentioned how she had felt such peace coming from me, reminding her of a "grandmother" type of figure. A few others nodded in agreement and voiced their similar feelings. Even my teacher had commented on how he'd felt when we were staring into each other's eyes. I was shocked. I don't open up to people easily but these strangers already knew more about me than I thought possible in just the minute we gazed into each other's eyes.
This exercise, I think, was tied in with the reincarnation portion of our class (forgive me if I'm wrong. It's been three years after all, so if you remember what it was, please let me know and I'll fix it). Now, some part of me had always connected with the idea of reincarnation. This class further strengthened that belief and idea in me. How else could I explain why I felt so strongly about different cultures after only having read a few books, even short passages only here and there? Or the ideas from where my stories come from? Certainly, my writing takes on a different take on the idea of theology than does Christianity, dealing more with essences and community than a single God to look up to. The idea of past lives would also answer questions about why I click with certain people easier than others, if at all, although I do understand that this is only one possibility.
But now in college, what else could happen except that I become friends with some people who are strong believers of God? It's been difficult not to question why as of yet. Oh, some of us have had our mini-talks already but religion is such a touchy subject. It's not like I don't try to talk to people about my conflicting views, but it's an uncomfortable situation. So as of yet, nothing has led me to really think twice of trying harder to be a "good", better Christian. I mean, this faith is basically all about having "good" morals so that we all have a chance in gaining God's favor to get into heaven after we die, isn't it? I just can't believe that that's all it actually is though. I mean, yes, I believe I have a set of good morals, but just because I've set standards for myself that have been based on what I've been taught before doesn't mean I'm a believer, does it? Christians aren't the only ones to believe that killing is bad or that helping those in need is good. So what does that make me? And I'm certainly not sure about the whole heaven or hell deal concerning afterlife. I just don't see how God can expect humans to learn everything and do everything that could possibly be done to attain such an honor (or punishment, depending on one's destination) in only one lifetime.
All right, so that takes us through what has been influencing my decisions thus far. Now, for you to just read on (if you've already gotten this far and still care to go on) and see what I think about Christianity itself these days.
When I first thought about it, I at first wondered and then hated Christianity for being so full of contradictions and rules. People have to do things to be accepted by God. People are encouraged to go to church if not everyday, then at least once a week to participate in a ritual gathering of common prayer. It's difficult for me to believe how much this belief has changed over the years. From the beginning, it was a Teacher teaching his followers how to be good people with the hopes that in the end, we will be rewarded with eternal life after death. I understand that in order for the word to spread, people must be willing to listen and take His lessons to heart. But to appoint so many people to so many levels just to make sure that people do spread the word? It's a little silly, if you ask me. I guess there has to be a hierarchy of some sort. It's a good idea to have people to lead small groups at a time to discuss what is expected of us, how to reach our goals of fulfillment... But what is up with all the formalities? Everything is so ritualized... There are always specific vestments to wear at specific occasions, formal prayers to learn for special events, praying and kneeling at the appropriate times at mass... Sure, it helps that every time we get together to pray will be the same and that we know what to expect... But mass has lost its meaning to me. It's all a routine and I feel like a hypocrite every time I step into a church with my family now. I even feel a little hypocritical when I sing in choir now. I realized it last year but it wasn't until a friend brought it up to me again this quarter that I was singing masses, things that I feel are too impersonal in my own life. It's been so long since I've felt any connection between myself and this faith. I feel guilty, but at the same time, I don't know what to do and how to deal with it. Then again, do I want to deal with a religion that has so many contradictions within itself?
He expects us to be moral and nonjudgmental toward those who may not believe the same things we're supposed to believe when all over the Bible, there are occurrences when he's not seen as the kind, loving God He says that He is. Destroying entire cities just because it's full of "sinners" isn't exactly forgiving, isn't it? By saying He has a chosen people, he also states that those who do not follow His teachings will be damned. How is this supposed to relate to the whole idea of turn the other cheek and to love your neighbor as yourself? I find it hard to believe that people I know who do not believe in the same God I do (did?) will be damned just for that. These are certainly good people out there and I don't particularly favor the idea that once this world is over, they'll be gone just like that. Why make people if there is favoritism being played out in the end? I think that's what's bugging me in the end (although formalities do bother me almost as much). It's just so hard to believe that a God who is supposed to be our friend can turn away people who just haven't been brought up to think a certain way. He created mankind. He let them run their own way for awhile and eventually, some people turned their back on Him. If God is a loving and forgiving God, why make rules to stay in his favor? Religion is a very personal thing and should be between the individual and God Himself. Why the need for so many of the rules and regulations? And what about the majority of the world who don't believe in this God?
I'm not a hundred percent sure where I read or learned this but there was a man who grew tired of his religion and so quit and tried another. Again, he wasn't feeling completely satisfied and tried to follow another belief. After going through a number of faiths, he came to the conclusion that all religion was the same. Whether a person believed in one god or multiple gods, the source was all the same. There is a certain something out there the unites all beliefs together so that my thinking that the Christian God doesn't care about other people comes into question. He compared his finding as if each religion he'd tried was a well, and all the wells connected together at the same source of water. This may be the case and a part of me deep down inside wants to believe that this is true. But if I still can't personally feel a connection between myself and this entity, then what else do I believe in except myself? Am I doomed to be a doubting Thomas?