As I continue to figure out who I am and where I belong in the world and my purpose in life and whatnot, a particular word keeps popping into my head: Atheist.
I am not an atheist but the fact that this topic comes up in my head every day is interesting to say the least. I do believe in a God, however it's not the traditional Bearded Man on Heaven's Throne image that most people see. My God is invisible. Not a person but more like an energy, a controlling force. I call it God but I could just as easily call it Peanut Butter Sandwich if I wanted to (and if those didn't already exist).
I think that the reason I can't stop thinking about this is that I must be at that age when I stop believing everything my mother believes just because she believes it. I need to make my own decisions and find my own path in life.
I'd already silently declared myself non-Christian. I've also said many times that I'm not atheistic, just areligious. There's just nothing left that I agree with from the traditional church. I stumbled upon
this post from Lisa Kerr. Although I've never been in a cult I can't help feeling the same way she does, or the way Anne Rice does for that matter.
But don't get me wrong, anonymous readers, religion isn't a bad thing. Quite the opposite, religion can be a very positive influence on a person's life. And for many people it is. But for me, it just didn't work out. When religion becomes an instrument of torture, meaning scaring people into believing what you believe by threatening an eternity in hell or a
knife in the throat, that's when it becomes poisonous, and should be avoided.
I'm sick of the fact that the world's three largest religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) are also the world's most violent. There was a time when even these three groups got along. Why must there be a power struggle? Why must one side think they're are right for the same reasons another side thinks they're wrong? I think they're all worshiping the same God, just arguing over what to call him (or her, or it, or them).
Personally, I don't think there is a Universal Truth. I don't believe in the One True Way to heaven. I don't know if God is real or not. And frankly, I'm not going to worry about it right now. I don't have all the answers, and for now I'm fine with that. I'm just going to live my life the way I feel it should be lived.
But back to my first statement, I don't know why I have such a problem with the word Atheist, but in the Freudian tradition I'll blame my mother. I was raised in an all-Black Baptist church where the services easily pass the three-hour mark and there are constant displays of people, mostly women, passing out because they are consumed with the Holy Ghost.
Every Sunday there was a particular song played, it could've been any song, really, but at some point came a distinctive bass line. That plus the drums and organ led to the traditional Stomping on the Devil portion of church, followed by the long prayer where the pastor and several of the congregation would speak in tongues.
I was once baptized with the evidence of speaking in tongues. It's not a traditional baptism. I was in the youth group of a very prominent TV pastor's church. There was no water, no white clothes or whatever they do when you're baptized. The preacher's assistant placed some Anointing Oil (available at your local grocery store) on my forehead, said some prayers and sort of pushed me down. I looked at the children who had gone before me. They were lying down on the floor and I suppose speaking in tongues. So I did what they did. I was hoping that I would be speaking in tongues too as this would be my Born-Again date. But instead, I fell asleep. I took a cat-nap while I was supposed to be speaking to God in our own special language. (In my defense, I did wake up at 4am just so my mother could drive us all downtown to the mega-church.)
Bottom-line, it did nothing for me. When our family moved again to a closer, predominantly White but still incredibly Baptist church, similar things happened. There was no more speaking in tongues (I'm not sure how that would go over in a contemporary Baptist church), the old Gospel songs were replaced by synthesized violins on Yamaha keyboards and Jesus-themed pop songs and the Holy Ghost seemed to sit on the sidelines, but I felt the same way in the more intimate contemporary Baptist church that I did in the mega-church and in the small, incredibly HOT old-fashioned Baptist church in my grandmother's neighborhood: Nothing. I felt like I was missing out.
I would see people standing up, raising their hands, praising the Lord, knowing the words to the many songs, shouting out choruses of "Hallelujahs" and "Amens" during sermons and I felt...sleepy. Maybe I was too young to feel anything. But the kids in the youth group could feel the Holy Spirit. They would raise their hands, they knew the words to the many songs. Why couldn't I get into it?
I've never felt close to God in church. I've always felt like an outcast. I felt like I was Jim Carrey in The Truman Show. Like everyone had gotten together ahead of time to pull one over on me and see how I reacted. It just never felt real. In fact, the time I felt closest to God I was a hundred miles away from home and nowhere near a church. I was in the 6th grade and my school took a field trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains. On the first night, we all went outside to this giant MLS field-sized area. There was a giant light that provided our only source of illumination. At one point, that giant light turned off and our field guide told us to look up. I did. And for the first time in my life I could see EVERY star in the sky. I could see the Milky Way. I could see everything. There were so many stars in the sky that provided so much light it started to hurt my eyes. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life.
I can understand how someone could look at the multitude and magnitude of stars in the sky and feel like a speck. To gaze upon the universe for the first time is quite a surreal experience and can make you feel alone and insignificant. But I didn't feel that way. I saw those billions upon billions of stars in the sky and felt protected. I felt like each and every star was looking out for me. I'd never felt so secure and safe before in my life. I said to myself, "This is God." I'd give anything to have that feeling back. Two days later I got my first period so that might've had something to do with all the emotions, but for the first time in my life I felt special. I felt loved. I felt like I mattered.
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| Yeah, God's in there somewhere. |
