shishnit.org

Recently I took a religion course. I have long struggled with my own beliefs. I was predominately raised Catholic by a mentally ill woman and an alcoholic father. My father only set foot in a church once during my childhood. My mother also did not attend regularly. However, I did attend regularly because my loving maternal grandparents would come and pick me up to go with them. This foundation served me well and I do have an affinity to the pomp and circumstance of a Catholic mass. However, I believe in birth control and I also believe in premarital sex. Imagine marrying someone that sucks in bed and not knowing about it until it’s too late? Ok I joke, but then again that’s really not funny to find that you are not sexually compatible with someone. It’s happened to me, thankfully I was committing the sin of pre-marital sex instead of having to commit the sin of divorce.

Yes I long believe and still struggle with the notion that divorce is a sin. I truly believe that when one gets married they should stay that way. However, I also believe that no form of abuse is worth taking for life. I did not file for my divorce, he did. He’s the one that wanted out more than me. I suppose that’s how it worked. I mean I technically left him first after he left the state to carry on an affair, then we reunited, and the he left. Who left who? That truly sort of comes down to semantics in that case. But he filed for divorce, he paid for it and I did everything possible to distance myself from the inevitable responsibility of who committed the technical sin of divorce. I can say I would probably still be with him living miserably had he not done what he did by being the one to file and own the task of divorcing. I was raised Catholic and by damn it you stay married. You just do.

Now, of course after 5 years of freedom from that mental hell, I have vastly different feelings about it, but I remain constantly grateful that he filed. I have also overcome my feelings of guilt and failure because in the end I had no choice. He chose someone else and left. There was no choice in my fate. You cannot make someone love you nor can you make someone stay.

For a short period of time in my first marriage I attended a Christian church. I found some limited joy in belonging or at least in that slim sense of belonging to that church. However, I also found a lot of bigotry. One time a fellow churchgoer who was a cop did everything he could to get another church member arrested. Sure she committed the crime but holy hell (yes I said holy and hell in the same phrase…) he did whatever necessary to get her into the slammer. How Christian-like is that? I even joined a Bible study for a short time. We never cracked a bible. We just sat and talked and most weeks someone was having need for “counseling” and/or a “prayer session”. It was all rather chaotic to say the least. My ex attended a few times with me. One time we attended Bible Study on the same night that his New York mistress had visited our home while neither of us was at home because we were signing up to be “real” members of that same said church. I even borrowed a bible to go to that Bible study from the woman who is now my ex-husbands wife. Talk about strange. What’s even stranger to me is that his now wife bought me a battery for my car when he was in New York sleeping with that first mistress. I will never understand people.

The thing that I walked away from my religion course retaining was the inexplicable knowledge that those that study the bible never study it like a scholar does. The most experienced Bible Scholars will tell you that the bible was written by several authors at many different times and places. They will tell you that there are so many errors that they cannot be counted. Errors in years, scientific impossibilities as well as errors in numerical counting. So and so had 105,000 horses and he rode these horses 110,000 miles. Crazy things that just don’t even matter but are truly impossible. During my time in that course it occurred to me that what I thought when I was 15 is by and large what I still think now.

Did you know that there were several Pagan Gods prior to Jesus Christs time that were said to have been born on Christmas Day too?

I believe in a higher power. I believe in spiritual health and well being. But I believe that spiritual health comes from within not from the blessings of an external God. I believe in what Buddists believe in. Peace, mindfulness, emptying of the wallet and fulfilling of the inner soul. I have yet to empty my wallet but I am driven by happiness and peace in my life more so than by obtaining of wealth and/or things. When I saw all that my father left behind and how that did not change the fact that he died alone and in a miserable manner, I knew I would always strive to be a better person but never would truly find success in the numbers on my paycheck solely.

In the past year I have read upwards of two dozen books on spirituality. For this course I studied Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Not for the feelings of them but rather for the historical facts and not fiction. The other night I watched a History Channel presentation about how it was physically and scientifically impossible for anyone to have been crucified in the manner that Christ was. I found it interesting but it probably did not fully erase my inner belief in a higher power. Sometimes I think of the higher power as Lord and Jesus Christ as his human son. I don’t know that I believe in resurrection just as I don’t understand how those that believe in kabbalah believe in the afterlife. I also learned that there are several sects or types of kabbalah followers.

But mostly I learned that despite whatever religion you study, choose to believe in etc. Most of them tout being a better person and treated other’s well. However, most of the hardcore Christians I have known do not do these things. I suppose it’s more a people issue I have had rather than a religion one.

I consider myself a good person and I told my Religion professor that I felt that I was a mutt. I believe something from each religion I studied. I even found good and positive things in some of the seemingly worst religions. I also told him that despite all of my doubts, shifts in belief etc. that I would probably never find the same comfort in a place of religion as I do when I see a priest in his robe walk out and place a thin wafer of yeast less bread in someone’s mouth. That religion is largely what you gain from your family. It is a tradition more than an institution. Perhaps if I were born in China I’d think Catholicism was impossibly strange. Perhaps it still is.

Perhaps I’m no closer to having concrete answers but for me spirituality is about being one with myself, feeling good about who I am and offering the best of who I am to my loved ones, co-workers and all those I come into contact with. The Bible? For me, its much like Aesops fables. A collection of nice stories one can gain personal wealth from. Most people that have thrown in my face have never studied it or read it. Ask a few questions and you’ll see. I also think you can spend hours reading it and still not be a good person.

While it’s hard for me to ever articulate my faith and beliefs, I know they are only positive and good. I seek to not own religion, but learn from it. On a lighter note I rather enjoy calling my 3 neighbors that are priest, the Trinity. But then again you have to be Catholic or know about it to get it. I’d also like to say that the word that should be removed from every religions language is “judgment”.