If you read this whole thing, I'll give you $1. Well, not really.
There are moments that I wish I had faith.
Sometimes, I hope with all my heart to be shown some divine plan. Something that is greater and grander than all of this. Someone to inspire and motivate me in my periods of self-loathing and desperation. Somewhere that, when I’m finally at rest, all the pain and strife of this world will be erased.
Mostly, I just want to stop feeling alone.
I encounter far more devout people both in and outside the classroom at Boston College than I ever did at my public high school. There, speaking of religion was taboo. So much red tape surrounds the topic that most teachers who value their jobs avoid the issue completely. It’s rare for the media not to be buzzing with some sort of religious controversy. Jihads. Pedophile priests. Teaching evolution.
There is no other topic that riles people up to a similar degree.
There is no other force with a comparable ability to polarize populations.
In my moments of doubt, I’m not picky. I’ll take whatever beliefs I can come by. Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Pagan. I’m a faith-whore. I’m a glutton, not satisfied by any single religious dish, but constantly driven by hunger to add more to my pallet.
I look around at the horrors in this world, and I thirst for a sip of something better.
I bear witness to the hypocrisy and contradiction of this society, and I hunger for an escape.
From time to time, I delude myself with the hope that religion might be the answer.
The people I know with faith in God, or whoever their deity of choice may be, seem untroubled. They don’t get caught up in the trivial concerns that worry me on a daily basis. They feast on the knowledge that their souls will be saved. They have found their savior. They don’t need to worry, and they don’t need to feel alone.
There’s always somebody else there to support their beliefs.
In my moments of doubt and pain, I crave that camaraderie. The realization that the people around me have a passion for something every bit as strong as my own. The ability to go to a place filled with such people.
This is the thing that I starve for.
Whether it comes in the form of angels or devils, demigods or demons, Valhalla or the Elysian Fields, I just want to know that there’s something more. That this isn’t the end, and that everything I’m doing is not in vain.
I covet the warmth that such a belief must bring.
If I could bring myself to wrap my mind around a notion so large, I think I’d be happier. I might feel secure in my actions. If I could consume such a concept, the stress and angst I feel over every little action would be gone. I would not fear the consequences of my errors, for I would know a path to redemption. There would be less accountability to myself, and more to the divine.
And then I remember.
The fear, the angst, the doubt… it isn’t all that bad.
It’s what allows me to write something like this.
My spiritual starvation gives me moral grounding. Since I don’t live for something greater, I live for what’s within me. I don’t take my morals from a book. I pull them from within me, with the experience that my search for meaning gives me. It’s possible to live a righteous life without a hint of holiness. It’s what I try to do every day.
When I wake up, I feel like I have something to look for, not for God, but for myself. I have questions that need answering, and the ones I find in holy books aren’t always digestible.
Sometimes, I wish there was an easy answer.
Then I snap out of it, and realize that the world isn’t black and white. It’s not contained in a book. Teachings give us guidelines. They give us knowledge. They pencil the outline of what we can do, and of what we might become.
What we do with that knowledge is what fills in those sketches.
Religion is a positive influence when it gives us drive. Determination. Motivation.
It isn’t the only thing that can give us this.
My doubt and my curiosity and my anguish are my creed. Kerouac, Palahniuk, Ginsberg, Poe, Gaiman and Eliot my prophets.
Fast food is my communion, and my journal is my confessional.
If I had faith, I would be satisfied and more complete.
Belief is positive when it gives a man something to hold onto. A way to pull himself up by the bootstraps and save himself. It is constructive when it leads a woman on the path to living a moral life. To me, it is a vehicle. It is not the only vehicle.
When it stops being the means and begins to encompass the end, I lose my respect for faith. When it inspires people to condemn those who live moral lives for other reasons, I search elsewhere for sustenance.
That kind of faith would be every bit as empty as my doubt. To accept it would be wrong. I would lose the spark that keeps me anxious for each new day.
And then my search would be over and the apathy would begin.
Sometimes, I hope with all my heart to be shown some divine plan. Something that is greater and grander than all of this. Someone to inspire and motivate me in my periods of self-loathing and desperation. Somewhere that, when I’m finally at rest, all the pain and strife of this world will be erased.
Mostly, I just want to stop feeling alone.
I encounter far more devout people both in and outside the classroom at Boston College than I ever did at my public high school. There, speaking of religion was taboo. So much red tape surrounds the topic that most teachers who value their jobs avoid the issue completely. It’s rare for the media not to be buzzing with some sort of religious controversy. Jihads. Pedophile priests. Teaching evolution.
There is no other topic that riles people up to a similar degree.
There is no other force with a comparable ability to polarize populations.
In my moments of doubt, I’m not picky. I’ll take whatever beliefs I can come by. Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Pagan. I’m a faith-whore. I’m a glutton, not satisfied by any single religious dish, but constantly driven by hunger to add more to my pallet.
I look around at the horrors in this world, and I thirst for a sip of something better.
I bear witness to the hypocrisy and contradiction of this society, and I hunger for an escape.
From time to time, I delude myself with the hope that religion might be the answer.
The people I know with faith in God, or whoever their deity of choice may be, seem untroubled. They don’t get caught up in the trivial concerns that worry me on a daily basis. They feast on the knowledge that their souls will be saved. They have found their savior. They don’t need to worry, and they don’t need to feel alone.
There’s always somebody else there to support their beliefs.
In my moments of doubt and pain, I crave that camaraderie. The realization that the people around me have a passion for something every bit as strong as my own. The ability to go to a place filled with such people.
This is the thing that I starve for.
Whether it comes in the form of angels or devils, demigods or demons, Valhalla or the Elysian Fields, I just want to know that there’s something more. That this isn’t the end, and that everything I’m doing is not in vain.
I covet the warmth that such a belief must bring.
If I could bring myself to wrap my mind around a notion so large, I think I’d be happier. I might feel secure in my actions. If I could consume such a concept, the stress and angst I feel over every little action would be gone. I would not fear the consequences of my errors, for I would know a path to redemption. There would be less accountability to myself, and more to the divine.
And then I remember.
The fear, the angst, the doubt… it isn’t all that bad.
It’s what allows me to write something like this.
My spiritual starvation gives me moral grounding. Since I don’t live for something greater, I live for what’s within me. I don’t take my morals from a book. I pull them from within me, with the experience that my search for meaning gives me. It’s possible to live a righteous life without a hint of holiness. It’s what I try to do every day.
When I wake up, I feel like I have something to look for, not for God, but for myself. I have questions that need answering, and the ones I find in holy books aren’t always digestible.
Sometimes, I wish there was an easy answer.
Then I snap out of it, and realize that the world isn’t black and white. It’s not contained in a book. Teachings give us guidelines. They give us knowledge. They pencil the outline of what we can do, and of what we might become.
What we do with that knowledge is what fills in those sketches.
Religion is a positive influence when it gives us drive. Determination. Motivation.
It isn’t the only thing that can give us this.
My doubt and my curiosity and my anguish are my creed. Kerouac, Palahniuk, Ginsberg, Poe, Gaiman and Eliot my prophets.
Fast food is my communion, and my journal is my confessional.
If I had faith, I would be satisfied and more complete.
Belief is positive when it gives a man something to hold onto. A way to pull himself up by the bootstraps and save himself. It is constructive when it leads a woman on the path to living a moral life. To me, it is a vehicle. It is not the only vehicle.
When it stops being the means and begins to encompass the end, I lose my respect for faith. When it inspires people to condemn those who live moral lives for other reasons, I search elsewhere for sustenance.
That kind of faith would be every bit as empty as my doubt. To accept it would be wrong. I would lose the spark that keeps me anxious for each new day.
And then my search would be over and the apathy would begin.