faith-based journal entry
the other night someone mentioned to me that everybody comes to a point where we realize that the faith we've chosen was chosen in large part because of how we were raised and by our needs. it's kind of true, isn't it? i mean, faith is a malleable thing that you choose because it's appealing and fulfilling for you. your faith needs to answer your questions about where you came from and why you're here and where you're going. it has to give your life some sort of comfortable structure and meaning. then again, i guess i initially didn't really choose christianity because it was easy for me and because it aligned with everything i believed. it was really hard at first, and there was a lot of denial and self-hate. but i think that goes back to the first part: religion being a product of upbringing. and accepting what's handed to you without too much independent thought.
i'm kind of rambling. i guess i just don't know where i stand. my faith has gone through some pretty drastic modifications. as early as my sophomore year at northwestern i knew i didn't belong there, that i wouldn't be able to live the way they expected me to live and think the way they did. but i stuck with it because... i don't know.
every day i'm convinced that there's a god, or something. i couldn't articulate why. and i call myself christian even though i don't know many christians who really think even remotely like i do on matters of faith, which is why i don't have a church. but i wonder if i've just turned faith into a tool of my desire, something that fits me just right, even if it's all verisimilitude and no truth. or if that's what we're all supposed to do... to find something that works best for us, and that makes us people of love and compassion.
i think that's what most of the major religions are about, or are trying to be about. love and compassion. but sometimes loving god, or rather loving one's idea of who god is supposed to be, or loving the literalism of an old book, sometimes don't go hand-in-hand with loving your neighbor, especially if that neighbor doesn't walk in your fold and doesn't mouth your jargon.
anyway. i'm really rambling. i don't really know how to talk about faith anymore. my once-concrete thoughts on these things have become abstractions. ultimately i just want there to be more than this. this skin and this life. and if it's not god, then meaning and some sort of purpose and (in the words of fred buechner) being able to give peace and joy finally for everyone else in my life before finding it for myself.
i'm kind of rambling. i guess i just don't know where i stand. my faith has gone through some pretty drastic modifications. as early as my sophomore year at northwestern i knew i didn't belong there, that i wouldn't be able to live the way they expected me to live and think the way they did. but i stuck with it because... i don't know.
every day i'm convinced that there's a god, or something. i couldn't articulate why. and i call myself christian even though i don't know many christians who really think even remotely like i do on matters of faith, which is why i don't have a church. but i wonder if i've just turned faith into a tool of my desire, something that fits me just right, even if it's all verisimilitude and no truth. or if that's what we're all supposed to do... to find something that works best for us, and that makes us people of love and compassion.
i think that's what most of the major religions are about, or are trying to be about. love and compassion. but sometimes loving god, or rather loving one's idea of who god is supposed to be, or loving the literalism of an old book, sometimes don't go hand-in-hand with loving your neighbor, especially if that neighbor doesn't walk in your fold and doesn't mouth your jargon.
anyway. i'm really rambling. i don't really know how to talk about faith anymore. my once-concrete thoughts on these things have become abstractions. ultimately i just want there to be more than this. this skin and this life. and if it's not god, then meaning and some sort of purpose and (in the words of fred buechner) being able to give peace and joy finally for everyone else in my life before finding it for myself.