Megan's Rant...cause she has no one to converse with lol.

[shampoosuicides]

For about the past 4 years of my life I've considered myself to be a spiritual person. Growing up in church, there were many core values of Christianity that I believed to be true. And while I still hold true to some of them, I've learned that religion is nothing but a form of control and don't want to live my life by its 'guidelines'. Ever since I've been in BC I've become a different person. Apparently its what I needed in my life; I have never been more happy with the person I am than right now. And its taken quite a lot to get me here. Before I started school I was so sure I knew who I was, the person I wanted to be, and what I've wanted out of life. Holy fuck did college change that. Not drastically but it made me look at life differently. For so long I was struggling to be the person I wanted to be, instead I just needed to accept the person I already am and start living that life. I'm realizing more and more that uncertainty is okay; I don't have to be completely certain about ever aspect of my life, but there are some uncertainties that I can't help but struggle with. I was raised to believe in God and in unconditional love. Love I couldn't agree more with; for us to succeed as a race we need to learn to give up our prejudices & judgments and love each other unconditionally. But this God thing is a hard one. I've really been into learning lately haha, even outside of school. I've just really taken a liking to informing myself about the world around. This week I've been watching some documentaries on religion. The first one is called "For The Bible Tells Me So" and its about Fundamental Christians in the US have been manipulating the bible to call Homosexuality a sin; which I mean, come on. Also a movie called "Jesus Camp" about Evangelical Christians. It follows this story of children as they go to summer camp and are literally terrified into becoming soldiers of Christ. And this morning I watched one called "Devils Playground". This movie is crazy. It's about the Amish; it is their tradition that when a child turns 16 they're sent out into the world to make the decision for themselves whether or not they wanted to be baptized and join the church. They go out and get cars, watch TV, normal things..oh and PARTY. A lot of the teens interviewed were doing/deal meth. As much of some of the Amish ways of life are a little extreme this is the idea of making the choice of 'joining the church' was the same idea I was raised on. When I was baptized it was because I made the choice, not my parents for me. And my parents always let my sisters and I be the people we are, never held judgment and always allowed us to make our own choices. And right now I feel like one of the Amish kids; questioning everything I was raised to believe. To be perfectly honest I hadn't thought about my 'Christian Life' in a long time. But after I watched this movie, for some reason, I was compelled to put on a CD made for my mom right before she died, of all her favorite worship songs, sung by our church band. And I just bawled. Is this because to me this music is a way of talking to my mom, or what? I don't know whether I'm drawn to my feelings for God or for my mother, as weird as it may sound. While I very much have accepted and welcomed uncertainty in my life, this is one confused idea I can't help but rant about. Christianity will always be apart of my life. It was a huge chunk of who I was as a child and will always be a part of my family's life; but I don't think it will be a significant part of my life ever again. I'm okay with that. I'm okay with questioning God's existence, I've been okay with that for a long time. For me, I believe anything can be true. The book of Genesis very well could be a poetic metaphor for the Big Bang Theory and Evolution. I believe that there is a higher power; no matter what religion, belief or whatever you are it's human nature to strive to find that 'higher power'. Maybe we all need to do it in our way (Christianity, Buddhism, Muslim, Ba'hai (ps check that religion out if you don't know what it is), we all have a common goal. Religion is fucked. It messes with your mind in more ways that you can image or realize. I really have no where to go with this. I'm just bored and had a lot of ideas going on inside this crazy noggin of mine.

Ps.
i'm going to be in st.catharines in 9 days!!!!!!!!!!!!