This post has been building for a while and it seems appropriate that it be posted on Easter weekend. Over the last few years I’ve been thinking about religion, faith, spirituality and my relationship with all of these things.
Faith!
I grew up Quaker in a small, rural monthly meeting. So much of how I learned to see others, my moral compass, and my sense of justice (social or otherwise) was guided by what I learned from my parents and in Meeting. As I write this post, I’m listening to American Routes on our local NPR station. They just played a gospel version “Down by the Riverside.” This song was one of the pieces of music that was the fabric of my youth for it’s anti-war, anti-violence message. (Interesting reading some versions of the lyrics now, I see that it’s a more complex song than I understood as a kid.) As a Quaker kid I learned about pacifism, seeing that of God in each person, simplicity, decision-making by consensus, equality, and other things. We weren’t Christian Quakers, though. In our house the story of Jesus as the son of God was more of a good story that someone made up rather than a telling of the truth. “Christocentric” was not a complement in our house. Those were different things than my peers learned in church and I could tell the difference between us. I always felt a little different. As an elementary school kid, I tried to find ways to work Quakerism into conversation wherever I could. I was proud of who and what my family and I were. As a middle and high schooler, I didn’t talk about it as much (although I did stop saying the Pledge of Allegiance in 8th grade – for more on this check here). No kid that age wants to feel very different so there wasn’t much need to work it into conversations. We also stopped going to Meeting regularly, which may have affected things some.
My paternal grandparents were people filled with deep faith. Like many people of faith, they worried for those who didn’t believe or who rejected their way of believing. My grandfather died before I was 10 but I remember my grandmother trying to inject Christianity into my upbringing in whatever way she could. I also remember that, because this was counter to what my parents were trying to teach me, this was a source of huge amounts of tension when she was around. In high school I chose to not participate in singing the Hallelujah Chorus when my high school chorus did it. I just couldn’t bring myself to sing “king of kings” and “lord of lords” and “and he shall reign forever and ever” and “Lord God omnipotent reigneth.” It struck at the base of everthing I’d learned through Quakerism. Admittedly, it was also my way of interjecting myself into the grandmother vs. parents “battle for my soul.” I guess in some way I wanted to make it clear that I was siding with my parents in this one. (Maybe more specifically I was siding with my mom because she was the one targeted as the bad influence on us more than my father was.) It happened that my grandmother was visiting from MN at the time of our Christmas concert that year and noticed that I ducked off stage for that song. I heard later that she was heartbroken that I couldn’t bring myself to sing that song. I felt guilty for hurting her but I was also a little secretly pleased. Isn’t that horrible?
Faith?
When we’re children we absorb what we learn in our families as THE way, not A way. As young adults, we learn that there are other ways of seeing the world, other ways of believing, other ways of praying. At that point its up to us to discern what resonates with us and nurtures us. For the past 10 years or so, this is what I’ve slowly been slogging through this in the back of my head. In college I lived for 2 years at the Beacon Hill Friends House. I think, in a way, I saw it as a way to really connect with my Quaker heritage. What better way to become a good Quaker than to live in a Quaker house? The problem was I think it actually pushed me further away from Quakerism rather than closer to it. Living it everyday I saw more of the failings than I’d seen growing up. (Let me tell you… if I never have to sit through another threshing session it’ll be too soon!!) I also realized that I wasn’t connecting with it the way I thought I would – or the way I did as a kid. BHFH actually had a meeting that met on the first floor of the house. All I would have to do is roll out of bed, walk downstairs, and go to meeting. I think I only went 4 or 5 times in the whole two years I lived there. Hmm…
After Boston I moved to PA which, arguably, could be considered part of the bible belt – well, compared to Massachusetts anyway! The vibe was different here. There are a lot more Christians here. The political and religious vibe is far more conservative than anywhere else I’ve ever lived. My ex’s family were active participants in a UCC church and I made an attempt to go there. The only thing it did was solidify that I do NOT believe that Jesus is the son of God and I do NOT believe that the bible is God’s revealed word. It is a human record of human activities endowed with supernatural overtones. This was an interesting time because I think I attended Meeting more frequently then – maybe as an antidote to the UCC church. I felt a pressure to figure out what I believed. At that point I could say what I didn’t believe but not what I did. What I learned the hard way is that, when you’re questioned on your faith and all you can say is what you DON’T believe not what you DO believe, you don’t get taken seriously. Those who believe won’t continue the conversation with you except to try to win you over to their side. And it did feel like sides… their side vs. the wrong my side. I always felt like I had to be on the defensive, much like when Grammy Carter was around.
After moving out on my own again, I took a breather from all religion… and from thinking about faith and spirituality at all. That was probably a year or two. I wasn’t sure but I didn’t think I believed in anything – not g/God, not a supreme power, not the light within, nothing. The Christian thing wasn’t resonating for me, the Quaker thing wasn’t resonating for me, the UU thing wasn’t resonating for me so I decided to bag the whole thing for a while.
Faith.
After a while it started to feel safe for me to think about it again. Maybe because my parter (now fiance) is an atheist – I didn’t feel a pressure from him to believe one way or another. Maybe because I didn’t talk about Quaker stuff with my parents or aunt – I didn’t feel like I had behave or talk like a Quaker.
I’ve been thinking long and hard about if I believe and what I believe. I actually really opened myself up to listening to people who believe – Mennonites, Jews, Baptists – to see what they believe. I tried it on for size with an open heart and found that they didn’t fit. This is an ongoing process and I don’t have a final answer but I do have a few answers. Here’s what I know for myself:
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I do not believe that Jesus was the son of God.
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I do not believe that the bible, the Koran, the Torah, or any other sacred work is the revealed word of God. I believe they are human records of perceived and interpreted events. I believe there is value in all of them as a moral code and a teaching tool. I do not believe they are the final word.
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I believe that it’s important for children to attend a faith group of some sort. Kids will learn moral lessons from their parents but it’s important for them to learn these from and see these in action in larger communities as well.
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I do not believe there’s a God but there might be a god (for lack of a better word). This means that, to me, there is not one deity on high controlling all things. However, I do believe that there is something greater than ourselves out there in the world. I don’t yet understand what that is but I do think it’s there. I prefer to think of it as “the Universe” or, to use Quaker terminology, “the Light” or “the Spirit.”
At times, I wish I was as full of faith as my grandparents. There’s something comforting in that. You have someone/something you can rely on to guide you and to help you in your life. You get to share the responsibility of the hard stuff and to gain strength from your beliefs. In addition, it is a wonderful way to be connected to like-minded others in your community. As much as I want that, I just can’t get over bullet items one and two above enough to participate in a Christian community. I would feel like an imposter there knowing that I can’t buy into the basic tenets of the religion.
The interesting thing is that I think it’s my work that helped me see that there is really something more there. I saw too many instances of children ending up in families who could meet their needs (in ways that most other families couldn’t) to believe there wasn’t something else at work. Once would have been a coincidence, maybe twice, but over and over again throughout the year is a different thing altogether. Yes, there’s an argument to be made about parents adapt to their kids and they’d make any placement work. Yes, there are statistical, rational arguments to be made to explain what I’ve seen. But those don’t resonate with me. I really, truly feel that there is a greater force at work in the world. I believe it for my own life too. I couldn’t be in the amazing relationship I’m in now without having gone through my first marriage and the divorce. Something had a lesson for me to learn before I could be where I am now; something was preparing me to be able to be in a relationship with Pete.
Like so many other things, the process of determining my own faith is one that’s going to take time and will unfold at its own pace. I look forward to seeing where it goes.
