Month: January 2014

My grandfather used to say that the road to Hell was paved with good intentions. I have no doubt that is an apt description of  the foundation of most churches and religions. They all began with good intentions.

The God that I now believe in…for yes, I do believe in God….is not the God of my childhood. He does not frighten me, for He is not a vengeful, vindictive God that demands constant praise and adoration.

The God that I believe in  is all things…God is of me, in me, God is my thoughts, my sight, my smell, my touch and my heart.

My God is the sun, the moon, the air and the oceans. He is  the mountains, the desert and the forest. He is the touch of my husband’s hand on my face, the wisp of hair on my daughter’s neck, the lilt of laughter spilling across the lips of my grandchildren. My God is the homeless man helping  the elderly woman cross the street. He is the twinkle in my son’s eyes and the splash of the raindrops as they hit my window.

God is the essence of life. I refer to God in these writings as He, because it it easier to explain, and a more acceptable term…but the God of my faith has no gender, no colour, no race. My God may be your Allah, your Jehovah, your Muhammed. You may call Him the Great Creator or the Universal Force.

My God is all encompassing and is what I need God to be at any given moment.

I do not believe that you must be baptized to know eternal life and enter the kingdom of God…or Heaven. If that were the case, what of the fate of all those before Christ? Those in the Old Testament? What of those that have never been taught Christianity?  What of Jesus’ own people, the Jews, who look at Jesus as a false prophet? What of children that have died too young to understand or know Christ? For me, the daily moments of my life, how I represent myself, how I treat others…and myself… holds more meaning that any symbol or ritual.  For me, it is those things that will gain God’s favour.

I don’t believe we should  fear death because I don’t believe that life or love ends…energy doesn’t stop. We don’t have souls, we are souls. “All of nature is a resurrection” says Dr Brian Weiss. I agree with him.

It seems more than coincidence that so many of the things that drew me to various belief systems over the years, became, for me, a confluence of non linear consciousness. The messages and the teachers are all remarkably similar in morality, tone, kindness and love.

I believe in the power of prayer and the power of stillness.

There is a book, a work of fiction, that was released a few years ago that set many churches on their collective self righteous, judgemental bottoms. It is called “The Shack” by Wm Paul Young.  I really enjoyed the book, but I remembered it was a novel….make believe. Some religious leaders missed that memo just as they miss everything in life that doesn’t jive with their own  view of things. I discussed the religious aversion to the book with a few people who were strongly opposed to it, something I still don’t understand, particularly from those that never read the book. At least I have read the bible…twice…no easy feat in some of the older translations let me tell you! I have many favourite verses, passages, and stories. Some have helped me in some dark and difficult times, but that doesn’t mean that I believe every thing the Bible says, I do not.  Thank goodness those same critics never saw the notes I left for my teens on their bedroom doors: “Clean this bedroom. TODAY. God.”  “Is that report done yet? Just asking. God.” I never really thought I was God…it was make believe.

“The Shack” was never written to replace the Bible. It is not the stuff of great…or even good literature. What it is, is a book about grief, forgiveness, love and understanding. How can that be wrong? It’s not going to be taught anytime soon as part of a theology course, so what is really behind the animosity? Religious paranoia is my guess.

The two biggest draw backs to religion…from my vantage point,  are these: Excessive seriousness and lack of respect for the beliefs of others.

I don’t go to church any more.  My God isn’t there…I don’t feel Him within those walls, I can’t feel Him in my heart when I am within the confirms of those buildings…there is a void … oddly enough, church is the one place where, to be honest, I have seldom felt God’s presence.

So yes, I believe in God. It was a search I never thought would take me over four decades, but I am happy, joyful and at peace in my faith…and the best part? I won’t try and convince you it’s the only way, mostly because it’s the only way for me. Blessings.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1

In my quest to reach conclusions, I was all over the map….emotionally and spiritually.

I was, at times,  what could best be described as agnostic….I wasn’t convinced that there was a God….but I couldn’t convince myself that there wasn’t either. I volleyed back and forth. I was never an Atheist, for to me, an Atheist is one who has been in faith, and through seeking, has come to the conclusion there is no God…or any other deities.

I was doubtful about the “Word”…the Bible. Written centuries ago, and translated countless number of times, there has to be inaccuracies and errors. Just comparing the Catholic and Protestant New Testament show differences. There are over 300,000….yes, THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND…. variations of the New Testament. Scholars will tell you that to question the authenticity of the New Testament on textual grounds is to question all ancient documents. Perhaps so.

There were periods of great anger…why, why, would so called ‘good people’, these Christians, put the fear of God…literally and figuratively …into small children? If you want to keep  people oppressed and encourage unquestioning support, keep them in a fearful state. Was this a product of a God of love? Was this how the God of my childhood gathered the faithful, by keeping them subservient and terrified of eternal damnation? 

Then there were the pictures…the images of God and Christ…both white…both men…one old and frightening; the other young and handsome…calm looking.

When I was ten years old, a movie called “Lawrence of Arabia” was made and starred an Egyptian actor named Omar Sharif. When I saw that movie, and given my limited knowledge of world geography, I remember, even then, thinking….well he’s from the same part of the world that Jesus is supposed to come from and he doesn’t look white. He didn’t look black, but he sure didn’t look white….and for years I always thought that if Jesus existed, He  likely resembled Omar Sharif more than the pictures I’d seen in Sunday School and story books.

Now, if pressed, I’d be more apt to think He may have looked like one of my former business partners who lives just outside of Tel Aviv.

The biggest challenge for me came when I tried to reconcile what I was taught, or learned, about church doctrine…any church doctrine….and the hypocrisy I saw in the churches that I attended.

To be fair, in my fear, anger and doubt, I placed my own discriminatory values and judgements on the ‘pillars’ of the church. The choir members, the pastors, the priests, the deacons, the elders, the Swami’s, the Rabbi’s. I held them all in distain and to higher standards than humanly possible. They had all let me down; disappointed me; lied to me; made me feel unworthy of God’s love…no matter what I called Him.

I watched as my elderly widowed relatives…all female…tried to secure their place at the Throne  by subsisting on toast and tea so that they could tithe to the church and send more of their meagre incomes to the con artists of the 1970s and 1980s, called televangelists.

I saw friends  stay in physically and emotionally abusive marriages because the ‘church’ had told them that to divorce went against God’s holy ordinance….and the teachings of the church….not to mention that “…Til death do us part” bit.

Attending church service and then gossiping about everyone in attendance is not my idea of being a ‘good person’.  But over and over I have witnessed this and I find it extremely offensive. When I have challenged people about it, I usually get the “God will forgive me” line. I’m thinking He might the first time, but over and over again? …hmmmm, not so sure. That’s not to say I haven’t gossiped, but I try really hard not to. It is one of my least favourite things to engage in….it always leaves a sour taste….and regretfulness.

These things are all part of the human condition, but as I said, it is the churches’ doctrines that I  have had the most difficulty with and have, over the course of my life, found the most challenging part of all religions.

The condescension of women by many main stream religions has emboldened my feminist self over the years. How do we know that God is not female? Because an ancient group of aged men said God was Male? Did God reveal himself to them as a man?

I do not subscribe to the systematic theology, or dogma, of the religions I have explored and studied. I can’t. It goes against the very core of who I am and what I have come to believe. It is man’s …in the literal and figurative sense of the word…interpretation of what some believe is the Word of God. But which interpretation is the correct one? There are varying beliefs held even within the Christian Denominations. What makes one correct and the others wrong?

The abuses that I have read of, heard of and been told about at the hands of ‘men of God’ makes me quake with rage. The very churches that denounce homosexuality as a sin… have harboured…and protected… child sexual predators.

The act of going to church no more makes you a Christian than does playing the radio make you a musician.

Religion has been used since time immemorial to justify atrocities against non believers of one faith or another. “In the name of God” has probably been one of the most incongruously used expressions in history. Surely man was behind those actions, not God!

Religion, by it’s very definition,  is set up to create differences; to distinguish separation…… and it would seem to me that is the basis of so much turmoil, violence and hatred in our world. The very things that I think God opposes often have His name attached.

Can we reconcile the Omnipresent without the Bible, without the symbolisms and trappings of the various religions that have been built on the existence of God? Must we go forward in our quest for truth with an all or nothing acceptance or denial? Why does the growth of spirituality seem to frighten organized religion so much? Can you be a spiritual being, a child of God without religion?

These were the questions I struggled with, prayed about, meditated on, and debated. I would discover, that for me, there were no easy answers.

“Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret. ”

Thank you Judy Blume, for those words…and for that book.

That Margaret  was 11 going on 12 when this best seller hit the bookstores in 1970. This Margaret, best known as Peggy, was 18, but oh, how I loved that book. I related to it. I identified with the Margaret in the book.

Huh? I know, I know. I hear you…what does an eighteen year old have in common with an eleven year old…other than a name?

I too, was what they call a “late bloomer’….I had crooked teeth, was a shapeless stick until my early twenties, mousy brown hair that was as straight as a pin.

I grew up in a home where my mother was Baptist, and my father, an excommunicated Catholic who had converted to Baptist to please my mother. I like to joke and say I am the product of a mixed marriage.

My paternal grandmother  raised her children Catholic, the religion of her husband, my grandfather, yet she attended a Pentecostal church.

All ‘hell broke loose’ when, after my Grandfather’s death, she had him buried in the Wesleyan – Methodist cemetery. Her children were aghast. In a conversation  with my elderly neighbour, a childhood friend of my grandmother,  she was stunned that I would even dare suggest that my grandmother had become Catholic, let alone married one!

I also remember seeing my maternal great grandmother’s shock when I one day innocently mentioned that I was thinking of attending Catechism classes that were held on the neighbouring island on Saturday afternoons. I thought it might help me better understand my father’s background. ‘Catholics are going to hell’, she said. ‘They don’t believe in the true God and they worship idols.’ WHAT???

Oh yes, I was indeed the product of a mixed religious background! Denying, and even lying about, your religion and bigotry  ran deep in the Christian roots of my family tree.

My father used the analogy that God was the hub of a great wheel, and ALL religions were the spokes….each trying to make their way to God…just taking different routes. And so, with that in  mind, and with my father’s blessing, and encouragement, I delved headfirst into a search for my own religious identity at the ripe old age of 14.

By the time I was 42, I  had read everything I could about a few religions, (given there are some 4300+ in the world, I’d still be reading) including about 15 sectors of Christianity; Islam; Hinduism; Buddism (which in it’s purest isn’t considered a religion); Judaism,;Baha’i Faith; Wicca; Mormonism, and yes…Satanism.

To understand my journey and search,  let me first take you back to my childhood and the early influences on my young, impressionable mind.

The small island fishing village where I grew up in didn’t offer much in the way of “different”. There were no people of colour, only a handful of men that I knew that spoke anything but English…they all spoke a version of French, but conversed in english; and certainly no other religions than Christianity….and Protestant at that.  We had two  churches on the island: The Baptist and The Church of Christ. That was it.

As a child I was expected to attend Sunday School and church every Sunday. My mother sometimes went with my sisters and I, but more often than not, particularly as we got older, we went alone, or I’d go with my grandmother. My father would attend the Christmas concert and occasionally the roll call service once a year. It was a time of “Do as I say, not as I do” parenting.

In addition, for years, I attended Bible study classes, which would be the foundation of some wonderful conversations with my father, who rather than tell me what he thought a passage or a lesson meant, would encourage me to think it through and tell him what I thought (what a concept: an adult who cared what a child/teen actually thought!)…and then we’d discuss his thoughts on it and how it related to, or differed from,  my own.

I also attended several church groups for teens over the years and CGIT…Christian Girls in Training. Concerts, picnics, socials….so much of my young life revolved around the church, or as  some would say, ‘in service to the Lord.’

But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

As a child, Sunday School was the place where I first began learning about God and Jesus and the Bible. We did say nightly prayers and “grace” before meals, but that was the extent of religion in our home. Well, except that we were expressly forbidden to play cards, do laundry, or play music on Sundays….all the work of the devil I expect…..although I often wondered if the devil had a hand in those things on Sunday, what did he do the rest of the week?

To my young self, the God of my childhood was not love. The God of my childhood was vengeful, frightening, terrifying .

The God of my childhood was full of retribution and anger. Hellfire,brimstone and damnation at His hand would be your fate if you were not a believer.

Even hymns held visual terror for me…His terrible swift sword conjured images of beheadings and death; are you washed in the blood, in the soul cleansing blood of the lamb? a dead man’s blood or a slaughtered baby animal? Why would those mental images bring comfort, peace and feelings of love to a child? I had no concept of metaphors in those years. All I had were nightmares.

As a child, I did not sense the grace of God. I feared the wrath of God.

Even the hymns without those terrifying images in them, seemed to me, sad, not joyful. As a young teen I joined the choir in our church which meant another commitment of time for practices. I remember wondering why so many of the songs we sang we ‘draggy’, mournful and filled with sorrow and question.

And yet, even with so much of my life revolving around the church, I had doubts. As many of my friends were being baptized, I had a knot in my stomach even thinking about it.

As minister after minister came and went from that church on the hill, many tried to pressure me into baptism. Again, I went to my father and told him I wasn’t ready…it just didn’t feel right….the teachings of the church sounded hollow to me…so much didn’t ring true. My Dad told me to follow my heart. “Find your own truth” he said.  I was 14. The dichotomy of my life and my thoughts had begun.

So began my journey of questioning, of doubt, of understanding, of denial, of acceptance and ultimately of peace in finding my own path; my own truth; my own faith.