Where I’m Coming From

This school year, I made the decision to set aside the tutoring and volunteering I’ve been doing for the past few years to allow ample time for writing all the things I’ve been thinking about lately. In other words, I’m living in the library, writing all day, and loving it.

The overarching topic I’ve been thinking about is this: Is it okay to live for myself (my immediate internal response spewing, “Eesh! what a selfish thing to ponder!” and “But you won’t be either earning your keep or helping someone else!”) or should I sacrifice my time on earth for others? This relates to the questions: Why are we here on earth? And if we’re here to help others, do we do more good by setting ourselves aside and digging into helping in some other prescribed way, or by following the natural urges we have to live out our in-born passions and talents, even if we can’t see ahead of time how living out those interests will ultimately help anyone or improve the world?

I’ve been wondering about this a lot. The bible says to sacrifice for others. But it also says we have God-given interests and talents. The world says to work, work, work. So I am going to experiment this year to see if, by following my natural interests and passions, I will end up contributing more to the world by simply living the life I want to live. In other words, by being what some may call “selfish,” are we actually living out an all-important God-given purpose for our life? I don’t know if the “results” are quantifiable or figure-out-able, so I guess that’s another reason for this experiment.

That means I have excitedly reengaged with this blog, which I previously hadn’t had time for in between all the volunteering. Lately, I’ve had so many things I’ve wanted to write that I haven’t written any. So I’m starting with revamping the description of my basic beliefs, which is now a heading on the blog called “Where I’m Coming From.” I’ve copied it here as a post because I think it may very well resonate with many of you who struggle with how to think about God and the bible…

Where I’m Coming From

I was raised Catholic and forced to go to a mindnumbingly dull church every Sunday of my life until I turned 18. Relieved beyond belief, I slept in with glee my first Sunday as an 18-year-old. For years after that, I revelled in Sundays being a day off from work, study, etc.

Eleven years later, I happily chose Christianity for myself and began reading the bible with people who were interested in reading and examining it too. I wrestled with how to follow God. I studied it with fascination at times and with a sense of obligation toward my eternal salvation at other times. I volunteered. I taught children’s youth groups and bible studies. I raised our kids in daily bible stories in the rocking chair (among many other non-bible books about science and how things work), and at times I was legalistic and ruined Sundays trying to figure out what we should or shouldn’t be doing on the Sabbath day that was to be set apart from the others.

Now, almost 50 years old, I question everything – God, Christianity, Christians, sermons, hymns, missionaries, how we do church, how we fund churches, a pastor’s role, and the list goes on. I don’t question all of this cynically. I simply question all of it. I never wanted to when I first took all of this on as my own, I just took it on. But in the past decades of being steeped in it, I have had many thoughts that I feel need further examination – a feeling of obligation rather than joy, an uncomfortability with almost every Christian song’s lyrics (now I don’t feel I can genuinely sing with the band up in front of church based on what songs might be planned for any given Sunday), a wondering if God is anything like what Christians talk about, a disenchantment with how people pass down the way they interpret the bible, and a questioning of why I’m here and how I’m supposed to use the days of my life. I didn’t want to examine those thoughts out of a fear of what it meant if I doubted or ultimately felt I didn’t believe in all of it. Would I be jeopardizing my soul? It probably sounds downright stupid to someone who didn’t grow up around all this. But lately my doubts have been overwhelming to keep inside. I feel freed to finally allow them, examine them, and write them all down.

So what are my basic beliefs? At the moment, I believe there has to be infinitely more than all of us eventually going into the dirt and becoming cosmic dust. We’re just all too connected for there to be no reason for us all. Love is so magnanimous. And every person’s spirit yearns to be surrounded in love. If love goes beyond the boundaries of our earthly bodies, then it seems our spirits must too, since I believe they are the very things that carry love.

In the past I haven’t wanted to question Jesus and God, since I’ve been told all my life that if I don’t believe in them, I’ll be left out of heaven. That’s a big thing to put on a person from birth. And then to be told that they are “free” to choose which destiny they want – heaven or hell. Dude, that’s not freedom. That’s some heavy, obligatory doom. I almost wonder by allowing myself to step outside of that paradigm if I will finally feel a joy of knowing God rather than an obligation to.

So where am I starting from with this blog? What’s my foundation?

I have a hard time separating myself from what I’ve been a part of all these years in order to think about it on my own. I think I believe in the bible, if I can pull it away from what seem to me like fallacies that are spread around by people in church and songs and families and bible studies (not that everything said is “wrong”). Scriptures are amazing, but pulling one sentence or passage out and following it without knowing its original context can lead to some big dysfunctions, judgments, and true evils.

I believe in God, but for me, God is an encapsulation of the amazing miracles we see in nature (like trees, whales, ants, eyes, lungs) and the invisible network that binds us all together, God being the central dynamo of it all. The problem is, I am a visual type. I take photos and remember images and think in pictures. I don’t think God is an older gentleman in a white robe with flowing gray hair and kind eyes. I want God to have a visual aspect but I’m not sure God does. I think God “is” (he calls himself “I am” in the bible) because he is everywhere in the form of energy, and that energy links us all. To me, that’s the only way I can reconcile his bigness (if he is even a he).

I want to believe in Jesus, like the portrayal of him in The Chosen. That’s my kind of Jesus. Who wouldn’t love that guy? And who wouldn’t love to be loved by him if he’s part of who God is?

I believe in the Spirit because I think that’s precisely what links us all together, if we choose to love. I believe that love is the reason for everything, and that God literally is love. Not that God’s mission is love, but that God equals love and therefore perhaps the words God and love are interchangeable, and love is that energy that transcends time and space. I love love.

Regarding the bible itself, I have studied it for years and its flow is quite phenomenal. I don’t think a human or a bunch of humans could’ve orchestrated the way it lays everything out. I don’t mean its structure; more like its timeline and the way so many things are linked together in different eras. You may not get what I mean unless you’ve read it. I believe it to be basically true, but sometimes not in literal ways. Some books in the bible are written to be read literally and some are not. I think it could be erroneous and even quite detrimental raise children in familial life as though every word in the bible should be taken literally. Sometimes bible accounts can feel as mythical as Marvel movies, and sure, I like the idea of a good fairy tale that comes true. But then again, I like science and statistics, and I feel that we get hints that life is not as cut and dried as we thought. We didn’t believe in UFOs as a society, and now we actually call them UAPs because many non-kooky people have seen them. There is a psychic in a Netflix series that is able to know unknowable things about each person he works with. And there are people in the world who have stories that don’t abide by the rules of nature. I think those are all glimpses into the mysterious unknown. I think science and God/love will soon be understood to be inseperable because science is the examination of what is, so science will document how love is the energy that binds everything together and makes it work. But I must say that I don’t think that even the God of the bible in certain instances is the real God that is. For example, if the God portrayed actually denies people entrance to heaven because they didn’t choose it in their earthly existence and didn’t do the right things before death to attain such entrance, I don’t think that God exists. If I, a human, don’t want anyone denied entrance to heaven, even if they were awful on earth, how could a human want a more loving outcome than God? If God is all-loving, why would hell even exist? Why would we have to spend our whole lives wondering if we were going to heaven or hell?

My opinions aside, the way other people live out the bible can either be beautiful or dangerous. They can either love with practical discernment of what’s right and wrong, or they can think they are following God when they intentionally judge, harm, or try to take over the world with how they interpret it or how they take on misguided beliefs passed down to them.

I share my thoughts in the form of this blog in case you have felt similarly and this resonates with you. Perhaps you’ve even had thoughts you haven’t wanted to allow yourself to think, so I will do it here (and sacrifice my soul to eternal damnation for you).

Maybe some people feel forever relieved by choosing to follow Jesus because it means they’re headed to heaven, but for me, that is far from a promise or a relief. Have I been taught wrongly? Have translations failed me? Have I misconstrued the teachings I’ve heard all these years? I’ve tried to own it. Tried to feel it. Tried to have a “relationship” with God. Boy, have I tried.

But what if by setting aside all I grew up with and have observed in my life, I will actually come to know the real God? The God that doesn’t deal in guilt or obligation. The God that we all know as Love, that circulates between us and tells us what is right and wrong, where to go, what to do, and who needs our love.

This blog exists to work through all of it, even though I won’t ever get to the bottom of it in this earthly body…

I’d love to say the photograph with this post has some deep meaning relevant to what I just wrote, but I’m not forcing any meaning onto it. I just like it. I pass by this “Jesus” each day on my walk.