I’ve had a few friends ask me how I became religious and more specifically, how did I settle upon a Christian God considering all the other great deities out there. To some degree, I take my personal journey for granted and sharing it actually pokes and prods me to question myself.
” Do i still have faith or am I just going through the motions?”
First off, my father is a devout athiest. So much so it’s almost to the point of a religion in itself. My dad took whatever occasion he could to point out that it wasn’t God that put food on the table or paid for our new clothes but my father’s devotion to his family. A devotion so strong that it made him get up at 7 am 5 days a week for most of his life and drag his very unhappy self to a job he hated but accepted that it made a “good living”.
My mother was a wanna be catholic. She viewed the Church for the most part as a social organization and kept her opinions on God to herself. Usually we only heard her address God when she was upset and even then she spoke in Tagalog so we had no clue whether she was begging for help or cursing the powers that be.
In elementary school, I was a pretty rotten kid. I stole from other kids. I was jealous of other kids. I had no friends. Even the unpopular girl that picked her nose refused to hang out with me. I’m not sure what my problem was. I just seemed to hate everyone but I loved receiving attention from my teachers. One of my favorite teachers was Ms. Duck. She was tall, well-dressed, sharp elegant features and a voice that reminded me of butter on popcorn. She was regal, almost. In my head, she was too perfect to be married. The kind of woman that didn’t need a husband to complete her.
One day Ms. Duck found out that I had stolen from the other kids. She never came out and told me or the rest of my classmates but I could tell by the way she ignored me in class and sent me out to eat lunch by myself that she must have found out somehow. I was heartbroken. My favorite teacher hated me. I could take all the other kids hating me but not Ms. Duck. She was my Bionic Woman.
In class, she used to start off the day reading passages from the Bible. Definatly a no-no by today’s practices but I guess back in the 80′s it wasn’t such a big deal. I had heard about this big thick book with the thin crisp pages. Some of the other kids brought their Bibles to class so they could read along. I remember the sound of all the pages flicking back and forth, back and forth while trying to find the right passages. I assumed if I had a Bible that maybe Ms. Duck would lighten up a little since obviously this thick book meant a lot to her. How bad could I be if I read the same book as Ms. Duck?
I didn’t have a Bible at home. I wasn’t about to ask my Dad for one. Not unless I wanted him to smack me upside the head with it. So I grabbed a book off the shelf at home that sorta seemed to have the same look as the Bible. It was the Merck Manual Medical Book. It detailed all sorts of various diseases, the symptoms and their treatments. The pages had that same thin crispness to it. A perfect decoy.
So I started pretending to read from the Bible like some of the other kids in class. Only I would pay extra attention to the stories that Ms. Duck read since I couldn’t actually read along. She spoke about this entity called God that loved everyone. That forgave everyone. And I mean everyone. Even rotten little kids that Ms. Duck herself couldn’t forgive? Even me??? A kid whose parents wished she wasn’t born, a teacher that knew she was a thief and classmates that couldn’t stand me? No way!
Eventually eating alone at lunch didn’t seem so lonely, I outgrew stealing from the other kids and Ms. Duck even lightened up a year later. Something about being “forgiven” even when I didn’t necessarily ask for it or realized it was what I wanted had melted away alot of the anger I had towards those around me. I didn’t feel like it was me vs them. Them being my parents, my teachers and my classmates.
That’s how it started. Since then I’ve struggled on and off with faith. I’ve definately done my fair share of things that I’m sure did not exactly fit into the Christian agenda. Some of them I don’t regret. Some of them I do. Whether I decide to be a Christian or not..whether or not I chose to go to Church..whether or not I decide to pray ..I feel God is there.
Even if I decide not to follow Him and never speak His name again. I know it wouldn’t mean He doesn’t exist. Just that I have decided to live without Him. He’s there. That’s what Faith is. Not having to have it there in your face but knowing it exists. Like the love from your parent, you don’t doubt it. You just know. And that’s what makes religion..whether it be Christianity or not…a powerful and sometimes frightening thing. The ability to believe in something even though there is no tangible proof that you can bring up when you begin to doubt.
I remember going to a Church where my peers asked me if I remembered the exact moment God entered my life. I said I didn’t. That it was more of a growth process for me. They told me that I had not really accepted God since I didn’t have that moment. Personally, I thought it was crap. Each person has their own reasons to believe and of course, to not believe. Each person has their own journey and that journey may be similar or unique to others’ but it is necessary and not one that should be rushed. Whether it happens in a moment or over many years or throughout one’s lifetime.
It may be a horrible analogy but it’s like love. For some, they feel a connection with someone instanteously. Just by looking into their eyes or feeling the touch of their skin in a handshake. For me, my closest friends have come out of years of building memories together, helping each other even when it may have been easier to walk away, letting each other down but being able to forgive and work things out. (Not forget but forgive.)
This is the kind of relationship I have with God.
I think back on that angry little girl in elementary school and wonder if I would have turned out all that differantly if I hadn’t brought the Merck Manual to Ms. Duck’s class. Maybe things would have worked out fine either way. Maybe the point isn’t that the Christian God is what saved me but rather acceptance and forgiveness was what saved me. In whatever form it took. Maybe that’s the bigger picture??
Like I said, we each have our own reasons to believe or not to. But that’s something we have to confront on our own. Never asking questions or facing the issue of “God” isn’t necessarily making a decision. That’s just putting off a discussion for another time.
