Religiosity

One of my closest friends asked me to provide some insight into the non-religious nature of my project here. (Thanks for the direction, Lyn!) Religion is a tough topic to breach, because what someone believes is so dear to them that it is really difficult to challenge or question a person's beliefs without them feeling in some way insulted. I feel that if you believe (I mean really believe) in something, you should have to question it every once in a while, otherwise, you are simply being indoctrinated. So I like to ask people about their religious beliefs because I am curious about how I might come to have some of my own. This usually backfires.

Okay, here's an experiment- bear with me for a minute or two. For this minute, toss away all of your religious/spiritual beliefs and be a blank slate. If you were a person without a religious base (which the majority of people in the USA, believe it or not, are...) where would you find your beliefs about life, death, and what happens to a person's spirit when they die? If you had never been to Sunday School, Youth Group, and didn't go to Church, how would you come to understand the fundamentals of being human? I have been asked this question a multitude of times by my religious friends and family members. One person even suggested that I couldn't possibly understand life and death without God and Jesus to help me. Yes, Virginia, there is a way. All of my life (as short as it has been so far) I have questioned the existence of God. I guess you could say I am officially an Agnostic. Def: a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable ; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god. Being an Agnostic isn't easy, believe me. It would be really nice if I really believed in something that could have guided me through my mother's death. Really, it would have been quite handy. Unfortunately, I was left still questioning.

I read LOTS of books about this topic when my mom died. One of the books was "When Bad Things Happen to Good People." It was written by a Rabbi who lost his son tragically, and he himself was left questioning why a just God would do something to such a good person. I have hear a lot of people's thoughts about why good people, innocent children, etc. die. I have heard lots of opinions like "God needs them with him," and "God has a higher purpose for them." It would be great if I believed that. The book was interesting but left me with more questions.

I don't wake up every morning wondering where God is. I do, however, find that I wonder a lot where my mother is. She died- I saw the mortician take her body out of our house the day she died. I know that her body was cremated, and I was there when my father scattered her ashes over her blueberry bushes next to her grave overlooking the ocean in Maine. But WHERE is she now? For some people, she exists in a heaven somewhere. I don't know what that is, but I know that she exists in me, my brother, and my father. She most certainly exists in my four closest friends. Every life milestone that one of them goes through I can just see my mother shining through them and I can feel how proud she would be of the amazing women they have become. She is with me every day.

In my next post I will write about the several examples of experiences I have had since my mom died that lead me to believe that God might really exist...