2001-02-19
Are you there, God? It's me, Mark, posted at 04:45:29
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com Faith. Do I believe in God? I'm not sure. I guess that makes me agnostic, doesn't it? The truth is, I have no idea what I believe. I am spiritually deficient. Sometimes, when I am listening to great music, or have a wonderful teaching moment, or come to some sort of glorious self-realization, I think of myself as spiritual. But it's not real. I don't think so, at least. When did this happen? I grew up Catholic. Not devout, but Catholic. Heck, I even went to a Catholic school through the third grade. My parents aren't religious, but I think they do believe in something. I dunno, we never talk about it. My grandma is religious, on my father's side, but I've never heard my maternal grandparents mention anything about religion. Still, I never knew I was missing out. Why should I? After all, I still believed in God and Jesus and all that stuff. But after going away to college, something has changed. Not consciously, not immediately. But, for some reason, I'm more and more unable to wrap my mind around the idea of a God. It's terrible, I know. Perhaps my mind has grown too scientific. Perhaps some of his followers, who call themselves Christians to cover up the fact that they're taking rights away from women and gays, have made me cynical. Perhaps the Bible turns me off. I see it as more a weapon of hate than anything else, because of the words of its followers and my own ignorance of the subject. Or perhaps I've just become cynical on my own. There was an episode of "The Simpsons" once in which Lisa found a skeleton of an "angel" in the parking lot of a new mall. The whole town believed it was an angel except for Lisa, who believed there had to be an explanation. At one point, Marge told Lisa that she felt sorry for her, that she didn't have enough faith to accept what it was. The episode made me stop to think a little bit. Am I missing something? Then, of course, the conclusion of the story was that the angel was, in fact, a fake. ugh. I guess that's what you get when you look for answers in a cartoon. I loved the way Alice Walker described God in "The Color Purple". I can't remember specifics right now, but it was something about each person having a god inside of them. I loved that description. My overarching point to this entry is that I truly do think I'm missing something by not having any faith in my life. I need to figure out a way to get my mind to think more abstractly, not trying to see God in the ways I have seen him before. This might help my constant fear of death of me or my loved ones, and give me some sort of reassurance. Of course, this opens up that whole other can of worms that Jodie Foster so well questions in the great film "Contact" - how do we know that God isn't just a social construct to calm our fears of death? I don't know what I think, I guess. Erin thinks it has to do with my not having grown up around religion much. Perhaps. Or perhaps I'm just looking for a sign, some sort of signal that I'm on the right track with my life and there's some sort of plan for all of us. Even me.