I Believe

When I add a new person to my Facebook friends list, one of the first things I do is look at their information page. This page contains things like that person’s political views, favorite movies, and very importantly, their religious beliefs. If I were to scroll through my friends right now, I would find several Christians of different denominations, a few atheists, and even a couple Wiccans. However, if someone were to look at my religious views, they wouldn’t find a particular religion. Instead, they would find the word “Questioning.” Furthermore, they would find that the four most influential people to me are a diverse bunch—Rosie the Riveter, Jesus, Ghandi, and Buddha. Before I go any further, I would like to make clear that though I consider myself to be “Questioning,” I am not an agnostic. I am Questioning because I believe that someday I will figure out who God is and what religion I ascribe to. It is a spiritual journey that I am on, and it took much to get to this point. However, I am far from finished, and still strive to move forward.
It is somewhat ironic that I am so unsure of what I believe in now, considering where I started out. I have attended Baptist churches my whole life. The one that caused a major turning-point in how I viewed the world was the last one I ever attended—an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church. I was very active in this church, and even attended their school from eighth to tenth grade. Their view of the world was very narrow and closed minded. A girl who wore pants was considered a whore, or at the very least “trying to usurp the man’s authority.” The idea of a man’s natural authority over women seemed to stem from their thought that women cannot be preachers, and so must be meek and submissive. I heartily disagreed and caught a lot of hostility for it. I left the church at age seventeen, and determined to never allow myself to blindly follow what others say, but instead to question with impunity before I believed.
Despite my reassurances to myself, there was still one belief that I hung on to even after leaving church. It was something that I had been consistently taught in every single church I had attended, and so was firmly ingrained in my mind. This was the belief that homosexual attraction is a disgusting sin, and that people with homosexual attractions absolutely hate God and are going to Hell. My whole life I had convinced myself that I was heterosexual, despite the way I was undeniably drawn to images of the female figure. For a time I was able to convince myself that I was merely admiring beauty, but once I hit eighteen that excuse didn’t work anymore. That when I realized that I’m bisexual, and I hated myself for it. I was convinced that God hated me, and I confided in a few friends, telling them about my “problem.” One well-meaning but misguided friend showed me a website that claimed to help Christian teens overcome their homosexual attraction, but as much as I tried the feelings for women just wouldn’t go away.
Once I realized that the feelings weren’t going away, it hit me that what I had been taught my whole life was wrong. I loved God, and yet I had homosexual attraction. The church was wrong. Perhaps the church was wrong about other things too. From that point on I decided to embrace my bisexuality, and now I am grateful that I have the capacity to love indiscriminately. After I got that settled, I began the spiritual journey that I am still on today. I asked questions that I always had in the back of my mind, but had never dared ask before. One such question is if a person is very devout in their own religion, such as Islam or Judaism, why would God send them to Hell for essentially reading the wrong holy book? Do I even believe in Hell? And, at the heart of the matter, do I believe in Christianity or do I believe in something else? I dabbled in Neo-Paganism for a short time, drawn to the inclusive nature of the religion. I derived satisfaction from performing rituals involving lighting candles and praying to the Goddess, but it wasn’t quite what I was looking for.
Earlier this summer, I made the first step towards finding true spiritual satisfaction. I had the opportunity to travel to Tokyo, Japan, and while there I visited the Senso-ji temple in Asakusa, which is dedicated to Mahayana Buddhism. While walking the grounds and taking in the sights, I felt a sense of belonging like I’d never felt in any other religious site. I was home. Standing in front of a shrine to the Buddha, I wanted to cry. Writing this and recalling that moment again makes me want to cry, because I had never felt such a sense of belonging before. At the time I knew little about Buddhism, but I knew at that moment that I wanted to learn more. Once I got home I started my research, and the more I read about Buddhism the more I like it. However, I am wary of considering myself a Buddhist quite yet because I still feel like I need to learn more. Just the other day I read a book written by the Dalai Lama, and some of the concepts he brought up I am only beginning to understand.
In the meantime, I am of the opinion that my philosophy should dictate my religion, rather than my religion dictating my philosophy. Even without a religion, I have a creed. I believe that people are put on this earth to help one another. I believe this so strongly that it influenced my decision on what my major should be. I intend to be a Psychologist so that I can help those who are hurting, scared, and confused and try to make the world a better place. That’s why it almost seems like fate that I have such a strong affinity towards Mahayana Buddhism, whose goal is to help others, or at the very least to do no harm. I find that addendum appropriate, because not everyone is meant to be as passionate about helping people as I am. Everybody should be able to believe however they want to, but in so doing should never purposefully hurt someone.
Despite my drifting away from the Christian religion, I still believe there was a man named Jesus, and I believe that his teachings have great merit. At one point I questioned how much I liked Jesus, because I had had so many negative experiences with his followers. But then I came across this quote from Ghandi: “I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Everything came into focus after reading that statement. Jesus was a good man, and he may even have been God in the flesh. Having not-so-holy followers will never take away from that. Just like with Christianity, it seems that most religions at their core are essentially benevolent. Jesus taught to love your enemies, Mohammed taught to give to the poor. The religion itself isn’t what creates intolerant bigots, it is people themselves. It is an important milestone that I can view religion as a positive thing, because in the earlier stages of my journey I was tempted to throw out religion completely. I still have a long way to go on this journey, but finally I am starting to find peace in religion.

La Mujer Durmiente

I read a beautiful story today as I visited the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago. In one of the exhibits there was a painting of a beautiful sleeping woman, and an Aztec Warrior standing guard over her. The painting illustrated an Aztec legend concerning two volcanoes--the "sleeping woman" and the "smoking warrior." In this legend, a beautiful Aztec princess who falls in love with a warrior. Her father intends to marry her off to another man, but decides that he will allow his daughter to marry her lover if he goes off to battle and comes back victorious. The warrior agrees, and sets off. He's gone for a very long time, and eventually the princess hears that he has died in battle. She becomes so heartsick that she passes away. Soon her lover comes back victorious, alive and well. When he finds out that she has died he goes to her body and stands guard by her side. Years pass, and yet he never leaves her side. Eventually they are transformed by the gods into volcanoes. The woman is still sleeping and dormant, and her lover still stands guard over her, even today.

I don't know why that story meant so much to me at the time. Perhaps it's because I'm a hopeless romantic. Perhaps it's the part of me that feels like every living thing--even volcanos--has a spirit, and it warms my heart that the strong warrior spirit has looked after his sleeping lover for centuries. All I know is that I couldn't have come across the story at a better time. I'll be honest, right now I feel kind of like that sleeping woman. Life hurts too much. It would easy to just lie down and never wake up. But like her, that would be making a foolish mistake. She died convinced that she had nothing to live for, although her reason for living was much closer than she thought. I just have to keep in mind that though things may seem bad now, it won't always hurt this much.

Rambling Thoughts on God, Mother Earth, and Humanity

I recently started watching the TV show Supernatural, which chronicles the adventures of Sam and Dean Winchester as they battle supernatural forces such as monsters and demons, and sometimes even angels. I'm almost done with season five, the episode where Lucifer is walking the earth and Armaggedon has begun. Sam and Dean, along with their friends Bobby Singer (their surrogate father) and Castiel (an angel of the Lord) are trying to find a way to save the earth and destroy Lucifer. The only person they know of powerful enough to defeat Lucifer is God. Problem is, many angels (God's children) are convinced that God is dead. Nevertheless, Castiel begins a tireless hunt to find God and beg him to help them. Eventually, he finds out that God just doesn't care. He doesn't want to be bothered with his children's problems. Probably one of the most compelling moments in the show is when that information is relayed to Castiel, who had so ardently believed in God and sacrificed for him and searched for him. He looks to the ceiling and says "You son of a bitch. I believed."

I was replaying that scene in my head just moments ago, which soon cascaded into thinking about society's view on God. I realized that how season five of Supernatural portrays God is how many people view him. Like a deadbeat father who took the time to create us and play around with us for a little while, but soon lost interest and now can't be bothered to help us. Or we believe in him, and then tragedy strikes and tears away our foundation. In those moments you can't help but feel betrayed. How could an almighty God have allowed such tragedy? "You son of a bitch. I believed."

This line of thinking soon trailed off in a different direction. The idea of God as a deadbeat father is hardly a new concept. It's probably been around since before recorded history. It's really no wonder that mankind came up with the idea of a "mother earth." She's moody and cruel--hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanos, and tsunamis are a testament to that--but no matter how cruel we are to her, no matter how many oil spills or landfills pollute her, she still continues to sustain us and even provide us with beauty. She's the dependable "mother" we can always count on to love us even when "father's" love is questionable. An analogy of this can be found in David Eddings's The Belgariad series. The hero Belgarion finally succeeds in killing the evil god Torak, a god who had always felt rejected by his father. As Torak dies, he looks to the heavens and screams "Mother!" feeling that mother nature was the only one who ever loved him.

All of this conjecturing about God and Mother Earth resolved with me relating it to the recent tragedy in Japan. Aftershocks continue. The death toll is climbing. The devastation is incomprehensible. It's hard to believe that we have either a loving Father or a loving Mother amidst all this. Why does God allow these natural disasters when humanity does a good enough job of destorying each other all by ourselves? Earthquakes only fuel the fire, as was the case in Haiti not too long ago. The strong preyed upon the weak. People were robbed, women were raped, and in most cases only the strongest got the supplies. "Why should God care?" you might think. Look at the state of humanity. As soon as disaster strikes, we resort to pillaging, looting, and hurting others.

But then you look at Japan. After suffering a massive quake and subsequent tsunami, you wouldn't be surprised to hear horror stories of looting and atrocities committed in the ravaged areas. But that's where Japan is different. Unlike many modern societies, they prize honor and discipline. The average Japanese citizen holds so much respect for his/her country that to leave trash on the side of the road would be absolutely unthinkable. To dissolve into chaos in the midst of a crisis would be more than unthinkable. Am I saying that the Japanese are better than the rest of the world? Absolutely not. They give me hope for humanity. It's not a rule that left to their own devices, mankind will resort to chaos and violence. Mankind does have the potential to rise above.

Does God care that so many people are suffering? I like to think so. I like to think that instead of being disgusted by our base nature, he keeps turning back to us because of our potential to be more. To love our neighbor as ourselves. I like to think I have a purpose for being in this world, as opposed to a purposeless existence subject to the whims of "mother nature." Unfortunately, tonight I can't get Castiel's words out of my head. Would God hear it if I shouted my doubts to the skies, or would my words simply bounce off the ceiling?

Mini-Rant on a So-Called "Cure"

It's amazing how the simplest internet search inspired by curiosity can fuel a blog post mini-rant.

Earlier today, a coworker informed me that she's taking Human Sexuality, a course that I've been considering taking in the near future. One of the reasons I have an interest in the course is I am interested in what causes us to be attracted to the ones we're attracted to. What is it that makes a person homosexual/heterosexual/bisexual/asexual? Is it genetic, something intrinsic in your personality, or something else entirely? Out of curiosity, I typed in "homosexual attraction" into the Bing search engine to see if anything pertinent would come up. Considering what I was looking for, I was surprised with what actually came up. I was bombarded with several web sites claiming to help the reader "overcome unwanted same-sex attractions," and find "healing of sexual attractions." I also discovered an article on Conservapedia, a spin-off of Wikipedia geared towards Christians, purporting the now-obsolete belief that homosexuality is a mental disorder.

While I realize that millions of Americans, especially Christians, hold to this belief that same-sex attraction is a disease that can and must be "cured," it still catches me off-guard when I see it spelled out so ruthlessly. I can't help but think that these same people who offer "healing" obviously have no idea what it's like to be attracted to someone of the same gender, and don't care enough to even research it. It's easier to just slap a label on someone and scream "repent!" then it is to actually care.

For the record, I am a Christian. I am also bisexual. A year ago, I was finally admitting to myself after years of denying it that I have strong attractions to both men and women. During that time, I wanted nothing more than for those attractions towards women to go away. I had buried them for years, after all. A friend sent me a link to a Christian forum that claimed to help teens overcome their same-sex desires, which only served to make me feel even more that God must hate me. As hard as I tried, I couldn't be rid of them, which made me feel like I must be a failure. Needless to say, that friendship didn't last much longer.

Eventually I realized that the only way I could overcome my depression was to accept that yes, I am bisexual, and it's not something I can control. When I finally did reach that point of acceptance, it was like a load had been lifted off my shoulders. Now that I had accepted who I am, I could choose my next step. Only from there could I decide if bisexuality was something I wanted to embrace or ignore. I decided to embrace who I am, but I could just as easily have gone another route after reaching that point. That's why it irritates me when people treat homosexuality like something that needs to be hidden away or cured. A person just discovering their same-sex attractions is already feeling vulnerable, perhaps even scared or ashamed. The last thing they need is a so-called "cure."

Happiness--A Choice?

While I was browsing Facebook today, I saw a status update that to me was a slap in the face. It read "Happiness is a choice, not a coincidental state of being. I choose to be happy because of Jesus, not because of my circumstances." I realize that this is a very common belief. You can choose to be happy if you really want to be. If you're right with God, then you'll never get depressed. I'll admit that on a surface level, this can be true. Some can choose to let go of bitterness and unforgiveness despite tragedy, which in turn gives them more piece of mind. On a deeper level however, the belief that you can choose to be happy and simply wish away any negative feelings is nothing more than wishful thinking and is an insult to those who just can't be "happy," such as sufferers of clinical depression. Those who say "happiness is a choice" are blithely ignoring this simple fact: happiness takes much more than just a will to be happy.

As a person who has suffered from depression and anxiety off and on for years, I take issue with those who would undermine what I go through by basically telling me that it's all my fault. It's either because I am holding on to bitter feelings because of my circumstance, or I'm simply not right with God. Never mind that depression runs in my family, or that human emotions are largely regulated by chemicals in your brain rather than personal choice. If you're not "happy," whatever happiness is, then it's all your fault.

Common sense and science do not agree with the viewpoint that happiness is a choice. To quote Christian comedian Ken Davis, "If happiness was a choice, then everyone in the world would be happy." When you're depressed, you want nothing more to be *not* depressed. You want that ache inside, that heavy weight that's crushing you, to go away. Unfortunately, you can't just wish away depression. And no matter how many times you pray and read the Bible, when you're depressed, you know with certainty that your prayers are just bouncing off the ceiling. In many cases, the only way to get out of depression is through therapy or medicine to help balance out the off-kilter chemicals in your brain or a mixture of both. Personally, I would much prefer having a professional helping me rather than having to depend on my fickle human mind to get me out of depression.

I use myself as an example in this blog, but I do not get offended by those well-intentioned but utterly unhelpful recitations of "Happiness is a choice!" or "Just pray and it'll get better" because of myself. I get up in arms because those empty words do more harm than good to those, like the loved one I dedicated my blog on suicide to, who are suffering. But, rather than give into the temptation to smack someone across the face or give them a good verbal beatdown, I instead decided to take the road-less-traveled and instead educate those who most likely have no idea how useless their words are. I aim to make people think twice before repeating a variation of those two phrases to a hurting friend.