I have discovered recently that the underlying reason for my codependence is anxiety. The way I came to that was by recognizing my overdependence on external validation and seeking approval of others. The reason for this, as it turns out, is my lack of trusting myself. And the result has been living from a place of ongoing anxiety. The anecdote is confidence. So I am slowly working on building my confidence in various areas of my life.
Once I recognized the weak boundaries I have with certain individuals in my life, at one point it dawned on me that I likewise have weak boundaries with the Catholic Church. I seek the approval of Church figures, I don't trust my own conscience, and I operate from a place of anxiety. This led to a spiritual quest that took me on a mission of finding a place of worship where I already agree with the people there so that I don't have to face disapproval! It did finally occur to me that no such place exists, and that what I actually need is to work on embracing the potential conflict that may arise if and when I speak my mind.
An interesting but sad thing happened as I allowed myself the freedom to think for myself. You see, that's the problem with codependence, boundary violations, external validation - you let someone or something outside of yourself tell you who you are, what to think, and how to feel about any given thing. I grew up with this sort of dysfunction in my family of origin, but it was once I realized it bled over into my faith life that the rubber hit the road. I realized that I didn't understand the very word "conscience" itself, supposedly something the Catechism of the Catholic Church claims is of paramount importance even above and beyond church teaching. Because the RCC teaches that a conscience ought to be "formed" by thorough study of what the Church teaches and why. Basically, if I didn't agree with something the Church taught, my conscience "wasn't formed" well enough. Come again?! So only people who agreed with the Church had a fully working conscience? This of course is ludicrous. The very definition of conscience implies that no one outside of oneself can affect it.
Once I allowed myself to listen to my own conscience, without fear of judgment from "Catholic authorities", I started to ask questions that I never dared ask before. The trajectory of my unraveling faith was as follows.
1. Even before I started down this road, I believed in universal "salvation" (though I use that term loosely, for I don't believe in original sin nor the idea that God "needed" the atoning death of Jesus in order to let me back into His good graces in the afterlife). What this meant was that I didn't believe my religion was the one true religion. Perhaps, at my most serious in the faith, I thought we were "the closest", but certainly still missing bits and pieces of information.
2. I started to object to certain teachings of the Church that went against my inner sense of justice. Namely, I disagree with the Church's stance on LGBTQ rights. I disagree with the excessive fixation on sexual ethics to the near exclusion of all other transgressions. I disagree that God would make some people attracted to the same sex and then impose lifelong celibacy on them. Celibacy ought to be something entered into willingly, after discernment, and given there is the other valid option of a lifelong committed relationship (namely, marriage) held out as an alternative. In other words, I couldn't get on board with the Church's anti-gay marriage rhetoric and the various discriminatory practices by Catholic institutions done in the name of "religious freedom".
3. Once I loosened the control the Church had on my conscience, I started exploring various religions, which I've done previously. But this time, I started to notice something. Each group seemed to be using certain critiques to discount the teachings of other groups, without applying the same critiques to themselves. This became most noticeable when I was watching a popular Orthodox Rabbi on YouTube. He was of course critiquing Christianity as a whole, but he said - how can mainstream Christians reject the idea of Mormons or Muslims reinterpreting Christian Scriptures and claiming additional revelations and prophets, yet they accept their own changes and reinterpretations of the original Hebrew Scriptures? I knew he was right. And then I added... and what is so uniquely sacred about the Hebrew Scriptures that makes them sacred beyond questioning? If we don't believe in the more recent prophets' revelations, why should we believe in more ancient prophets' revelations? Why can't God simply reveal Himself to each of us directly, based on our receptivity? And so, I realized I could not follow any religion based on the supposed limited "special" revelation of supposed prophets. The prophets of the world, or at least their followers and the interpretations of their revelations, don't agree. Hence, we have as many different religions as we do today. Some, like the Bahai, claim that all prophets are saying the same message, yet this has not at all been a universal understanding of religious prophecy. The most recent prophet is always thought to be the more relevant one.
4. Once I left revealed religion behind, I automatically had to put down written Scriptures. The Bible was no longer a source of authority for me. A modern group of influential leaders could gather the inspired writings of more recent spiritual gurus, like Deepak Chopra, let's say, and declare these to be the Modern Testament, Scriptures that supersede all the others.
5. Without Scriptures or organized religion of any kind dictating the boundaries of where my thoughts could wonder, I began to look at how other faiths envision Ultimate Reality. I started to question the nature of God as He is presented in the Bible and in Christianity. I realized that this God, indeed was made in the image of man - with human weaknesses of character that led him to be full of wrath, fickle, power-hungry, jealous, violent, and then to smooth things over, merciful and forgiving. It sounded like a control freak show, honestly. You never knew "which" god you would get. Mainstream Christians would tell gay people that their active engagement in homosexuality would invoke the wrath of God, but their own tendencies to lie, cheat, even kill - well, God was all loving and all forgiving then. It was utter nonsense. I couldn't believe in "this" god any longer. I realized that this god was simply too small.
6. I was ok with God being less personal, more mysterious. After all, technically that is what Christians already believe about God, yet they continue to try to make sense of Him with various attempts at domesticating Him. If it's not the Trinity, then it's calling Him Our Father. We are never forced to just accept the fact that God -whatever and whoever God is - is simply beyond our understanding. We ought to just be grateful God created us, and do our best to live a life of purpose and charity, so that we can better know God in the afterlife.
7. Ah, the afterlife. I started to wonder about what sort of an afterlife we might have, since I didn't have to parrot back "bodily resurrection" or "heaven and hell". I was never particularly attached to the idea of having a physical body in the afterlife. I was more or less thinking that our soul was what lived on. I just didn't know the details. As I pondered what the soul might be, I thought of consciousness. Because it did me no good to think that we simply got reabsorbed into the Universal Force after death, and that the way we "lived forever" was in terms of the energy we left behind or our molecular restructuring or mere memories of those still living. The kind of afterlife I always imagined was one where I was aware of myself. Very anti-Buddhist. I wanted to keep the Ego.
8. So I looked into what consciousness really was. I watched a certain video by an atheist that explained the biological functions of consciousness, how certain parts of the brain are involved in our ability to be conscious of ourselves, and then it dawned on me - the implication is that once the body dies, so does the consciousness. There goes my afterlife. And this created a bit of a panic on my existential journey. For better or worse, I am not prepared to abandon the idea of immortality. I know it may sound cliche, and to some even naive. But if I have to go through the rest of my life believing that when I die, that is the literal end of me and I will never again see any of my loved one, not the ones who went before me and not the ones I'm leaving behind? Well, I'm sorry but I simply cannot imagine going through life with that world-view.
9. Thank God ( ;) ) I remembered an old argument by religionists against the secular materialistic scientific world-view. Science as we know it today is actually rather new in the history of humanity. It has definitively answered lots of questions that previously religions merely had theories about. Yet I realized I was finding myself being swayed - yet again - by an outside source. I was allowing the "scientific community" to tell me who I am, what to think, and how to feel. So I shook off the depression and despair long enough to think this through.
In a way, science can be compared to religions in that it provides an alternate world-view. Just like religions, it makes certain assumptions. It holds certain values in higher esteem than others. It has well-respected "prophets" and "authoritative writings". Most markedly, it has set up a system of checking for evidence of theories within the material world, and rejects out of hand anything that doesn't exactly fit into its scientific method. Sound familiar? Religions likewise draw certain boundaries and just don't venture past them for fear of being proven wrong.
What's more, by definition science deals with the material world. How, then, can science possibly answer any questions about the existence or nonexistence of a spiritual realm, when it is simply not equipped to measure frequencies beyond the physical? It is easy to say that if we can't measure it, it doesn't exist. But it is not very honest to do so.
10. And so where I find myself is here: I do not know what the nature of God is, nor what exactly awaits us in the afterlife. However, I have had enough spiritual experiences to tell me that there must be something worthy of mention there. That science has no more ultimate truth than does religion. One thing I think science does a much better job of than does religion is to focus on the improvement of our world, here and now. Religion often prioritizes the afterlife over the here and now to the point of ignoring the legitimate needs of our planet and certain marginalized people. Religions tend to cater to the poor, though not universally and often with limitations, not to mention failing to see how minority group membership status affects poverty. Yet for all the bad things that religion has done and sadly continues to do, there are also things that religion is doing better than science, providing hope, meaning, purpose, comfort, as well as high standard for character formation. We need both. Perhaps in a few hundred years, there will be talk of ecumenical discussions between the scientific community and the religious community (singular), like there is today within religions. Religions need to band together and focus on what they as a whole bring to the table, because if they continue to bicker among themselves, greedy to win maximum adherents, people will simply trickle out and get lost in the sea of science, living for today, but with no hope for tomorrow.
I know some people don't need the affirmation of God or an afterlife to feel fulfilled. There are also people who don't seem bothered by their religion going against what science has already established as fact. We need to accept that different people need different things to lead a happy life. We need to find a way for science and religion to talk to each other, not over each other. But that's for another day. For now, suffice it to say that I am holding on to that last shred of spirituality that was nearly extinguished by my newfound freedom of thought. And that I need to focus my attention on reframing my own religious tradition in a way that I will find meaningful, a way that I can teach to my children while maintaining integrity.
If indeed I need a label for this new spiritual adventure, perhaps Spiritual and Religious is the best available term. Not specific to any one religion, but rather valuing different aspects of several different religions. Yet spiritual first and foremost, pursuing an individual and unique spiritual practice, building fellowship in unusual places, and only supplementing and falling back on religion as a way of being grounded in something that - while I don't believe in it literally - has stood the test of time and certainly holds certain valuable truths about the human condition.
Alternately, I certainly am "Spiritually Independent", and so perhaps this term is even more appropriate, since I am in need of labels ;)
Monday, February 24, 2020
Groups
What groups do we/I belong to? What groups do we/I want to belong to? What groups should we/I try to belong to?
I try to be very conscientious about doing what's best for my children. Because we are a multicultural and multi-ethnic and multilingual family, I have to be intentional about which of the various relevant groups ought to be "ours", and to what degree.
The literature on the best practices for children "of color" (a politically correct phrase for non-white people, but one that my Latino husband dislikes, hence the quotation marks) talks of the importance of immersing children in groups where they can see racial mirrors, find role models, and gain a sense of identity. And I have tried to do just that.
For the past six years, we have tried to make friends by participating in Filipino events. It has been frustrating, as no lasting friendships have emerged from our efforts. I'm shy, so the effort has not come naturally to me. My husband has never met a stranger, so it's actually surprising that his efforts haven't had better results either. Finally I asked my good friend, whose husband is Filipino, for insights. What a relief it was to learn that even he - a Filipino raised by Filipino parents, does not find himself regularly included in Filipino gatherings.
Further insights from an online group I belong to pointed out that ethnic and cultural groups tend to be insular for self-preservation or just to have a safe space where they don't need to be explaining themselves to outsiders. It now makes perfect sense why we, as outsiders, have been unable to "infiltrate" the Filipino groups that have been perfectly friendly on the surface.
It is important to try, try again. It is equally important to know when to let it go. I'm letting it go. Not my intentions to keep exposing my kids to Filipino culture whenever possible, but rather my expectations of it ever getting beyond the level where we are now. And this acceptance is freeing.
Another aspect of raising Brown children is to ensure that they don't feel like they stick out because of their ethnicity or race. In other words, we want to make sure we live and learn and play in areas that are diverse. It doesn't need to be other Filipinos, but it does need to be other Brown people. As long as the White people are used to seeing Brown people and interacting with them and befriending them, then we should not have any problems. But we do not want our kids to be the experimental diversity in otherwise White spaces.
Here, again, I came upon a dilemma. I wanted to do right by my children and move to an area that was more diverse than not. However, the truth of the matter is that this would come at a price. Diversity is not the only value our family has. Nor is it the only priority. We must live in an area relatively close to my husband's work, and close to my parents, who are in need of more assistance as we all get older. My children need ample space to run around, especially since we homeschool, and so our home is our base. We grow food. We try to spend daily time outside. We value privacy and safety. What all of these add up to is a certain sized yard. Fenced, with shade and sunny areas, and room to run and roll around all without worrying about nosy neighbors. And what's more, we need to be able to afford this kind of living arrangement. We decided not to incessantly keep up with the Joneses. We have no intention of upgrading the size of our house, or moving to more "elite" neighborhoods. But we do want to keep a single family house with a fenced yard. And we want to pay it off by the time my husband is ready to retire and our kids are graduated from high school.
And we're not talking about moving to a completely homogenous, secluded area where we can count on being the only mixed family in any given situation. No, we're talking about a less diverse area, close enough to more diverse areas that we can drive there.
Finally, this is an issue for my own sanity. I have been programmed by the anti-racist rhetoric to be very careful to avoid at all costs anything that may be interpreted as whitesplaining, ethnocentricity, or white fragility. I worry about these things even as I am trying to guts up to putting "on paper" what thoughts are going through my mind. See, I was brought up with judgment and comparisons being the norm. I internalized the idea that if I am always judging others in black-or-white terms, then they are likewise judging me. Concepts like giving someone the benefit of the doubt or not taking things excessively personally are seen as having racist undertones when applied to trying to take White experience as equal to that of people of color. I was in an online group that taught me a lot, but at the cost of my own sense of self. The "people of color" in my real life - Latino, Black, Native American, all thought I was in a "cult". They simply did not experience the world in as harsh terms as the group described. The group would retort that they weren't being honest with themselves or with me. But that, indeed, started to sound a bit like indoctrination.
And I recently realized that I have had about enough indoctrination for one lifetime. I am in recovery for codependence. Through 3 years of therapy and recovery work, I've come to see how I have weak boundaries, don't trust myself, depend too heavily on the approval and validation of others, and operate from a general sense of ongoing anxiety. With very few, specific, decisions I've made, mostly dealing with my children, I have no confidence. I oscillate between superiority and inferiority complexes. And so, when it comes to what's best for my children, I am again in a place where I can either take in everything I've learned and then make a decision based on my specific circumstances and those of my children, or I can once again let some "experts" make these decisions for me.
I've had enough of giving over my power. People of color should know all too well what I mean. Just like not all Brown people are alike, or all Black people, or all Asians, etc. the same holds true for White people. We are not all alike. Yes, we all share having White privilege in US society. But aside from this, we are as different as minorities. We have different experiences, values, priorities, intentions, goals all of which must be taken into consideration when making day-to-day decisions. I know I won't find any popular outlet for this perspective, and I don't need it. I only need to admit this to myself, accept myself, trust myself, and make these decisions for myself.
Returning to the initial questions of groups - what groups do we belong to? The Catholic church. Sunday School at OLPH. Our area Catholic homeschooling group. My daughter's gymnastics class. My husband's men's group at church. My husband's job. Celebrate Recovery Meeting for me. Courageous Conversations (temporary group). Multilingual mixed families living in the US. Immigrant families. College graduates. Transracial adoptive (embryo) families. I'm sure there's more.
What groups do we want to belong to? Some sort of ongoing group where we can fellowship over shared values of racial, religious, and LGBTQ affirmation and understanding, as well as the pursuit of socioeconomic and environmental justice. Homeschooling group local to our area. A faith community where we can practice the rituals and traditions that give our spiritual journey meaning. I'd like to return to teaching adults ESL. Honestly, I don't want to belong to any one-race/ethnicity/culture groups. Not my Polish one, not a Filipino one, not a Latino one. Our family is all of these and we operate best when mingling with others who understand what it's like to mix and match, to find commonalities across the differences, and not just to uphold long standing norms in an isolated environment.
While I'm on the subject, I also need to remember that just because we are a multilingual family doesn't mean that we are aiming at 100% native fluency in all three languages. Frankly, my Polish heritage language is the least necessary for my kids to retain. Any language is a boon to the brain, and Polish in particular can make the learning of other Slavic languages easier if my kids ever decide to go that route. But aside from that - their Polish relatives with whom they interact regularly are not monolingual, and we have no intentions for travel back to Poland in the near future. I will be perfectly happy if my kids understand Polish music, movies, magazines, and can pronounce the uniquely Polish sounds if pressed to do so.
As for Spanish, this is a much more useful and ubiquitous language in our society and world. Our kids are likely to come across many people who speak Spanish, even only Spanish, and can easily benefit from knowing the language for both economic advancement and the enjoyment of the culture.
Perhaps we should seek out Spanish-speaking playdates?
Tagalog, what I suppose could be seen as a heritage language based on the kids' Filipino heritage, is similar to Polish in necessity. Unless my kids express an interest in actively learning the language, I won't stress over it. Since we cannot break into Filipino communities in order for the kids to be immersed in this culture anyway, I don't see how learning the language would do any good until they are grown and don't need us to facilitate. And at that point, they can also pick up the language, having already learned other languages previously, thus making language learning as a whole much easier than if they were starting out as monolinguals.
The next entry will deal with the theme of trusting self and resisting external validation, but from the spiritual perspective. (Both religious and secular-scientific.)
I try to be very conscientious about doing what's best for my children. Because we are a multicultural and multi-ethnic and multilingual family, I have to be intentional about which of the various relevant groups ought to be "ours", and to what degree.
The literature on the best practices for children "of color" (a politically correct phrase for non-white people, but one that my Latino husband dislikes, hence the quotation marks) talks of the importance of immersing children in groups where they can see racial mirrors, find role models, and gain a sense of identity. And I have tried to do just that.
For the past six years, we have tried to make friends by participating in Filipino events. It has been frustrating, as no lasting friendships have emerged from our efforts. I'm shy, so the effort has not come naturally to me. My husband has never met a stranger, so it's actually surprising that his efforts haven't had better results either. Finally I asked my good friend, whose husband is Filipino, for insights. What a relief it was to learn that even he - a Filipino raised by Filipino parents, does not find himself regularly included in Filipino gatherings.
Further insights from an online group I belong to pointed out that ethnic and cultural groups tend to be insular for self-preservation or just to have a safe space where they don't need to be explaining themselves to outsiders. It now makes perfect sense why we, as outsiders, have been unable to "infiltrate" the Filipino groups that have been perfectly friendly on the surface.
It is important to try, try again. It is equally important to know when to let it go. I'm letting it go. Not my intentions to keep exposing my kids to Filipino culture whenever possible, but rather my expectations of it ever getting beyond the level where we are now. And this acceptance is freeing.
Another aspect of raising Brown children is to ensure that they don't feel like they stick out because of their ethnicity or race. In other words, we want to make sure we live and learn and play in areas that are diverse. It doesn't need to be other Filipinos, but it does need to be other Brown people. As long as the White people are used to seeing Brown people and interacting with them and befriending them, then we should not have any problems. But we do not want our kids to be the experimental diversity in otherwise White spaces.
Here, again, I came upon a dilemma. I wanted to do right by my children and move to an area that was more diverse than not. However, the truth of the matter is that this would come at a price. Diversity is not the only value our family has. Nor is it the only priority. We must live in an area relatively close to my husband's work, and close to my parents, who are in need of more assistance as we all get older. My children need ample space to run around, especially since we homeschool, and so our home is our base. We grow food. We try to spend daily time outside. We value privacy and safety. What all of these add up to is a certain sized yard. Fenced, with shade and sunny areas, and room to run and roll around all without worrying about nosy neighbors. And what's more, we need to be able to afford this kind of living arrangement. We decided not to incessantly keep up with the Joneses. We have no intention of upgrading the size of our house, or moving to more "elite" neighborhoods. But we do want to keep a single family house with a fenced yard. And we want to pay it off by the time my husband is ready to retire and our kids are graduated from high school.
And we're not talking about moving to a completely homogenous, secluded area where we can count on being the only mixed family in any given situation. No, we're talking about a less diverse area, close enough to more diverse areas that we can drive there.
Finally, this is an issue for my own sanity. I have been programmed by the anti-racist rhetoric to be very careful to avoid at all costs anything that may be interpreted as whitesplaining, ethnocentricity, or white fragility. I worry about these things even as I am trying to guts up to putting "on paper" what thoughts are going through my mind. See, I was brought up with judgment and comparisons being the norm. I internalized the idea that if I am always judging others in black-or-white terms, then they are likewise judging me. Concepts like giving someone the benefit of the doubt or not taking things excessively personally are seen as having racist undertones when applied to trying to take White experience as equal to that of people of color. I was in an online group that taught me a lot, but at the cost of my own sense of self. The "people of color" in my real life - Latino, Black, Native American, all thought I was in a "cult". They simply did not experience the world in as harsh terms as the group described. The group would retort that they weren't being honest with themselves or with me. But that, indeed, started to sound a bit like indoctrination.
And I recently realized that I have had about enough indoctrination for one lifetime. I am in recovery for codependence. Through 3 years of therapy and recovery work, I've come to see how I have weak boundaries, don't trust myself, depend too heavily on the approval and validation of others, and operate from a general sense of ongoing anxiety. With very few, specific, decisions I've made, mostly dealing with my children, I have no confidence. I oscillate between superiority and inferiority complexes. And so, when it comes to what's best for my children, I am again in a place where I can either take in everything I've learned and then make a decision based on my specific circumstances and those of my children, or I can once again let some "experts" make these decisions for me.
I've had enough of giving over my power. People of color should know all too well what I mean. Just like not all Brown people are alike, or all Black people, or all Asians, etc. the same holds true for White people. We are not all alike. Yes, we all share having White privilege in US society. But aside from this, we are as different as minorities. We have different experiences, values, priorities, intentions, goals all of which must be taken into consideration when making day-to-day decisions. I know I won't find any popular outlet for this perspective, and I don't need it. I only need to admit this to myself, accept myself, trust myself, and make these decisions for myself.
Returning to the initial questions of groups - what groups do we belong to? The Catholic church. Sunday School at OLPH. Our area Catholic homeschooling group. My daughter's gymnastics class. My husband's men's group at church. My husband's job. Celebrate Recovery Meeting for me. Courageous Conversations (temporary group). Multilingual mixed families living in the US. Immigrant families. College graduates. Transracial adoptive (embryo) families. I'm sure there's more.
What groups do we want to belong to? Some sort of ongoing group where we can fellowship over shared values of racial, religious, and LGBTQ affirmation and understanding, as well as the pursuit of socioeconomic and environmental justice. Homeschooling group local to our area. A faith community where we can practice the rituals and traditions that give our spiritual journey meaning. I'd like to return to teaching adults ESL. Honestly, I don't want to belong to any one-race/ethnicity/culture groups. Not my Polish one, not a Filipino one, not a Latino one. Our family is all of these and we operate best when mingling with others who understand what it's like to mix and match, to find commonalities across the differences, and not just to uphold long standing norms in an isolated environment.
While I'm on the subject, I also need to remember that just because we are a multilingual family doesn't mean that we are aiming at 100% native fluency in all three languages. Frankly, my Polish heritage language is the least necessary for my kids to retain. Any language is a boon to the brain, and Polish in particular can make the learning of other Slavic languages easier if my kids ever decide to go that route. But aside from that - their Polish relatives with whom they interact regularly are not monolingual, and we have no intentions for travel back to Poland in the near future. I will be perfectly happy if my kids understand Polish music, movies, magazines, and can pronounce the uniquely Polish sounds if pressed to do so.
As for Spanish, this is a much more useful and ubiquitous language in our society and world. Our kids are likely to come across many people who speak Spanish, even only Spanish, and can easily benefit from knowing the language for both economic advancement and the enjoyment of the culture.
Perhaps we should seek out Spanish-speaking playdates?
Tagalog, what I suppose could be seen as a heritage language based on the kids' Filipino heritage, is similar to Polish in necessity. Unless my kids express an interest in actively learning the language, I won't stress over it. Since we cannot break into Filipino communities in order for the kids to be immersed in this culture anyway, I don't see how learning the language would do any good until they are grown and don't need us to facilitate. And at that point, they can also pick up the language, having already learned other languages previously, thus making language learning as a whole much easier than if they were starting out as monolinguals.
The next entry will deal with the theme of trusting self and resisting external validation, but from the spiritual perspective. (Both religious and secular-scientific.)
Monday, February 10, 2020
Losing My Religion
This R.E.M. song came to mind recently as I started on what I assumed was another leg of my spiritual seeker journey. But the more time I spend pondering the future of my religious affiliation, the more confused and stressed out I feel.
Why do I feel the need to even have a religious affiliation? Why can't I let the particular beliefs and practices that I find soothing and relevant to me simply be what they are, without placing a label on them?
Well, it's because with that label comes a community. A religious community is generally a group of people with shared beliefs, values, practices, traditions, etc. The problem arises when there is a disconnect between one's beliefs or values that triggers a desire to look elsewhere for a better fit. And the problem continues when one realized, after thorough research and consideration and "trying on" that while there may be other religious groups whose beliefs and values resonate perfectly with one's own, the associated practices and traditions simply don't jive. They seem foreign, artificial, forced, irrelevant. Yet it is in the practices that the faith tradition comes alive in community. It's not a bunch of minds agreeing with each other that makes a community, but rather a bunch of people doing things together the same way.
And that is where I find myself. I know plenty of people who recognize there is no perfect match for them and they just stay with whatever group whose practices are familiar and comfortable, and keep their beliefs private, or at least don't engage in arguments over them. I know this is the easiest and most obvious thing to do. And yet I'm struggling with it.
I feel like an impostor when I find myself keeping my mouth shut so as not to let on that I disagree with what was just mentioned as a given in a group of supposedly "like minded" fellow coreligionists of my same affiliation. Every time this happens, and it happens pretty frequently when you have as many objections as I do with the official beliefs of my faith tradition, I'm reminded of how I don't really fit it. I'm reminded of how this isn't really me. I'm reminded of how I'm compromising.
Of course, I could also choose to opt out and join a group where I can have these open dialogues with people without worrying about getting their side-eye. I could mingle only with people who value what I value and believe as I do, where we can talk about these things openly and without shame or fear of ridicule (or accusations of heresy or blasphemy). But to do so, I'd have to engage in artificial rituals that hold no meaning for me. And again, I'd feel like an impostor. I'd feel inauthentic yet again.
A final option would be to simply stay away from all manner of religion altogether. Pretend that deep topics don't interest or concern me. Pretend that familiar ritual practices are not comforting to me. Pretend that I could be a spiritual being without a spiritual community. This would be a lie as well. No one is an island, right?
The final option that I see before me is to patch a quilt of religious experiences into a coherent whole. To divide my time between those groups that practice the familiar rituals that I find comforting and meaningful, and those groups with which I can engage intellectually. I suppose the only thing left to do in that scenario is to decide on a label, something I need in order to understand my place in the world. It could be two labels or a hyphenated label: Catholic Quaker, or Buddhist Unitarian Universalist, or Noahide Christian. It could be finding the least common denominator between the two prominent groups that resonate with me for different reasons, and use that label instead of the two affiliations: Theist, Monotheist, Unitarian, Deist, Universalist.
One label I don't think I can honestly use that I thought I could is spiritual-but-not-religious. Because I am a religious being. I just don't have a religious tradition that satisfies me philosophically and practically at the same time.
One label I cannot steer clear of is the label others may place on me. Lapsed. Cafeteria. Non-practicing. Heretic. Schismatic. Even blasphemer maybe? No matter what path I find myself on, those not on it would inevitably label me as well: pagan, heathen, non-believer.
I am spiritual. I am religious. I am a global citizen. I am a child of God. I am the hands and feet of God in the world. I am.
Why do I feel the need to even have a religious affiliation? Why can't I let the particular beliefs and practices that I find soothing and relevant to me simply be what they are, without placing a label on them?
Well, it's because with that label comes a community. A religious community is generally a group of people with shared beliefs, values, practices, traditions, etc. The problem arises when there is a disconnect between one's beliefs or values that triggers a desire to look elsewhere for a better fit. And the problem continues when one realized, after thorough research and consideration and "trying on" that while there may be other religious groups whose beliefs and values resonate perfectly with one's own, the associated practices and traditions simply don't jive. They seem foreign, artificial, forced, irrelevant. Yet it is in the practices that the faith tradition comes alive in community. It's not a bunch of minds agreeing with each other that makes a community, but rather a bunch of people doing things together the same way.
And that is where I find myself. I know plenty of people who recognize there is no perfect match for them and they just stay with whatever group whose practices are familiar and comfortable, and keep their beliefs private, or at least don't engage in arguments over them. I know this is the easiest and most obvious thing to do. And yet I'm struggling with it.
I feel like an impostor when I find myself keeping my mouth shut so as not to let on that I disagree with what was just mentioned as a given in a group of supposedly "like minded" fellow coreligionists of my same affiliation. Every time this happens, and it happens pretty frequently when you have as many objections as I do with the official beliefs of my faith tradition, I'm reminded of how I don't really fit it. I'm reminded of how this isn't really me. I'm reminded of how I'm compromising.
Of course, I could also choose to opt out and join a group where I can have these open dialogues with people without worrying about getting their side-eye. I could mingle only with people who value what I value and believe as I do, where we can talk about these things openly and without shame or fear of ridicule (or accusations of heresy or blasphemy). But to do so, I'd have to engage in artificial rituals that hold no meaning for me. And again, I'd feel like an impostor. I'd feel inauthentic yet again.
A final option would be to simply stay away from all manner of religion altogether. Pretend that deep topics don't interest or concern me. Pretend that familiar ritual practices are not comforting to me. Pretend that I could be a spiritual being without a spiritual community. This would be a lie as well. No one is an island, right?
The final option that I see before me is to patch a quilt of religious experiences into a coherent whole. To divide my time between those groups that practice the familiar rituals that I find comforting and meaningful, and those groups with which I can engage intellectually. I suppose the only thing left to do in that scenario is to decide on a label, something I need in order to understand my place in the world. It could be two labels or a hyphenated label: Catholic Quaker, or Buddhist Unitarian Universalist, or Noahide Christian. It could be finding the least common denominator between the two prominent groups that resonate with me for different reasons, and use that label instead of the two affiliations: Theist, Monotheist, Unitarian, Deist, Universalist.
One label I don't think I can honestly use that I thought I could is spiritual-but-not-religious. Because I am a religious being. I just don't have a religious tradition that satisfies me philosophically and practically at the same time.
One label I cannot steer clear of is the label others may place on me. Lapsed. Cafeteria. Non-practicing. Heretic. Schismatic. Even blasphemer maybe? No matter what path I find myself on, those not on it would inevitably label me as well: pagan, heathen, non-believer.
I am spiritual. I am religious. I am a global citizen. I am a child of God. I am the hands and feet of God in the world. I am.
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