What Are You?

Well? What’s your answer?

I used to answer Lutheran. I was raised that way. Sometimes, on Sundays, my mom would take me to church. Sometimes my siblings would come, but mostly it was just me and my mom. I really liked the people singing, my friendly pastor, the hopeful and positive things he had to say, that people would greet me and interact with me, and the cookies afterward.  My mom encouraged me to question everything and, in doing so, I came up with some pretty great questions that my Sunday School teacher couldn’t answer. “How did Noah get all those animals in one boat?” “How did Adam and Eve incestuously make such a huge and diverse human population, all over the planet?” “Does God watch me pee?”  In the annoyance at the questions and the lack of answers, I became uninterested in religion.

I started to call myself an Agnostic. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I knew there was something. I just felt too powerfully aware of how amazing everything was. I mean, how could life be flying around space on a hurtling, chunk of rock for millions of years and still exist at all? How could we become cognizant enough to be able to reflect upon our own existence and things like God if there weren’t something unexplainable, something magic, going on? I saw life as a mystery and the underlying mystery was something like God, and I didn’t care to define it any further. I was content.

I was content until I learned more history and I learned all of the truly evil things done in the name of God. Endless wars and crusades and jihads, all to try to force other people to believe in something they didn’t want to believe in. I saw churches all over, of every religion, promulgating hate and division in the name of what they said was Love. I began to hate anything that even resembled religion. I thought that one of the largest hands holding people down over the centuries was this idea of God and his religion. I became socially active and promoted something entirely different.

I called myself a Communist.  Communists are traditionally and frequently vehemently anti-religion. I was anti anything metaphysical and I actively scorned people who were even slightly spiritual. I joined the haters who profess to worship the parody, the Flying Spaghetti Monster– may his droopy appendages dangle upon you indefinitely.  I referred to gods as imaginary friends.  I wanted everyone to wake up from their slumber, see the horrible state the planet and all of its people were in, and do something quickly and surely in order to change it all…  I did that until I realized that people are where they are for a reason and they can’t change quickly simply because I want them to, they can only do it because they have arrived at the location in their life where they are able to.  And no one can change that, maybe not even themselves.  I had to let my ideals for society go in the name of allowing people to self-actualize on their own terms, to engage with the world in whatever way they need to for their own good.  I had to do that all because I love people, and I love the world.

I love the world and most of what I do stems from that love. I love the world and I take care of myself and my surroundings as much as possible in order to honor that love.  I love the world and I still can’t explain exactly why things seem to happen at exactly the synchronistic moment they need to in order to affect deep, seemingly spiritual changes within myself.  I love myself and I have to acknowledge truths such as that I don’t agree with religion, but I still experience things that science can’t explain.

And so, if I’m not a religious person, I’m not an Agnostic, I’m not an Atheist, I’m not a communist and I’m not anything else that fits in a box with a title….what am I? If I call myself spiritual, you will ask me if my vibrational energies have shifted into the 11th dimension and hand me a crystal, no?

I have come to a place where I am happy in a mystery, overjoyed at science’s many triumphs, content to allow people whatever path they choose for themselves, and lucky to continue to nurture myself and others into ever-expanding understandings of what we are all doing here. And, now and then, I see poetic truth and it rocks me, sometimes.  Are these things not divine?

I don’t have any names to describe what I am.  I no longer really care what you are. It is much more important to me that we both feel good about whatever is happening between us, and that’s all I can affect anyway.  If you’re happy, I’m happy for you, and I hope you have your happiness in a peaceful space that doesn’t harm others. It seems obvious to me, now, that if we could all be content enough with ourselves to leave other people’s beliefs alone, so much pain could be avoided.  I think that’s a universal commitment we could all make for ourselves.

How about you?