Inquisitive or Blasphemous?

Well, your personal beliefs will determine which category you think I fall in after reading this blog. I, of course, have my opinion about it. But, what I've learned is that no matter my opinion there's a less than a 1% chance it will change or affect yours...and I'm fine with that.

I spent a good bit of today with my Dad. A rare treat where just the two of us got to spend a few hours of uninterrupted time talking. I love these times. Those of you who know my Dad know he's a man of few words, but when he does speak he truly has something to say. Because of a picture a friend of mine posted on Facebook (and that I then posted on my page), we got to talking about religion.

I grew up attending church and Sunday school every Sunday at Riverside United Methodist Church in Muncie, IN. My mom was raised Catholic (even attended Catholic school) and my dad is agnostic (before anyone freaks out, make sure you're clear on the difference in definition between agnostic, atheistic and satanist...I've learned many aren't), so they decided when my brother and I were young to attend a church they felt was accepting of both of their perspectives. I have to say, I remember much more about luncheons, lake trips, and lock ins than I do about sermons in our church. Mostly, I remember it being a place of warmth, love and security.

However, even as a child I remember noticing discrepancies between what was preached/taught at church and the lives I saw being lived by those around me. I wondered how people could so strongly believe something on one day of the week, but live something different the other six. I guess this made me begin to search outside the religion in which I was raised as I got older.

College is a place where many people explore...with freedom, with sexuality, with majors and, in my case, with religion. For the first time in my life I began meeting people who identified themselves as Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Catholic, Unitarian and many other faiths. I would talk to these people about what they believed and compare it to what I felt. In college, I found myself identifying more and more with the Buddhist faith. At the time, it seemed to fit better than Methodist. I read the writings of such Buddhist authors as Thich Nhat Hahn and Thubten Chodron. Though I found peace in some of these teachings, I was still conflicted in many ways. Things I saw as 'reality' didn't jive with what I was learning or being asked to 'accept on faith'.

As I have continued in my life, I have met people of even more faiths including Islamic, Wiccan, Native American, and Shamanism. The more I learn and experience, the more I have found there isn't an appropriate label for what I believe. I know what I'm not...Christian, Buddhist, Wiccan, Jewish, Hindu, Islamic or Shamanistic. But pieces of all of these religions ring true for me.

• I don't believe in the male personification of "God". I even hesitate using that word any more because it has become so aligned with a white, anglo-saxon man.
• I do believe we all came from the same creative force and that that force is completely non-judgmental. For me, that force often feels more feminine than masculine, but I know it's both and neither.
• I don't believe Jesus Christ is the one and only path to heaven.
• I do believe there have been highly evolved souls who are amazing teachers and that no matter the name assigned to them, their lessons are neither negated or unimportant.
• I don't believe there's a "heaven" and a "hell". Like I said above, I believe the source we all come from is CREATIVE, not destructive, vindictive or vengeful.
• I do believe we are here to learn important lessons for the evolution of our soul.
• I don't believe failure in those lessons dooms us to eternal suffering. Life has shown me that I learn more from my mistakes & failures and become a better person because of them, so how could the Creative Force from which I emanated view that as 'wrong' or 'bad'? I wouldn't kill Janan for her mistakes and that is just a shadow of the type of love I believe we come from.

I could go on and on, but what I found while talking to my Dad today and throughout the years with all my friends is that we're all seeking a path that makes sense to us. I've said it before, but I'll say it again, one thing I'm confident in is that ALL paths lead us to the top of the mountain.