Last night, I was involved in a group discussion about religious and spiritual beliefs. While most were agnostic, some are devout, and aggressively so. I, for one, consider myself a bit of an eclectic. I take beliefs from here and there that coincide with my own philosophy and personality. Religion is something that is personal. I believe that truly. Anyone can show you the way to enlightenment, but you are the only one who has to walk the path to attain it.
I was raised as a Roman Catholic. By the time I was eight or nine, my mom dragged me in a Protestant Church in search of strength to weather marital problems with my dad. Of course, I went with her, and so did my two younger brothers. What do we know? We’re just kids. So we tagged along whether we liked it or not. Surprisingly, the Protestant faith was fun. Really fun. We get to sing in Sunday school. We get to dance, eat saltines crackers and drink grape juice concentrate as a way to commemorate the Last Supper. The congregation was warm and friendly. Yet, they also talk about doom and gloom for non-believers. I remember one time when I was 10 or so, I bought a cute ceramic pendant. It had cool tribal motifs, including 3 swirl designs that look a bit like sixes but not really. I was so proud of it. So proud that I actually wore it one Sunday to show it off.
So there I was, minding my self, when one of the elders took me aside and in a sweet voice, told me that my pendant was evil. I was like, “What?!”. Then she gave me a handout of the signs of the Anti-Christ, his symbols, the companies he holds, what he will be doing to me when he gets hold of the world. All this in a very motherly voice, full of concern and understanding. So, being a child, I did what I was told: I threw the pendant away and talked to Jesus deep in my heart to ask for His forgiveness. I always missed that tacky pendant.
By the time I was thirteen, my parents have sorted out their issues. As a show of family solidarity, we all went back to the Catholic Church. This was also the time when I started rebelling full tilt. I did go to church, but not without a whole lot of grudge and grumbling. It was also about this time that I began to be interested in the paranormal and the occult – just to spite my parents. This all stemmed from a resentment borne out of being pulled from my friends from Sunday school. I was taught that Catholicism was a “misguided” path, with it’s flock being nothing less than idolators. It was a very tenuous time for me. Against all my expectations, I did find some friends among the youth in the choir. My parents thought that it was a good idea for me to join their group. They had the idea that these upstanding young people might take me along the path of goodness. The thing is while there are among them, some very good examples for the youth in society in general, a few of them are not. These were the ones that taught me my long-standing vice – smoking. It was with them that I first got a taste for alcohol, learned about homosexuality and what it really is, and how painful it is to sit after getting hit by a belt buckle several times behind your thighs. Yep. You read right. I got involved in a short-lived gang while I was singing praises for Jesus and the Blessed Virgin. It was all a bittersweet irony. None of these were known to my parents, perhaps until now.
When I got to college, my relationship with my parents was more or less patched, but my spirit was in tatters. I had no idea what I should believe in, no idea what the truth is. I was drifting from atheism (which is not lacking in any secular university), neopaganism, occultism, Christianity, Catholicism and plain agnosticism. It was a spiritual limbo. But it was in this primordial darkness that I found my own truth: I can believe in what I want to believe.
There is no sense in looking for truth in spirituality. Everything is the truth and everything is a lie. That’s the duality of it all. I came to believe that strength is found from within, especially when I went through my own spiritual and emotional crisis. My truth is my own, and no one can tell me otherwise. I believe in the paranormal, I believe in the divine. I believe in the malign powers in this world, and I believe in the benign. Spirits abound in everything, angels sing up high. I can be tempted by the devil, but the last choice is mine.
I try not to hate. I am not perfect, I also have some peeves. But I believe as well that my truth may not be the truth of others. So I try as I can to let others continue on in their own beliefs. I just wish that they would also let me keep to my faith and not tell me that I am having problems in my spirit.
A wise man once said that if you want others to treat you a certain way, you should treat them the way you want to be treated first. I just wish that everyone would hear those wise words. The world would be a much more different place if we all did that.
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