Lately, I've been thinking a lot lately about myself spiritually...yeah? What? Anyway, it's strange to say "spiritually" because I haven't thought about where I stand in that arena for a long time...but I am reading an interesting memoir and spending a lot of time at home (with staples in my head!), so I've been doing some thinking.
Everything began when I read this passage (and then the pages following): "I'm tired of being a skeptic, I'm irritated by spiritual prudence and I feel bored and parched by empirical debate. I don't want to hear it anymore. I couldn't care less about evidence and proof and assurances. I just want God." When I read that, I thought, "Excluding the last sentence, that's how I feel!" That's when I got to thinking...
As a kid, I considered myself religious and I very much believed in God. I went to a Christian camp in Arkansas and there were moments there where I truly and deeply felt a connection to what I thought to be God. As I grew older, my faith wavered. I enjoyed Youth Group and I went to church, but I began to doubt things that I had always accepted to be true without question. College was a major turning point. I basically decided that religion was bullshit - God was invented to make people feel better about their shitty lives- I was done. I was almost embarrassed to talk about faith, fearing that I would appear brain-washed or stupid or naive. I still feel that way today.
Over the past few months though (and realistically, probably longer than that), I've realized that I have an overwhelming and powerful desire to believe in something and the desire won't go away. I don't know what that "something" is and I'm not even suggesting that it is God, but I feel that I need something to believe in if I am ever going to find true happiness. Whether that be God or love or sacred cows, it doesn't seem to matter at this point.
I haven't finished the book yet, but I think the author is ultimately saying that we find God within ourselves. She literally says, "God dwells within you as you yourself, exactly the way you are." I think that the more I think about it, the more I agree. When I sit in my bed, about to go to sleep and I write in my journal, I'm really sitting down to ask questions of myself....to challenge my own thoughts....to calm my heart and comfort my soul before I have to start another day. My parents taught me that God existed to walk beside me...to guide me through the light and dark. Really, I am my own guide. I know it sounds SO extremely cheesy, and maybe even obvious, but I am. And I don't have to make some massive, dramatic change of character or renounce my individuality in order to find a "God" or to find a specific something to believe in. If I just sit quietly and really think about it, I think I've already found it.
