Monday, December 23, 2019

Searching for Faith


The essay below sprang from a Facebook post I made wishing my friends a Happy Winter Solstice and Joyous Yule. I planned it a few days in advance and spent more time than I expected finding just the right image and message. I realized once again, I was searching for faith.

I have been seeking  - seeking somewhere, something to put my faith in, for decades now.  When I was a child, I dismissed Christianity. It could be because we lived in the Mid-East for two years. From the age of 5, I knew there was more than one way to believe. I didn't question this. In fact, I didn't think about it much at all. 

When we returned to the States, I attended Sunday school sporadically. One morning at a small chapel at Ft. Ord, the Sunday school lesson was about hypocrites. I couldn't have been more than 9 or 10, my beliefs still not fully formed. What I took away from that lesson was not to act like you believe if you don't. And I knew I didn’t believe. I discussed this with no one. I was not a questioning child and I kept my own counsel, even then.

Throughout the rest of childhood, I went to church now and then. At the last place I moved with my family when I was a junior in high school, I went to youth group purely for social reasons. I stuck out like a sore thumb in that town but I craved acceptance nonetheless. I watched what I said at school until I realized I was also monitoring what I thought. I still wanted to be accepted, but from that moment, I went my own way. I didn't think much more about faith or religion until college.

 The most "shocking" thing I learned my first year in college was  communion wine in some denominations is not grape juice. It actually is wine!  In an anthropology class much later, I learned of Weber's belief that he had an "unmusicality" with religion. I latched on to that phrase and have carried it with me all the years since, believing I, too, am tone deaf to faith and religion. But I envied (and still envy) those who have faith and believe in a power higher than themselves, whether it is a monotheistic Goddess or God, a pantheon, or the spirit and essence of nature. 

In my early 20s, I researched Wicca by reading a few books.  I did some rituals for a short time.  I didn't do them long enough for it to become a habit and I don't remember talking to much of anyone about it. A few years later, I discovered Unitarianism.  That's the closest I've to faith, though for a little while in 2008-2009, I flirted with Christianity .

That was largely a function of where I worked at the time, a faith-based organization. I was surrounded by people of faith, many of whom were conservative. I sensed a power there, and a surrender to something other than self. It would have completely altered my belief system and politics.

I became a member of a local Unitarian congregation when I moved to Rockford. Even though I only planned to live there for a few years, I felt the need to put down roots to establish relationships. It didn't work out as I intended. I slowly drifted away, first because of illness, and eventually because the groups I tried to be part of fell apart for whatever reason. My regular attendance ceased in 2011.

The roots I put down were shallow. Part of the blame lays squarely on my shoulders. After services, I did not stick around for coffee hour. I felt especially awkward at the time and abhor small talk, so I usually fled straight from the sanctuary to my car. Besides, once people find out I don’t have kids, pets, or a favorite team, they're often at a loss for conversation with me. On my side, I can be tongue-tied. It's improved over the last several years but there are still moments I can't think of a single thing to say.

Nearing 50, I still seek something to believe in and a community to belong to with that belief. Maybe I am tone-deaf to religion like Weber. Maybe I am faithless. Maybe I don't need any more faith than what I already carry. Yet I keep coming back to this search for the spiritual, something higher, more elemental than the woman that I am. Maybe if I knew what I was looking for, I would have found it by now.

Faith is a very personal thing. This is why I haven't discussed it openly before  now. It has not been for lack of people to ask.  Since I was a teen, I have had access to people of faith, whether pagan or Judaeo-Christian or something else. Some have been classmates, casual friends, co-workers, or friends on social media. Others have been close friends or more, the very people I could be vulnerable enough to ask.

But I have never liked to pry. Yet I keep coming back to this question of faith. I poke around the trailhead but can't a path. I love research, but there is only so much you can learn from it. I need to stop googling and reading. I need to ask real people.

Will you share your story (or a piece of it) with me? What led you to what you believe in? I genuinely want to know.  It may help me find my own path.






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