On Religion and Spirituality and What I Believe...

So, a friend of mine just asked me how I arrived at my current place in terms of religious belief or in my case, lack thereof. I, in response, gave her quite the earful, as religion and spirituality have been weighing on my mind a lot lately.

So, here's the background. I was raised a devout, fundamentalist Christian. What I mean is, I was probably at church just as much as I was in school. I mean, I was on the usher board, in the choir, in the plays, secretary of sunday school, on the youth council (president I might add), in the puppet ministry, etc. You name it, I was involved in it. And, most importantly, I liked, no loved it. Basically, you could say I was a Jesus freak and be pretty much accurate.

As of today... I'm what I would call spiritually agnostic or perhaps somewhat of a deist. Quite a shift from my latter days of total praise.

So, my friend was asking me how I came to be this non-believer of sorts; when/where/how the big change occurred.

Roundabout 2005, is what I told her.

At this point, I was 21, a young mother, a critical thinker, confused, and depressed. All I knew is that I had this terrible sense of guilt, shame and felt as though I as inherently bad. I was on this endless quest for something more. I wanted a deep spiritual connection with God, but for whatever reason I just couldn't get there. I thought it was because of me. I thought it was because I was fornicating, or because I didn't attend church regularly, or because I couldn't shake the desire to have unnatural relations with women... All I knew is that I felt disconnected from God and that is was my fault.

This shame that I carried around with me contributed greatly to my anxiety and depression. It wasn't until I acknowledged and explored my doubts about my religion, that I found peace... in disbelief.

So, here I am today, happily not believing in the hype that I was sold as kid. And here I am, with a kid of my own, trying to figure out just what I want to teach her. See, even though I'm no longer part of the fold, my whole family is still made up of card carrying members of the flock and they will not rest until the salvation of my daughter is won. Unfortunately, I'm pretty ambivalent to the fight.

This is not good.

Basically, it boils down to this. I don't want my kid dealing with the same issues of guilt and shame that I carry. I don't want her being taught by friends and family that her mommy is going to hell because she's gay. I don't want my baby berating the "unsaved" with her self-righteous notions of religious superiority. I don't want my child being preyed upon by the "church family" until she relents and becomes one of them. I don't want them to train up my child in the way she should go so when she is older she will not depart. I don't wanna brainwash my kid. I don't want to teach her to hate difference.

However, I don't want to fight my family and loved ones. I don't want to have to come out as a lesbian and as a non-believer. I don't want them to accept me for loving women only to turn around and disown me because I don't believe as they do. I don't want to ruffle feathers...

What I do want is to teach my girl to love and celebrate herself. I do want her to recognize the collective spirit alive in all human beings. I do want her to question and to research and to learn and to come to her own conclusions. I want to foster creative critical thinking. I want her to choose to understand those different than she, and to respect and accept and celebrate those differences. I want her to love wholeheartedly without abandon. I want my family to accept that.

So, basicall, what I have to say and what I have been saying is that my religion is love. I don't know about god, but I know I choose to believe in Goddess. I don't know if I'm right and frankly I don't care. All I know is that I want my baby to love and I want to love. If I can teach her to love fully and completely, well in my book, I've done a hell of a lot better than any religion ever did for me.