God, are you listening?
“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?” — Nietzsche
I grew up Catholic. Church every Sunday. Unless my parents found a worthy excuse. The second pew from the front, always. Were my parents strictly religious? No. They've never even read the bible from front-to-back. I have. I told them it was a trip, in an interesting way, but also scary, with a touch of boredom. But the church in a small town remains a place for gathering community...it's how people get to know each other when your neighbors are a half-mile apart. The unspoken reality is that most who attend know almost nothing about their inherited faith or its history.
We are creatures of habit. And a church located in a small town is a place attended out of habit. But is that all?
***
My parents no longer attend church, partially because they don’t feel the guilt from God anymore, the other? I’m highly annoying.
Now, I’m not a crazed atheist. I’m not even an atheist. Maybe I was at one point, but you grow out of it—I think. Honestly, I find atheists that brag about being atheist while playing linguistic games and half-assing rebuttals against the cosmological argument and ontological argument, pretentiously annoying. Okay, you’re no longer a Christian, we get it, and nobody is asking you to make it your entire personality.
But anyway, I just find some things silly. Well, I find militant atheists annoying. I find Catholicism silly.
I do not believe my reader base to be religious leaning…
So, to the few Catholics reading this that are also offended…you have the right to be. But do you want my honesty? From the bottom of my heart, truly, from deep deep down in my psyche, I’ve thought about this, maybe not enough, but enough that leaves me still desiring to write this: I do not care.
Please, feel free to pray to your God for me if you’d like because I don’t hear Him. I hear Other things. The God you have formulated together has a lot of hate in their heart, so I don’t plan to hear Him any time soon. But pray to your heart's content! And if you hear from Him, tell yourself I said hello.
***
Sorry, I’m highly annoying.
“Only great pain is the ultimate liberator of the spirit… I doubt that such pain makes us ‘better’; but I know that it makes us more profound.” — Nietzsche
When it comes to attending mass growing up…I did listen sometimes. Maybe I even heard God, as the voices, dialogues, and emotional swings brought upon by the mind can become quite convincing, so maybe I have simply convinced myself He is someone else. God are you there?
I would never blame Him for not speaking to me, as I spent most of my time in church daydreaming and imagining stories based on the imagery depicted on all the weird statues.
I do not have some story of being traumatized by the church. I know many do, including people close to me. Those stories are very real. And on the top of my ‘list of ways to piss me off’ is when the religious tell those traumatized by the church that they ‘just didn’t understand the message’ or ‘didn’t understand the word of God.’ You do not get to gaslight people simply because you believe yourself to have God on your side…
Anyway, I feel the need to be transparent about the fact that my views on religion do not come from having a traumatic experience with it. My youthful arrogance about the absurdity of the church acted as a shield. Thus, I never bought in. I kept trying to talk to God, but I just kept hearing a more annoying version of myself laughing at me for trying.
Maybe this means I have never truly understood Catholicism, thus, maybe I missed out on some truth or insight that could have been provided an understanding. But alas, my arrogance won during that period of my life, so the church became a comparative backdrop that remains a backdrop. You see, like in this post, it’s the backdrop to an underlying message…I hope.
“Why do we exit at all? Is not our very existence and human life ultimately meaningless? Or, if there is a meaning or significance to it all, where do we find it? When we doubt the meaning of our existence in this way, when we have become a question to ourselves, the religious quest awakens within us.” — Nishitani Keiji, Religion and Nothingness
Although, the questioning of my faith at a young age was usually met with applause; the applause always seemed to come with an implication that these questions would bring me into my faith, as though they were implying I can question my faith but not ‘really question my faith.’ Those questions never brought me into my faith. I still have those questions. I still haven’t received good answers. God, are you listening?
The adults in my life never had answers. After I became annoying enough, I was told to ask the priest. I did that once…
He replied with ‘you’ll receive your answers when God is ready for you.’ Whatever the fuck that means? Huh…thinking about this now, it was like enlightenment before I even discovered the modern New Age Spirituality movement. The answers will come to me when I’m ready! The answers are always just beyond the horizon, right? And maybe they are, but if everyone tells me I’ll simply understand when I’m ready, what makes everyone so sure they were ready?
Ready for what?! Because I don’t know about everyone else…but every realization I come into leads to more questions.
Life would be scary if we stopped having a horizon to look towards…
But honestly, I could never escape two thoughts from growing up Catholic…
One: is that everything we were being told was built on the idea that we should hate life and hate being here. And then they’d follow up by saying God loves me…what?
Second: the thought that Christianity and Catholicism had this desire for obedience because they simply could not trust their fellow human. And they do not trust their fellow human because they do not trust themselves…
I do not blame them. I struggle to trust myself. But I also do not trust interpreters of the Gods…
I’m choosing to remain hopeful about the choices of humans. However, I do not feel hope from the supposed words of all-powerful Gods.
To be continued…
This was Part 1…stay tuned for Part 2 that will also have some bonus content for subscribers:)
“All things that are in the world are linked together, one way or the other. Not a single thing comes into being without some relationship to every other thing.” — Nishitani Keiji
So, I hope you enjoyed this…
Some things to discuss in the comments…
What were your pivot points around religion?
What questions pulled you away from your faith?
What are some of your beliefs about God?
Also, what are your general thoughts on me posting stuff like this…with my more emotional opinions and stories inerted?
With love,
Stay curious.
If you enjoyed this letter…leave a heart and comment your thoughts…let’s chat:)
Questions are always beneficial, because without them, we can get no answers. Answers sneak up on us unexpectedly and are often not recognized as answers until later after an indefinite time they are digested, and we discover they are part of us, often without remembering when or where they first began to take root in our consciousness.
Incremental answers - seems we are raised, or programed to expect all answers to fall upon us in an "ah ha", moment of revelation. That seldom happens, and never happens by our efforts. The more we grasp for, i.e. demand answers, the more they flee from us. Grasp the dove in your
hand tightly and you kill it.
Gradual learning comes, and we are frustrated until we take a time out to realize we now have some current, perhaps temporary hypothesis that replaces, for now, a former question. The process is at work. Have patience. Find more questions, which is easy. Ask them relentlessly for a time, then wait. No hypothesis? Start asking again, and wait.
Answers for prior questions are slowly, gradually seeping in, only to be recognized later, or even in a dream, or like a lightening bolt on a clear day.
We search together. Never, never, never stop asking. Always be ready to release a hypothesis upon presentation of new insight, and be ready, but not quick, to allow a hypothesis to morph into a theory, and perhaps, after much testing and time, perhaps the theory becomes a known.
The only "god" we can kill is the one in our minds that has been falsely thrust upon us. When that god is dead and buried, we discover a god that is not nameable or describable, or destructible. It's label is "God", with an unknown, unspeakable name, too infinite to begin to grasp, but presenting Peace beyond all understanding, before whom we can only bow in deepest gratitude for All, and smile saying, "Your will be done".
Thank you, my friend, for inspiring me to remember. Stay the course. Don't "keep the faith". Quest for the Known. You are beginning to see it now. Be patient with Brenden. He has earned your patience.
Excellent idea for an article! I enjoyed it. Very honest.
My brother and I grew up “slightly “ Catholic. But out mom was Quaker, and would read the Bible to us most every Sunday morning instead of going to church. Church was on holidays, or when we visited extended family.
I’m very “spiritual “ now. And my brother is mostly agnostic. Sooooo my perspective on Religion and Faith is it’s a lot Nature and seasoned with the right nurturing.