I went to a funeral yesterday and they sang three old hymns that I grew up singing and it brought back a slew of memories. Some great, some scary and some just very uncomfortable. As I've written before I've wandered through most religions/belief systems and never seem to land in a comfortable spot. Yesterday I missed the "comfort" of a child's blind faith. The surety that what I'm singing about and reading about is "truth". I don't like uncertainty and as I got older that's what religion provided. I could never buy the stories. My scientifically bent brain just knew a bunch of that stuff could not, did not, will not, work the way I was being told.
So for the last couple of months I have suspended belief in everything. This is it. There is no god or goddess. There is no after life. There is no magical spirit to guide or punish. There just is now. And that eased all the guilt I had been raised with about being a good person and deserving of an afterlife.
But I'm not sure again. Some of my happiest and most secure "religious" moments as an adult, were when I was wandering through Paganism or Wicca. I have always felt a certain draw to the natural order of things and the majesty of a mountain or the simple brilliance of a leaf. I thrill at the sound of the wind. I stand in awe of a full moon. I sit in my living room and stare for hours at the snow covered mountain across the street. I love the feel and look of our wall of Goddesses as you enter our home.
I'm feeling myself being drawn, or drawing back, to where I found comfort.
My PSW
3 years ago
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I am not a religious woman, I don't believe in a higher power or a goddess and my jury is out on the whole "afterlife" concept, although I'd like to think that there IS something after we're gone, and that it involves lots of cheesecake and snorkeling in the South Pacific.
ReplyDeleteBut I am a SPIRITUAL woman, and I know that something is stirred within me when I walk through the woods, or smell puppy breath, or see a beautiful sunset. I have attended the funerals of loved ones and ached deeply, but it had nothing to do with religion.
In the end, the only thing I'm SURE of is that we have THIS moment...so why waste time worrying about things we have no control over??
I don't know if this helps you on YOUR journey.
But if it gives you permission to eat half a pint of Ben and Jerry's, though....well, MY work here is done.....
I wish I knew.... but you know I have much the same issues and similar thoughts..... But I know love in the present makes me feel special.... so I try to live in the moment....
ReplyDeleteBYW Gail.... only 1/2 a pint?????
Winde