I hope that in saying all of this, I don't offend any of my family, friends, or unknown people. It is just about who I am and what I believe. I am not interested in an argument trying to change my opinions. I am just introducing myself more fully to the world. Please, don't take my remarks offensively.
Much to the disappointment of my family, I am
not religious. Don’t get me wrong, I do
believe in God, I just don’t believe that God is a religion, or that he resides
in any kind of building. Rather, I
believe that you can only find God within yourself. William Blake wrote a poem that I think fits
my thoughts beautifully.
“The
Garden of Love”
I
went to the Garden of Love,
And
saw what I never had seen:
A
Chapel was built in the midst,
Where
I used to play on the green.
And
the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And
“Thou shalt not” writ over the door;
So I
turn’d to the Garden of Love,
That
so many sweet flowers bore,
And
I saw it was filled with graves,
And
tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And
Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And
binding with briars my joys and desires.
You
know that old saying, “If a tree fell in the woods, and no one was there to
hear it, would it make a sound?” Well is
a forest beautiful without someone there to see it? I don’t think so, because beauty is something
found within us, and seen through only our eyes. In the same way, God is only in us and exists
only as we feel him. He might be
something more, but He is most definitely not assigned to one specific religion. No one can own God. God is a name we assign love and guilt. He is a reason, an answer to questions that
it is in our nature as humans to ask, like, “why am I here?” or, “what is my
purpose?”
I do
like the ideas of some religious stories, but these stories are just that to
me: a nice story. They are metaphors,
and similes, and I appreciate them the way I would appreciate a good poem. What is so wonderful about them is that their
meaning can change depending on what you are looking for at the moment. My high school English teacher loved
symbolism. In fact, when speaking of The
Great Gatsby, she practically beat symbolism to death. She would tell us that what we thought the
symbol meant was wrong. I think that she
was wrong. The symbolism we see is what
we need to see in our lives. It is about
what we need to find, what we need to hear.
We are, as humans, selfish beings after all.
I
think that I have had a very narrow view of religion for most of my life. I was raised a member of The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter Day Saints (aka Mormon).
My parents were very strict Mormons, and we never went to any other
church. When I was younger I probably
couldn’t even name any other religions.
They were these mythical things that didn’t exist in our world. I didn’t fully know how unaware I was until I
met a boy who had read the books of five different religions, studied countless
books about religion, and had formed his opinions on his own. I was shocked to hear about this boy who had
a choice, and chose to not go to any church, because religions were corrupt,
texts were corrupt, and only God is pure, because He is love, peace, joy, and
beauty. He is justness, fairness,
equality, and perfection. None of these
things are ever found sitting in a pew for an hour at a time being lectured by
an imperfect human using imperfect texts surrounded by imperfect people.
Anyway,
that experience was the beginning of the opening of my mind religiously. I began to realize that not all people who
were not Mormon were bad, and not all people who were Mormons were good. I began to recognize that I did not
necessarily feel close to God when I was at church. It was subtle, but it started a chain of
thoughts that would eventually unwind my religious tightness, and bring me
closer to a God that I had never allowed myself to know.
Politics. Where does anyone stand these days? Well I have decided I am not affiliated with
any one party. Rather, I am for freedom. I am for choice. I am for the government staying out of my
personal life. I am for boundaries and
guidelines that allow for growth and choice.
I feel that gun control is knowing how to use your weapons. I feel that I would never chose to have an
abortion, but others should have the right to that choice. I am not attracted to members of my sex, but
I think that love does not have sexual boundaries. I am proud to say that I have never needed
government to hold my hand. I have never
relied on food stamps or government support, and I never will. It’s kind of like living at home when you are
an adult. When you live under your
parent’s roof, you follow their rules.
They own you because they are taking care of you. In a way, you owe them your entire life. They give you the necessities, like food and
shelter, and you are then bound by an invisible contract to follow their rules
or laws. I do not like owing anyone
anything, especially when I am capable of taking care of myself. I have always been very self-reliant, and I
think the government is way too involved in the wrong things, including our
personal lives, other countries, and religion.
It is not their place to interfere with our lives. They are there to protect our rights, not to
take them away.
I’m
afraid I’ve gone too far into politics already, and so I will end all of that
with this thought: There is a lot wrong
with our government, but there is also a lot wrong with Americans. We create diseases that don’t exist in other
countries, we are self-centered, pleasure-seeking drones, and I would not be
surprised to see a repeat of the great fall of Rome. On that note, I am done with this. I wash my hands of it the way that the king
washed his hands at the hanging of Jesus on a cross.
So I
guess I should introduce myself. I am nobody. I have never done anything erratic,
irrational, or sensational. I am a blue
collar, working-class, citizen, barely making enough money to pay my bills. I did alright through high school, getting
into a decent religious college in Idaho, where I attended for two years and
dropped out just short of an associate’s degree. I have never been better at anything than
anyone else. I am not a funny person,
although I am really good at laughing. I
am not a smart person, although I am good at working hard.
I am not plain looking, I am not
pretty, I am not ugly. I’m blessed to
not be fat, but cursed with poor health in other ways. I have a bad habit of picking out my flaws. I am generally a happy person, although I am
also a bit of a pessimist. I am empathetic
to a fault. Selfishness plagues me
constantly. I am vain and neurotic. I am judgmental, and I love gossip. I dislike drama when it is happening to me,
but I am obsessed with it in other people’s lives. I am flawed, I am unimportant, and most
importantly, I am aware of all of these things.
They may never change, but that is who I am. Should I have to be different to matter to
someone? Should every piece of me be
perfect? No. No one is perfect. We are all human, and everyone is self-absorbed
with animalistic tendencies. I will
change, and I will always be looking to become better than I am. That is progress. That is striving toward self-perfection,
peace, happiness, love. I know that I am
the only me out there. I am the only
person in the world who has gone through exactly everything I have gone
through, who believes in everything I believe in, who wants all of my wants,
and that is okay. That is what makes me
special. Not a job title, not some
amazing work of art or science: just the combination of everything that makes
me unlike anyone else.
We measure ourselves in faults
and failures. We measure others in
perfections and accomplishments. This is
what drives us to become better human beings.
This is also what drives us to wallow in self pity. It causes us to be judgmental and angry, or
it causes us to revaluate what we find to be important. It is important for everyone to tango with
this imaginary partner, and to allow it to lead us, or teach it to follow.
Why is everyone so
narcissistic? Hell, I am the perfect
example. I am writing about myself as
though everyone would care. No one
cares. No one will ever read this
besides me, and no one would ever want to read it besides me. I’m not interesting. I’m not funny. “I am, yet what I am none cares or
knows…” (from a poem I read somewhere
once). We all think the whole entire
world revolves around us. If I have an
ugly day, who in their right mind is going to be thinking about how ugly I
am? That’s right: me. Everyone else is too busy thinking about how
they look, only thinking I’m ugly to make them feel more beautiful. How terrible is that? We can’t even appreciate someone else being
beautiful because we are too self conscious and jealous. Yes, this is who I am. I am the woman who is too lazy to fix her
hair before she leaves the house, and then thinks to herself thoughts like, at least I don’t look like THAT ugly fat
girl in the corner, or if there’s an especially pretty girl around that I
feel threatened by, I can tell she’s such
a bitch. I’ll bet she gets fat when she
gets prego for the first time. I
know that these thoughts won’t make me feel better, but there they are, every
time.
I’ve been listening lately to a
book on tape. It’s a very famous book,
made into a more famous movie, called Eat, Pray, Love. She talks a lot about her journey to find
peace within herself. She also talks a
lot about finding herself and meditation.
Now I was raised a Mormon. We
didn’t meditate. We sang a lot. We read scriptures a lot. We ate and made crafts a lot. They aren’t a meditation religion. Lately though I’ve wanted to try it. I know, it’s easy enough to just go and try
it if I want to, but for some reason I haven’t yet. I wonder if it’s because I haven’t been truly
comfortable with myself since my last relationship when I was lying about who I was. Or maybe it’s because I find it more useful
to write out my meditations. Maybe this
‘who I am’ business is my form of meditation.
Okay, maybe not. Maybe I should
just go try it. It just feels hard to
get myself to go try it when there’s so much noise in the world to distract
me. But I guess that’s the point though,
isn’t it? To learn to block out the
noise of the world and to listen.
