While I was in Chicago Jeremy asked me If I pray. He was asking because he has been praying lately. It is kind of odd. Another part of this trip Jeremy described himself as a "Militant Agnostic." He said that even if there is no God, he can get something out of praying. He can hear a voice while he prays. He thinks it is his internal voice of God. I think I understand it, but I might not be describing this correctly. You
can ask him if you like.
It means something that he asked me this. Jeremy knows as much about my life as anyone in the world. I might have to fill everyone else in on this. I was raised Catholic. I come from a long line of Catholics and it was important to my parents to bring me up in the faith. We went to mass every week. I went to public school. That means I spent my Tuesdays in CCD for during my school age years.
In college I stopped going to Church. I never got into the Church Scene at college. I had a lot of Catholic friends in college, but I did not feel anything for church at the time. I stopped taking comfort in the mass. I still considered myself Catholic, but I was moving further away from the Church. I did not see the glory of God in listening to a Priest every Sunday. About this time most of my friends who went to Catholic School also started to reject the church also.
When I got out of college I started to go to church more often. For a while I would go about every other weekend. I felt that I did not have much faith. I believed in God, but I was unsure about the word of God. I would see a lot of people around me who seemed to have a lot of faith. They seemed to get comfort from their faith. I could never seem to find that.
There are other things that made me start feeling apart from the church also. I agree with the Catholic Church's stance about abortion, the death penalty, and sex before marriage. I do not agree with the church about homosexuality, woman priests, and general ideas about sexuality. I would sit in a church and listen to the homily. I would feel that I agreed with nothing the priest was saying.
In this time I also became bothered by way other Christians treated Christianity. I would see bumper stickers that say "Christ died for your sins" and I would wonder if those people missed the lessons of Christ's Life. I wonder if these people turn the other cheek or if love they enemy. All over the place people abuse the idea of religion. I know is should not effect me, but it did.
I have an image of God in my head, but it is not of him micro-managing my life. I used to work with a woman who would thank God for every little thing. She would thank God for getting to work safely everyday. She would thank God not having car problems. I can see the idea that God has a plan for everyone, but I do not see got running people's lives down to the smallest details. To me that would take out the whole idea of free will.
When I moved to Portland I really stopped going to church. I went to church a couple of times, but I really felt out of place. I kept on telling myself that I wanted to go, but I would get around to it. I have not gone to Church since I moved to San Jose. Currently I live six blocks from the
Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph, but I never go there.
In the past six months I read a lot about Islam. There was something that caught my eye on the web one day and I kept on reading about it. For about three months, everyday I spent about an hour reading storied about people who converted to Islam. I was not sure if the religion interested me or it was the stories about people finding something that transforms them. The people in these conversation stories seem to radically change their lives. Both the ideas of finding religion and transforming seem equally as powerful. There was something that bothered me about Islam. I have put those ideas down for now, but they still linger somewhere in my mind.
Right now I can say I believe in God. There are too many things that point me to God's existence. If I am asked about my religion, I will say that I was raised Catholic. I do not know if I am still Catholic or not. I am not really sure about my faith. I will say that I pray. I will address the idea of prayer in part two of this post. It I do not break it up, I will be up until dawn writing about it.
Labels: catholic, CCD, faith, Islam, Jerery P Bushnell, prayer, religion, self
