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badstarHow I came to what I believe is a little vague and haphazard. I spent junior high and high school trying to be Christian because I thought that that was the right thing for me to be.Nevermind that it never felt right, and I never could quite believe in Jesus as my lord and savior, no matter how much I wanted to. But I kept trying, and from time to time went to different churches and attended a Youth For Christ group. It never was able to take any sort of hold in me.
My senior year of high school was probably the worst year of my life, and while I knew I wasn't atheist, I knew that there was something out there I could believe in, I stopped actively pursuing it out of a need to make it through that year without piling on more psychological hardship. My best friend died a few weeks after Christmas that year. alex had never joined a church, but had a lot of interest in relgion, and things like Native American spirituality. One of the worst moments of all come the day after that. A friend of ours who had moved to a private school for 12th grade called me up...and asked if she was saved. He said "I need to know because I can't stand the thought of her going to hell if she's not."
I wasn't conscious of it, but I *think* that was the point that cemented it in my mind, that I am not Christian. Though...the next summer, I moved to Texas to attend Southern Methodist University (religion had precisely nada to do with my choice of schools). During the week before classes started, A lot of stuff went on, including an activities fair...and then the next day a religious activities fair. I attended both, and snapped up all sorts of information on different reigious organizations on campus- steering vaguely clear only of the Catholic group (I was baptized Catholic, as was my sister but not my brothers. My mom left the church when I was 5ish. In her Sicillian/Lithuanian/Polish family, this was quite the abomonation.)
I participated in the student filmmaker's association, the sailing club, the Italian club, a few others on a marginal basis, and was very active with the school radio station and Alpha Phi Omega. Never once did I attend a single meeting, service or event of any of the religious groups. After reading and re-reading their information, none of it seemed right, I just couldn't muster any true curiousity in what these groups were doing. There was an RA in my building that frequently invited me to her church or to Bible studies, but I never did take her up on the invitiation. She was always really nice, but had this slight air of self-righteousness that was never blatant but I didn't want to see it if it were to show.
This was the first time in my life that I had been truly happy...and as that year went on, I was still holding onto some hope that I'd find something that I realy did believe in. I considered forgoing one of my planned minors (Art History or Italian language) so that I could pick up a religious studies minor in its place, hoping that might help me figure things out. And then one day during one of the two or three days of spring in Dallas- the kind of day that's just amazingly perfect, warm but still a little cool, cloudless blue sky, strong but not overwhelming breeze, I was walking down campus in front of Meadows (the art school at SMU), pondering my longstanding dilemma, I distinctly remember hearing this female voice whispering to me "Let go". Let go? Well, I knew what it was about. Was it right? I figured there was only one way to find out. I remember grabbing at a fistful of air and making a tossing motion into the wind. I told myself that at this point I was finished with pursuing what I wasn't catching and then and there I was "tossing it to the wind" to carry it away, and let what came to me come to me. If my feeling that I needed to be Chrstian somehow came back to me, I would throw myself at it and keep trying until it clicked. If something else came to me...I'd see where that took me. I felt like I had freed myself from something at that point. I didn't realy go actively looking for anyhitng, but I gave myself the chance to consider what crossed my path until one day a few weeks later, I remember having had discussion some time ago with someone on my floor about the idea of polytheism. I had said somehting, jokingly, like "You know I think the ancient Greeks and Romans had it right with having a different god or goddess for everything, becase one just couldnt handle it all"
My senior year of high school was probably the worst year of my life, and while I knew I wasn't atheist, I knew that there was something out there I could believe in, I stopped actively pursuing it out of a need to make it through that year without piling on more psychological hardship. My best friend died a few weeks after Christmas that year. alex had never joined a church, but had a lot of interest in relgion, and things like Native American spirituality. One of the worst moments of all come the day after that. A friend of ours who had moved to a private school for 12th grade called me up...and asked if she was saved. He said "I need to know because I can't stand the thought of her going to hell if she's not."
I wasn't conscious of it, but I *think* that was the point that cemented it in my mind, that I am not Christian. Though...the next summer, I moved to Texas to attend Southern Methodist University (religion had precisely nada to do with my choice of schools). During the week before classes started, A lot of stuff went on, including an activities fair...and then the next day a religious activities fair. I attended both, and snapped up all sorts of information on different reigious organizations on campus- steering vaguely clear only of the Catholic group (I was baptized Catholic, as was my sister but not my brothers. My mom left the church when I was 5ish. In her Sicillian/Lithuanian/Polish family, this was quite the abomonation.)
I participated in the student filmmaker's association, the sailing club, the Italian club, a few others on a marginal basis, and was very active with the school radio station and Alpha Phi Omega. Never once did I attend a single meeting, service or event of any of the religious groups. After reading and re-reading their information, none of it seemed right, I just couldn't muster any true curiousity in what these groups were doing. There was an RA in my building that frequently invited me to her church or to Bible studies, but I never did take her up on the invitiation. She was always really nice, but had this slight air of self-righteousness that was never blatant but I didn't want to see it if it were to show.
This was the first time in my life that I had been truly happy...and as that year went on, I was still holding onto some hope that I'd find something that I realy did believe in. I considered forgoing one of my planned minors (Art History or Italian language) so that I could pick up a religious studies minor in its place, hoping that might help me figure things out. And then one day during one of the two or three days of spring in Dallas- the kind of day that's just amazingly perfect, warm but still a little cool, cloudless blue sky, strong but not overwhelming breeze, I was walking down campus in front of Meadows (the art school at SMU), pondering my longstanding dilemma, I distinctly remember hearing this female voice whispering to me "Let go". Let go? Well, I knew what it was about. Was it right? I figured there was only one way to find out. I remember grabbing at a fistful of air and making a tossing motion into the wind. I told myself that at this point I was finished with pursuing what I wasn't catching and then and there I was "tossing it to the wind" to carry it away, and let what came to me come to me. If my feeling that I needed to be Chrstian somehow came back to me, I would throw myself at it and keep trying until it clicked. If something else came to me...I'd see where that took me. I felt like I had freed myself from something at that point. I didn't realy go actively looking for anyhitng, but I gave myself the chance to consider what crossed my path until one day a few weeks later, I remember having had discussion some time ago with someone on my floor about the idea of polytheism. I had said somehting, jokingly, like "You know I think the ancient Greeks and Romans had it right with having a different god or goddess for everything, becase one just couldnt handle it all"
