For the benefit of mr. Kite.....actually Dara and Ashley, here is my religion pape...
CF Bava
Modern American Cultures
Ms. Ostendorf
Period 9/10
27 May 2005
TITLE
The belief that there is a guiding force in the universe- more powerful than man, more powerful than the forces of nature, more powerful than anything- a force which guides the world as we know it, and which receives us in death, has been with us since the beginning of the human race. Now, it is ultimately contested how our race began, but evidence shows that worship, of some sort, was a part of human life always. Whether the belief in a higher power comes from man’s refusal to think that he is alone or from an innate sense in all human beings of a drawing power, an inexplicable feeling that there is something greater, it also unknown. Some people claim either, some both, some follow the tradition of religion taught to them blindly and without question.
The establishment of Semitic religions came at a time in history when people needed guidance and the promise of a better life in this world or the next. All Semitic religions are fundamentally the same: monotheistic, a positive outcome for the good people, a negative outcome for the mischievous or non-compliant. They are all based on traditions no longer pertinent to today’s living conditions, such as the Jewish tradition of keeping kosher. While, at the time the scribes of the Torah wrote about keeping kosher those rules kept those people safe from food borne illnesses, today it is obsolete, and the only thing keeping modern Jews kosher is tradition. Much in the same light is the Catholic Church holding fast to old traditions suck as the prohibited use of birth control, now a necessity to prevent disease proliferation, but as reform has not touched religion, such useless and sometimes harmful rules remain.
Religion is something with which people have so steadfastly complied and defended that numerous wars and battles have been fought in God’s name about whose religion is better, or whose is right. People have been killed, regimes and countries and regimes have come and gone and all because religion became people’s reason for being; they became so entranced in the dogma that they felt untouchable- for if they were committing an act in the name of the Lord, could commit no evil, they would be a martyr, they would be punished, because if God commanded it to be written in the holy book it must be right, because God is infallible.
But what facet of religion keeps generations of people, who are becoming ever more sensible and rational and knowledgeable, believing is a mystery. That was what I have a problem with- if I cannot why I believed in the Catholic faith, then I would be living a lie if I continued to practice it, I could no longer believe in something I don’t understand, which I think is a part of growing up. Objective thoughts about religion relinquished in me the faith that I had because I lost the belief in the things I was taught. The Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, the church, the pope, they were all still there, they were all an inseparable part of me, but they meant something new, something different.
I began my religious journey when I was young, and, like most children, was taught the religion of my parents, which, in my case, was Catholicism. I didn’t know anything else. My parents weren’t religious, but they put me through the motions (the sacraments, religious instruction, etc.) so that I could choose for myself what to believe.
I guess, in retrospect, I followed Catholicism because I thought I should, I was weaker when I was a child and I understood so much less, I needed something to hold on to, but it never really felt right, I never really believed. It was only in times of need that I would whisper a sincere prayer, feeling as helpless as I felt, I wished that my words would be heard and that some sort of miracle would happen; like a child tugging on their father’s pant leg pleading. It made me feel like if I was good enough at my pleading, then I would be able to have favors done for myself. I realize now that that was not the idea of Catholicism and that was selfish. Encountering the loss of someone very close, was somewhat cushioned by my prayers, by the funeral at the church, the mourners- I knew they were all praying as well- but it didn’t make the pain go away, I had just delegated my pain to another part of myself, I buried it deep, and that’s not the way to deal with anything, especially pain.
Shortly after I made the realization that I had lost faith in my religion, and I was brave enough to admit it, I was feeling alone and confused, “He lost his Self a thousand times and for days on end he dwelt in nonbeing” (Hesse, p. 12). Not knowing what path I was on with the guidance of the church gone from my life, I encountered death again, this time in the church I could not pray, I wanted to fill that chasm with my faith again, I wished that I could believe in it all so I could avoid dealing with the loss, but I could not regain my faith again on command. Getting through that without the help of the church made me realize that I didn’t need it; I didn’t need to hide behind by clasped hands in order to deal with life. I got my faith back, not in the church, but in myself. I began to examine the path that I felt I was going down- the path towards inner peace, which is a status achieved individually and through knowledge, patience, control, and understanding, all traits that I was developing in my process of maturation.
Most people, no matter what their circumstance, aspire for some sort of inner peace. Not many people achieve it, therefore those who do are very admirable. Some say that their religion leads them to a deeper understanding while others have searched for it on their own accord. I have been influenced by many things in my search and I feel as if I am on the right path and I am making tremendous progress. All of the things that I have learned in my life, both in my intellectual pursuits as well as my life experiences, have contributed to who I am as a person, but from the time that I began my journey to now I have totally changed. One of the beauties of growing up or maturing is looking back on your past selves and seeing how you’ve grown. It is only then that you discover the things that are important to you, things that have come along for the duration of your journey, things that you keep revisiting in different ways throughout your life- for me there are many.
From freshman year in humanities we’ve learned about other cultures. From the reading of Edith Hamilton’s Mythology and learning about Greek and Roman gods and goddesses and reading various creation myths from all different cultures to reading Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha and having a mock- meditation in class, we covered many theories of religion that were new to us. The first time I read Siddhartha I didn’t ingest much of what I was reading, it was a school assignment and I was in an untouchable place in life protected from the loss of a loved one by my catholic prayers to God. Upon re-reading it as a senior, when I was ready emotionally and psychologically to comprehend and appreciate what I was reading, I heeded its lessons and found many parallels between Siddhartha’s journey and my own; mainly his realizing that he couldn’t find his peace by following the teachings of another, that he would take those teachings in stride, he would respect them in their validity for that person, but he would forge his own way according to what he gathered from his life, his influences, and his experiences. When I realized that I was searching for my peace in an identical manner, I was comforted.
Music has always been a huge influence upon many facets of my life, never before had it impacted my religion in any way, which is a direct result of my having been locked into not thinking about my religion as if my life could not have affected it. I look at the life and music of the Beatles, now surpassing the rank of “expert,” and I discover how they were spiritually inspired. I am instantly reminded of my own thoughts about religion when listening to many of their songs, such as “Let It Be,” “When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me.” George Harrison was a person so deeply spiritual and on his path towards inner peace, that he actually achieved it before he died. It is simply admirable beyond expression to learn of a real person achieving inner peace, especially someone with so much going on in his life such as George Harrison, a man who lived a largely public life, who still found time to meditate on the things that were truly important for him. On his deathbed he relayed to his family and friends, and thus to the rest of the world, that he had achieved his peace, and he passed on in that state. The final album he created, Brainwashed (released posthumously) held evidence to the state he was in, the quote he uses in the final song, for example, “The soul does not love, it is love itself, it does not exist, it is existence itself, it does not know, it is knowledge itself (How to Know God, page 130).”
Senior year in humanities we read Night by Elie Wiesel, incidentally, at the same time that I was participating in the final part of the Portraits of Survivors program. At the closing ceremony of the Portrait program, when thoughts were racing through my head of survival, religion, strength, and compassion, out of a silence a Beatle spoke to me. An A Cappella version of the John Lennon song “Imagine” touched me in a way that no song has ever touched me before. I don’t know whether it was because I didn’t expect it, or because I was thinking about such serious things, but a song which I have heard so many times before throughout my entire life, suddenly sounded new, suddenly changed it- I realized that the convictions that John Lennon strongly believed, but so often childishly conveyed, were so clearly and passionately and immortally related in “Imagine,” “Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try, no hell below us, above us only sky. Imagine all the people living for today. Imagine there’s no country; it isn’t hard to do, nothing to kill of die for, no religion too. Imagine all the people living life in peace.” Elie Wiesel lost his faith in God, which he had a strong relationship with in early youth, when the Nazis took his family and everything else he had, except his resolve. He blamed God for not stopping the madness of genocide, he harbored an anger towards God and his methods that he only recently reconciled with a published letter to God. But, in times of helplessness, he disgustedly turned to God for help, “And, in spite of myself, a prayer rose in my heart, to that God in whom I no longer believed.”
I have grown and matured tremendously in the past four years. I am a completely different person now than I was when I entered humanities and I wasn’t prepared for how much I would learn. I believe that it matters not whether you enjoy and experience or not, that is only an emotion that relates to the present, but what you learn from an experience in retrospect is its true value. From humanities I learned to question, I learned to express myself, and I honed my already -developing skills of patience and understanding through gathering of knowledge and experience. I am not done growing, my spiritual journey is not near over, but I have made a tremendous leap in the right direction, I know where I am headed and I have gained some of the knowledge and skills base that I require to complete the journey.
JOURNAL ENTRIES
Tuesday, February 29th, 2005
6:48pm
Lately I have been questioning religion. I have been seriously afraid do to this before now, and even now I am ashamed of it. I just don’t feel the faith anymore, I believe there is a God, but I don’t believe that I need any kind of establishment, especially one that has been involved in so many unholy things in the past, to help me to connect with my God. I think there is something after life, I have no clue what it is, and I really don’t see a point in dwelling on the idea, I understand why religion was created, especially the ever similar Semitic religions, they were created at a time when there was a need to people to feel like they were a part of something bigger, a need for people to unify and to identify with each other, that quickly evolved into new rules being added on to frighten people into good habits such as hygiene and health and morals, when religion became synonymous with government, wars and deaths were carried out in God’s name. While I understand and greatly appreciate the historical and traditional implications of religion, I feel like I no longer identify with it, with the establishment that tells me how I can talk to God- If I am one of God’s people, just as a priest is, how is he closer to God than I? Such questions were never answered for me in my years of praying and my years of practicing Catholicism, and of studying other religions I have found similar faults.
So, I guess that makes me agnostic, it kind of feels lonely, but it also makes me feel a new relationship with God, not hindered by icons that someone else chose, or by steeped chapels, or by words written down in a book by people thousands of years ago.
“The Lord is close to all who call on him, yes, to all who call on Him sincerely.”
--Psalm 145:18 The Bible
“One must find the source within one’s own Self, one must possess it” (p. 5).
-Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
“In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness.”
--Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.”
--Douglas Adams
Thursday, March 3rd, 2005
11:54 pm - How do you say goodbye to Jesus?
In the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost
I am doing with myself what I should have done from the beginning
I refuse to believe because of my grandmother's cross
And because of the Italian flag that warmed my great great grandfather's body
I am sleeping late on Sunday mornings because I have no reason to wake up early
Putting the beads away and the images
Looking right at the sky and saying f*!k
Reading the book again with a new meaning
I am understanding what has happened
Understanding what will happen if I don't understand
Looking right at the faces of the people looking down
Hands clasped together so they are not alone
Admiring the reasons, but not the interpretations
And up there somewhere someone is smiling
knowing that another one got loose
knowing that another one is not afraid of their thoughts
knowing that I will come to them my own way
Amen
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2005
10:47 pm - “In my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me speaking words of wisdom… Let it be” - “Let It Be” Lennon/McCartney
This is one of those times when i need God, and I need to believe that there is a better place where people go.
This is one of those times when I curse myself for losing faith, but it is not one of those times that brings the faith back.
and why the hell not!
God bless everyone, seriously, it takes a life to realize how precious it is, why can't we see it sooner.
Friday, March 25th, 2005
5:02 pm
As I sat there crying my eyes out for the life of someone I barely knew in his short life, surrounded by people who will always remember him in death, ignoring the whys and the hows, my mind wandered. I thought about the people around me, many of whom had never been to a funeral before, many others still who had never been to a Catholic one. Nine months out and we are still teaching each other valuable lessons, having conversations as if it was yesterday, and reminding each other how important we all are.
I felt really selfish and dumb about it, but i wondered if by the time i am gone there will be that many people who care about me. Courtesy of an ex RA i read his last journal entry, and felt gutted, he thought he had the flu, he said it was killing him.
Funny the way things turned out though, he wanted world peace, and now he will have at least 100 focused people trying to achieve it in his name.
Thursday, March 31st, 2005
11:21 pm
So, I feel like i traded this for something else.
This is a really deep apathy this time, an insatiable one.
I think that the weekend's revelations have had an affect, and that perhaps I just don't know how to act now.
ten offers none strikingly appealing.
i dropped the 25 cent ring on the floor outside the bagel store, and i said, "hah, that was kind of symbolic in some strange way." To which she replied, "yeah, but you picked it up and put it back on your keyring."
She was right, I couldn't respond to that or explain it. How is it that I have learned to forgive something so intense, and i am thinking of it now, and kind of wondering how i do things like that sometimes, sometimes i do things that are so hard and so admirable, kind of, or stupid, i don't really know how to describe it, i just know it was like i knew it had to be that way. But as days pass it becomes less important, but i changed her life by what i did. Much in the same way, she changed mine. Is it because she’s my best friend, maybe I didn’t want to throw away 13 years of friendship for something stupid. Stupidity, growing up, it's all part of it- but the huge thing for me is the forgiveness. I have been told sometimes that i am selfless, but i think i am selfish, i guess there are times when i do unexpected and inexplicable things.
that, honestly, is exactly how i got my faith back. I don't know if it would have happened unless those things happened. It had something to do with it being the day before easter maybe, but i thought about Jesus' crucifixion. It became clear when i took the fall, hard, for all of what happened. There is no question in my mind now about that- i felt the touch of something divine- whether it was god or buddha or allah or some kindling of inner peace i don't know, but i know that something is there. And now that it has happened I am not the same- i can tell. But being renewed leaves me with all sorts of void because i don't know what to do with myself.
Jules: Whether or not what we experienced was an According to Hoyle miracle is insignificant. What is significant is that I felt the touch of God. God got involved.
-Tarantino "Pulp Fiction" (1994)
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
--Mahatma Gandhi
Works Cited
Hamilton, Edith. Mythology. 1942 ed.
Harrison, George. “Brainwashed.”
Hesse, Hermann. Siddhartha. New York: New Directions Publ. Corp., 1967.
Holy Bible, The.
Lennon, John. “Imagine.”
Lennon, John and McCartney, Paul. “Let It Be.”
Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York. Hill and Wang, 1960.