“I’m sorry Dad, I must have a bad connection. Did you say that you are at Church?” I could visualize my daughter’s confused face as she was driving. She was on her way to see us.
“Yes, you heard me correctly. Your grandmother and I are at Church but we’ll be back before you get here” I said. This is going to be discussed at some point I thought to myself. She has never heard me say that before.
I can’t put a finger on the date but for some time now I’ve become increasingly Spiritual. It has been a gradual process. I once considered myself an atheist but I opened myself up to the fact that I was actually opposed to organized religion.
I am a very cut and dry fellow, it has taken me a long time to recognize and overcome this trait. It used to be easy to say that things are either this way or that, nothing in between. I rejected the Church at a young age. I rejected all of it. I had some bad experiences at my church and I saw some brutal hypocrisy that turned me off to all of it. The Alpha-male in me took over. If I’m rejecting religion then I must be an atheist. Regrettably, I tried to be a good one.
I was committed to it. I even went so far as to hire a Justice of the Peace for my wedding. We were to be married in a Hotel and the JOP was instructed not to use the word GOD once. It actually worked out well on some fronts because my wife is non-practicing Jewish and the families were pushing for their own traditions.
As the kids grew we allowed them to make their own decisions. They were not baptized, bar mitzvah’d or bat mitzvah’d but we didn’t discourage them from believing. We celebrated Christmas and Hanukkah. I offered to take them to church if they wanted. They tried it and were not into it. We often talked about God and Religion and they marveled at my lack of belief. I was perfectly fine with the notion that once you die, you are gone. What remains is your legacy. I’ve always tried to be a good person so that was fine for me.
What my children didn’t know is that I was coming around a bit to Spirituality. I recognized that it was organized religion that I was rejecting. There had to be some driving force in the universe. I opened myself up to it but I never told my kids. It is pretty sad but I was embarrassed that I had changed my mind about something I had been so sure about. Of course, it is even sadder that I was even worried about coming clean. I felt like a presidential candidate who had flip-flopped on raising taxes.
We were enjoying a nice meal that night when my daughter says “Sooooo Dad, Church, huh?” I caught my mother smirking out of the corner of my right eye.
“Here we go,” I said. “Yes, kiddo I go to Church sometimes now.” The conversation I had been dreading for a long time was upon me. Having my mother in the room made it more interesting because she has always the one telling me that it was religion, not God that I had a problem with. I hate it when other people are right.
I explained to my daughter that I had to re-evaluate. That I had rejected religion but was seeking meaning in the world, in my life. I told her I started seeing God in nature, meaning in small things, that chronic illness and personal struggles had opened my eyes a bit. That I was not a bible thumper yet, that in fact, I was a bit of an oddity at church. I don’t sing, I don’t recite and I don’t engage in rituals like communion. I’m just not wired like that. I explained that when closing my eyes for prayer, I don’t necessarily feel what I think I’m supposed to but I take the opportunity to think good thoughts and wish good things for other people. I explained that I enjoyed the positivity of this particular church and that it can’t be a bad thing to take a few hours a week to think about others.
She listened patiently, I don’t know if she was thinking I was a hypocrite, if she was bored but putting on an interested face or if I was actually making sense. My mother certainly enjoyed it. I guess it doesn’t matter what she got out of it. Telling her was as much about me as it was about her. I needed to come clean. I feel like a small weight has been lifted. Being honest with my family outweighs being right at this point in my life.
The Tao of Bill 