Tag: god

Embracing Faith: A Journey from Doubt to Strength

I’ve battled my anti-religion demons long enough. I am a believer, and it’s time to walk the path that has been cleared for me. I have embraced righteousness in all walks of life but one, as a man of faith. Sure, I walk proudly, but I am secretly insecure. I have love in my heart, but my mannerisms push people away. I believe in myself, but I struggle with self-worth. I’m tired of fighting for peace when I continually immerse myself in chaos.
I have faced and overcome so many challenges. Considering all I’ve been through, the world could easily give me “a pass” to just exist. But that’s not good enough for me. I don’t want to merely exist, I want to LIVE. I want to stand proud despite all of the efforts of the Universe to break me. I want to be the best person that I can be without the use of “excuses” of hardship. I don’t want to be “The Sick Guy” anymore. I want to be the “I can’t believe you were sick, look at you now” guy. My story has been told. I am strong and healthy. I am supporting myself and thriving. I have made a comeback. I don’t want to talk about my illness anymore, unless asked. If my story can inspire, then I will gladly tell it. But it will not define me.

My attitude, my strength, my humanity, and my faith now define me. I know, in my heart, that my continued existence is not an accident. I have defied the odds given by doctors. I have been given the strength to fight myself back to health (physically at least). I have been blessed with the resolve to continually strive for self-improvement. I need to credit my Creator for all of it.

I always struggled with the notion of “turning it all over to Christ”. Or, as they say in AA, our Creator as we understand him. I always thought it was wrong to not give ourselves credit for our accomplishments. I openly pushed back on that. However, I now understand that what it really means is that God gives us the strength to overcome. If we are humble and emotionally mature enough to ask him for help.
I am amazed that, as a Believer (was I?) this never occurred to me.

I have run from religion most of my life. I eventually embraced Spirituality. Not as a copout, but because I struggled with the mainstream concept of religion. But my real issue lies in my issues with people I have met in religious settings. I have had several memorable (traumatic?) incidents with sanctimonious, disingenuous, and dangerously self-righteous people. I have been exposed to feigned superiority through the veneer of their faith. I have witnessed racism, victim-shaming, and unadulterated condescension in the name of religion. As for hypocrisy, well I don’t have the time to list all of the examples. So I rejected religion.
Now I ask myself, why do these people differ from others? Why can’t I treat them as I do other people I encounter in life that rub me the wrong way? If I meet someone at the Gym, work, Post Office, etc., that annoys me, I think,”It’s their journey leave it alone.” Why can’t I do that? Religion is like anything else in life. There is good and bad. Where there are people, there is hypocrisy. Yet, I closed myself off to an entire component of my life, the spiritual.

This is for you, my beautiful Lisa. I may never be a person who gushes publicly with religious fervor. However, I will walk with the surety of a man of faith. I will not only take comfort in believing that I have a purpose. I also have peace of mind in the Divine bodyguard beside me as I fulfill that purpose. I’m turning it over to God.

I was once told that I walk like a “Proud Peacock”. It was meant as a compliment. My walk exuded confidence and self-assuredness. Only I knew that it was largely an act. A defense mechanism to cause people to leave me alone. By embracing my faith fully, it is no longer an act. I know I was put here, and saved several times for a reason. It’s time to go out and boldly find and work towards that purpose.

Finding Spirituality: My Journey Through Mental Health

I went to Church today. I woke up and desired an infusion of spirituality. It was a good decision.

This story has 2 components. A backstory as to why I needed a Spiritual infusion, and a brief recap of my relationship with God.

I have been really struggling with my Mental Health lately. I have been battling issues of self-worth on a formerly unmatched scale. I have been beating myself up more than ever over quirks in my behavior. I have hyper-aware of my mistakes and dwell on questions of my overall mental health. And despite my plentiful and amazing support system, I have been feeling very alone. If one were to observe me, they would be unlikely to see of what I speak. I act happy, I socialize frequently, and I am very busy. But underneath, the Sad Clown is still there.
My friend chalks it up to my being single. If you’ve read even one of my posts, you will know that I really want another chance at a relationship. You would also know that I have nothing but misery and disappointment. I have stopped trying. That has somewhat relieved the disappointment, but it hasn’t squelched the desire.
I have been in a very dark place. I actually have thought about ending things. If not for the damage I would leave behind for those who care for me.

Lisa reaching out to me has helped a lot. Talking about “what happened” has softened the blow. It also removed Lisa from my list of bad experiences that I have been ruminating over. We have been talking, and I am enjoying it. I missed her in so many ways. I love that she is in a good place. It is not lost on me that she credits bringing God to the forefront of her life as a reason. I think it’s working for her.

To me, God is a last resort. I am a control freak. I have challenged people in AA meetings about the notion of “turning it all over to God”. I understand that asking for help is necessary, but I believe that everything is ultimately up to us. And when we succeed, give God some credit. But give yourself some as well. I have always struggled with that notion.
I also struggle with religion. I have accepted a higher power into my life. It was a journey that took years of soul-searching. It was when I rejected the Traditional notion of religion that it became clear to me. I came up with the “Kayaking” approach.
Religion is sitting in a building thinking about Kayaking.
Spirituality is sitting in a Kayak thinking about God.

That changed everything (it is not original btw but it works).

As a Mason, belief in a higher power is essential. “Kayaking” enabled me to finally embrace the critical, and often misunderstood truism about religion. It is about aspiring to something that is bigger than yourself. If I had to choose, my religion is nature. Because I am tiny in comparison and that provides context for me. But I still reject traditional religion.
It’s always been that way.

But I needed that thing that I believe drives millions to a house of Worship on Sunday morning, the “feeling”. I have always rejected the “Holy rollers” who raise their arms to the heavens in Church. Those who sprinkle God into every conversation. The people who talk about it all the time. (Lisa is a bit like that but it’s her so I am making an effort). I think part of my avoidance of religion is because I am afraid of being that person. To be clear, I don’t dislike those people, I have just had some traumatic experiences with some of them.

But today was what I needed. There is a Church an hour from me that I really like. The dress code is informal, the people are super nice and decidedly not pushy in their beliefs. They are welcoming and loving. They made me feel comfortable.

Comfortable enough to have a good cry. To ask my Creator for clarity, help, or both as I struggle with my inner demons. I left feeling better than I went in. Again, it was a good decision.

The epiphany

If you have read me before, you might know about my struggle with faith. I have grappled with the traditional essence of a loving God for most of my life. I have approached the subject academically. I have immersed myself in Church, feeling like a stranger but nonetheless open to the experience. I have talked to so many people of faith, trying to capture what they have. I wanted it, I really did. That cocksure faith eluded me. The faith in an afterlife, the trust in an all-loving and forgiving deity. The belief that, despite the dumpster fires of life raging all around them, something is waiting for them. I learned to stop deriding and acquired respect for people of faith. But still, it eluded me personally.
I was so adamant in my non-belief that I insisted on a Justice of the Peace marry my wife and me. I raised my children without faith. We never denied them the opportunity but didn’t encourage church attendance. My children knew me as a borderline Atheist. I stopped short of that moniker. Nobody can say for sure that there is nothing up/out there.
That reluctance to commit human arrogance would eventually cause me to acknowledge something. Someone? A supreme being? It was simple. If you can’t say that there isn’t something, then you must be willing to acknowledge that there is. Maybe.

That is where I stood for some time. With a healthy respect for those with faith, I forced myself to be open to the experience. I looked for God everywhere, but not in a building. I came to call my process “Kayaking.”
“Religion is sitting in a church thinking about kayaking. Spirituality is sitting in a kayak thinking about God.
For me, God was the laugh of a child. It was a deer grazing in my backyard. God was a sunset or the smell after a rain.

Earlier this week I needed to get away from the negativity around me. Talking heads on the news expounded toxic tirades on politics. My friends on Social Media being bad to each other over our President. It was too much for me and I made the unusual decision to watch a Christian movie on Amazon. I enjoyed the wholesomeness. It was refreshing. The next night I watched another movie in the same category. I worked out with dumbbells in my room as I watched. It wasn’t long before I sat on the edge of my bed and focused on the message of the movie. Out of nowhere, I began to sob. Head-in-hands, funeral-like sobbing.

I have been reflecting on that powerful yet confusing moment for a few days. I could chalk it up to the subject matter. Those movies are full of themes of loss, personal tragedy, and redemption. But it was more than that. Something broke loose inside me. Dare I say something tried to get out. I don’t know what it is but I feel like I have had a spiritual awakening. Once I come to grips with it, it is an unexpected occurrence to this perennial Kayaker, I have promised myself to welcome it. I will work as hard as I can to ensure that the experience is not lost on me.

I still don’t know what this epiphany means in the big picture. But I have to recognize that almost nothing in my life has ever brought me to my knees. But this did. It deserves some self-reflection.

Embrace Your True Self: Words of Wisdom

“A person who doesn’t know what the universe is, doesn’t know where they are. A person who doesn’t understand their purpose in life doesn’t understand who they are or what the universe is. A person who doesn’t know any of these things doesn’t know why they are here. So what to make of people who seek or avoid the praise of those who have no knowledge of where and who they are?”
Marcus Aurelius

“A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.”
Malcolm X

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.52

I recently saw a question on another post. “If this was the last thing you would write, what words of wisdom would you share?”

That’s easy. Be yourself. No matter what. Then embrace it. 

I can’t tell you how many blogs I have written about finding and understanding myself and what I stand for. I have always struggled with matters of identity. I can talk endlessly about my findings on this matter. Still, suffice to say that I showed up at the party way too late.

I’m glad I got here. Still, I wasted an irretrievable amount of time, effort, angst, and agony in the process. Several years ago, the President of my HS reunion committee asked me for a quote for the newsletter. I gave her this, “I searched long, far and wide for who I am. Only to realize that I was me all along.”

As I said it I realized how prescient my statement really was. When I thought about it, I never thought I was enough. Or the right thing. Or in the right place. I don’t know why, nothing in my childhood explains it. Nobody has ever told me that I’m not good enough except for me. It’s as if I placed other people’s expectations on me without their offer or permission. I think I tried to be who and what people wanted or expected. Sometimes different personas for different people or groups. 

I was big and intimidating. So I acted it. But I’m not tough nor do I want to intimidate. That didn’t work.
I was charming (to a degree) so I acted the part of Ladies Man and Playa. But I like and respect women, I didn’t even like hookups.
I was a decent artist. So I tried to emanate artsy and liberal. Turns out I’m a casual artist and I am not wired to take mushrooms and sing Kumbaya around a campfire.

I could go on. Suffice it to say that despite having varied interests and strengths, not a single one of them defines me. They are merely components of me. The day I realized that was a great day indeed. 

As much as I can parrot the tired line, “I don’t care what people think about me” I do. But not in the conventional sense. 

It matters to me that people know who I am and what I stand for. It matters to me that people know that I am a good person. Sure I want to be liked, but I have recognized that respect or appreciation is what I truly want. 

I have found that the answer is in the company you keep. Your friends will not only understand you, they will accept you. The organizations where you attend meetings and events will appreciate your uniqueness. The people you spend time with will also value who you are. They will know your quirks and peccadillo’s.  They will know who you really are and what you stand for.

I am the chocolate box in Forrest Gump’s lap. I come in many shapes and forms. They’re all good in their own way. If some of my pieces don’t do it for you, then leave them. If one leaves a bad taste in your mouth, enjoy another. I’m me and you never know what me you’re going to get. Even I can’t tell you that. What I can tell you is that under my awkward demeanor is a man of powerful convictions. A man with a sense of justice. A man with empathy. A man who would do anything in his power to end the suffering of another. A man that not only believes in right and wrong but lives by it as well. I’m not special, but I am not without purpose.

Therefore, if my last recorded word was to be one of advice…just be yourself. Know what drives you and live it. Believe in something so strongly that you would die for it. Then surround yourself with people who appreciate your unique magic. If they don’t, then find a new circle.

the tattoo

I recently got my first tattoo. I’m not sure why I waited so long.

When the heavily tatted and pierced young lady at the tattoo parlor learned that it was my first she was genuinely surprised. I suppose in her world; her job, her generation, etc., it may be a bit late but if she knew anything about my generation she would be less surprised. I am the last of the boomers, by that I mean I’m the cutoff age, and my generation was plagued, or blessed I suppose, with “‘cations” as I call them. Ramifications, Identifications, advocation, dedication, indication, and if your parents or peers really got fed up with your shit then you were cursed with abdication, which of course means disowned by your parents or social circles. By this somewhat pedantic rant what I am really saying is that my generation was judgmental as all hell. Tattoos were one of those things that drew criticism and scorn and had social implications (oops I did it again baby). So, in the interest of presentation and reputation, I refrained from inking my body.

But as I have aged and my concern about what people think of me has sharply declined I decided that at age 56 it was time. The question became a matter of what and not when. I decided that my passion, my driving force, the thing that has influenced my life the most in recent years has been my involvement with Freemasonry. It has been the driving force behind most of the improvements I have made in my life that have resulted in me finally liking myself. If you know me at all, that was no small feat. So I decided that the Masonic credo of “Faith, Hope, and Charity” would be my first, prominently displayed on my right forearm. It means “Faith in God, Hope for eternal life, and Charity to all mankind”. I live by it and I now wear it.

My children have been having a blast with me over the word Faith tattooed on me. You see, it was not long ago that I was a pretty strong agnostic, if not a borderline atheist. What can I say, I’ve had a change in position.

Hey, people change.

It was Freemasonry that brought about the change. One of the only requirements for membership, besides a documented history of good character, is a belief in a higher power. No particular denomination or definition of deity is required. You just have to believe in something as the driving force of the Universe. I struggled at first when I researched joining. I disliked the notion of joining a fraternity based upon good character on a falsehood. So I took a hard look at myself. I was one year out of life-saving transplant surgery. Over my lifetime I was a cancer survivor, had flatlined for 2 minutes after contracting a staph infection, walked out of the hospital after I was told I might not walk again after a motorcycle crash, and had suffered a severe head injury as a child. Yet there I was, still standing and still kicking. I had to ask myself, did I survive all of that just on my own? Or did I have help?

I had been seriously grappling with faith for many years before that, my whole life perhaps. The conclusion I was approaching is that what I really had was an aversion to organized religion. You will thank me for leaving it at that. But a deity, an unknown power, a driving force if you will is very believable and doesn’t need to be defined. Atheists believe that there is nothing, zip, zero, squat out there. I believe that nobody can say that for sure and the sheer vanity of that alarms me. So by the laws of deductive reasoning, if you don’t believe there is nothing then there has to be something. Mother Nature, the ocean, Karma, whatever strikes awe in you and demands further explanation. It opened the door for me to accept faith. Many call Spirituality a “Cop-out”. It’s not, it’s faith that lacks a precise definition. I still reject most of the tenets of traditional belief but, quite simply, what I do practice makes me feel good.

So I wear it proud. Without fear of reproach from the judgmental ones of my generation, and free from those who know my past belief system. It is just what a tattoo should be. It means something to me. That’s what matters to me. I now have faith, I would love for there to be some form of eternal life, and the goodness that I try to exemplify in my heart causes me to be charitable.

No matter how long I live I will have it. Unlike most tattoos on people today, I will never look at it one day and ask myself “what was I thinking?” At that moment, my heart, my head and my thinking had never been clearer.

The epiphany

I am not, nor have I ever been a “man of science”. By that, I mean that I’m not a person that has to have everything quantified and verified. But I am, to a certain degree, a person that needs to see some kind of empirical evidence in order to believe in something. This was a major influence on my failure to embrace religion as a logical pursuit. It wasn’t until I embraced the notion of “faith” would I be a bit more accepting of that which I couldn’t put my fingers on and wrap my mind around. Faith is inherently difficult, hence the reason it is often associated with a “giant leap” of it.

For most of my life my associations with the notion of faith would be in having trust that airplanes wouldn’t fall out of the sky, oncoming traffic wouldn’t cross into my lane and kill me, and those that I love wouldn’t hurt me. These are all tangible things that can and do go wrong. The notion of putting my trust in something that I can neither see nor touch never entered my mind. In addition, I openly rejected the idea of a kindly, benevolent man in a flowing white robe, pulling the strings of mankind from a puffy cloud in the sky whenever I was faced with the unacceptable instances of good people dying young and babies getting cancer.

Three distinct events in my life pushed me incrementally from open detractor to cautiously spiritual.
My Kidney Transplant in 2011.
The death of my father in 2013.
Joining the fraternity of Freemasonry in 2013.

My transplant was an incredibly formidable event in so many aspects. Obviously, it saved my life. I was very sick and on the verge of dialysis. Maybe it’s inaccurate to say I was going to die, it would be more accurate to say that any quality of life was escaping me. Then, a co-worker that I barely knew stepped forward out of nowhere and offered to donate to me. And then finding that she was a perfect match…well, that made me challenge the notions of luck and coincidence.

The death of my father initially reinforced my anger and frustration about bad things happening to good people. But my thinking evolved a little bit when I acknowledged my gratitude that he was no longer in pain. I had (I think, still not entirely sure) some unresolved issues and I talked to his stone a lot. I missed him terribly and suddenly the idea that he may be in a better place, free of pain and waiting for me, his beloved wife, friends, and every dog that ever sat at his feet to join him appealed to me. So I begrudgingly allowed the notion of an afterlife into my zeitgeist. In short, it was a nice idea.

I joined Freemasonry several months before my father passed away. I had always wanted to join it and I finally petitioned a friend for membership. It was a big move for me because I knew that Freemasonry is a faith-based organization. When it came time to interview, I pre-empted the gentleman interviewing me and asked what the parameters for belief are. I was pleased to learn that no statement of denomination or actual designation of a deity other than a higher power/driving force in the universe was required. You simply had to believe that there was something bigger than your own self. It was of short-term comfort because I still hadn’t really gotten even to that point. I was dancing with it, entertaining it even (which was a big step for me in and of itself) but not sure. This was problematic because I am not the type of person who would join a fraternity with the intention of being a better man, father, son, friend, and citizen on a lie. So I told my interviewer my concerns. The problem is that he knew my story and deftly said to me, “You happened to get a job at the one company that would connect you with the person who would one day soon save your life. A perfect match of all things. Since then you have dedicated your life to being a better person and paying forward your gift. Do you honestly think that all of that is a big coincidence or is it possible that all of this happened for a reason?” I really couldn’t argue with that logic.
I began to evolve.
But I was still spiritual at best. It was a Masonic lesson that moved the needle just a bit more. When discussing the structure of Freemasonry the Lodge itself, while it implies a building, is actually the members, the building is just that. Well, isn’t that what a church is?
The building is a building, but the members, followers, parishioners, and believers are the actual body. So according to the tenets of Bill logic (it’s a thing), Church is just a building, religion is a label, and God is everywhere. It may not sound like much, but it was quite an evolution for me, even if I really only evolved to the point of acceptance that I am not an atheist, and the person that I referred to in the first paragraph, the man who wants something tangible to see and touch, opened himself up to the possibility that there was indeed something out there and I was lucky enough to not have to define it.

Here’s what I came up with. It was church, organized religion and all that goes with it that I had a problem with. I wasn’t an Atheist. Atheists are convinced that there is nothing. They are their own church. My problem with Atheism is that I believe it is arrogant to believe that they know that there is nothing out there. This is such a uniquely arrogant human notion. I will never assume to know such a thing. Enter more Bill logic, if you reject the notion of nothing, then you therefore accept that there is something. That, my friends, was enough for me at that point in time.

It is no understatement to say that I have been looking for God everywhere and in every thing ever since. I have looked everywhere except within the walls of a church.

the Pilgrimage

I have struggled with the idea of god for most of my life. From a very early age, I was more than encouraged to attend Church. While I respect that to this day, exposing me to something that was wholesome and positive, it never really stuck. I didn’t believe in it, I didn’t understand it, and sadly I felt no need for it. In addition, I found myself highly annoyed by a good number of the people in attendance. Even as a young boy, I had a keen eye for hypocrisy and Bullshit. My church was rampant with both. For every person who dutifully stood and sat on command, recited tired and canned responsive readings, and paid respectful attention to the sermons, there were ten who were all about appearances and acting judgmental. They annoyed me to no end, but not as much as the theatrical ones who swayed during hymns and constantly yelled “Amen” for all to hear to show all in attendance what a wonderful fucking Christian they were. Add in the assholes who raised their crisp 100-dollar bills into the air to examine it and of course, make sure that everyone saw it before they dropped it into the collection plate. I never felt comfortable with any of it, the only redeeming quality was watching my Dad, who really tried to do what I always believed it was all about; cleansing his soul of the awfulness of the past week and spiritually bracing himself for the upcoming one.
As soon as my parents stopped forcing me to go, I stopped. It just wasn’t for me. My Dad was cool about it, my mother was mostly fine with it but she engaged me often over it. She told me that I was unhappy with the people in particular of our church, not religion in particular. I assured her that it was both.
Between the ages of 17 and 46, I never entered another church unless it was a wedding or a funeral.

It wasn’t enough for me to not be a churchgoer. I actually danced on the verge of outright atheism. Shamefully, not only did I not expose my own children to church, I foolishly shared my beliefs of nothingness with them. Kids are impressionable, the Dad’s influence is a powerful thing, and I did them a terrible disservice. Ideally, I should have done what my parents did. Expose them to it and let them make their own decisions. I took the asshole route. I used the bully pulpit of my position as influencer of young minds and abused it.

I know in my heart of hearts that I meant well, I was just the kind of father that taught the harsh realities of life to ensure that my children were knowledgeable about the world as it is, despite whatever hopes and dreams they may have had about what it could be. Along that vein, I felt that religion was a dangerous construct; that more war and death occurred in the name of it than I could justify, and that it was largely a waste of time. In addition, I felt that God was just a nice idea and that the Bible was just a collection of moral lectures that could easily be replaced by actual values, Good vs. bad vs. good vs. evil. I went as far as to share my belief that the afterlife is a pipe dream, that we are mortal and temporary residents of this planet and when we’re gone…that’s all folks. I could argue these points endlessly and successfully with anyone. I feel it is important to point out that I did respect the belief systems of others, but I really had no interest in it all.

Then I had an epiphany. It wasn’t God that I rejected. It was organized religion. Once I embraced that I embarked on a spiritual journey. One that I would love to tell you about if you will indulge me.

Footprints

Nice idea right?

I’ve always been a lover of the “footprints” meme above. It was shown to me early in life and the message resonated with me. It’s a nice idea. The whole Jesus thing. Walk beside me, keep me company and hey, while you’re at it can you carry me through the rough terrain?
The problem is that I am not really a big “Jesus guy.”
I am not going to go too much into the religious and spiritual beliefs of Billy Mac. I’d done it in previous blogs and I just can’t do it again. I will give a brief synopsis for the sake of understanding what exactly the fuck I’m trying to say in this entry, but that’s it.

Here goes…I’m not an atheist because an atheist believes there is nothing. You’re an arrogant bastard if you believe that there is nothing else out there in the immeasurable vastness of the cosmos. Deductive reasoning therefore concludes that if you can’t say there’s nothing then there has to be something. With that in mind, I reluctantly accepted the possibility of a higher power. Sure, let’s call it GOD. As for a bearded guy in a flowing white robe judging and condemning everyone, I’m not so sure. As for his son, I can’t wrap my head around that part. It’s a nice story but it doesn’t fit my paradigm. But again, it’s in the nice idea department in my world.

But back to the Footprints. There was once a day when I would have resented the notion that I would have had to be carried anywhere, by fictional deity or by any man. Strength mattered the most to me and I swore that the day that I couldn’t deal with the weight of my life that would be the day that I would no longer want to engage in this dance. For the longest time I was able to pull it off.
It’s getting harder every day.

I’m failing in so many ways. My body is simply breaking down. Sure, there are physiological forces at work, understandable ones, I have a disease. I’ve had it for a long time and I have done a pretty impressive job of fooling everyone, especially my family. Until now, now I’m showing the cracks. I’m walking slower, in need of more recovery from the most basic of tasks, uninterested in making plans for fear of not knowing how I will feel when the day comes, I am becoming what I have always feared. Weak.

This morning I tuned in to my church’s online service. I’m not sure why, I rarely do so. The Reverend, a young family man with a fresh perspective, was just wrapping up the musical segment when I tuned in. He welcomed all of us and said, “let’s talk about Footprints.” I knew exactly of what he was speaking. I put my head in my hands and I listened. It was as if he was talking directly to me. I became emotional. I even cried a little. Why do I feel this way? I don’t want help. I hate asking for it. I don’t want to burden anyone. So why?

I have a great support system, I really do. Great friends, amazing family, my Masonic brothers and the resources of the entire fraternity. But I never ask them for anything. I swore that I would never be that guy. But I’m not in a good place lately and maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing if I let someone carry me for a couple of blocks.

It might allow me to garner enough strength to go back to trying to convince people that I’m ok when I’m really not. Or maybe I can grow the fuck up and acknowledge that Plan A is just not working.

Faith

With eyes closed, slowly swaying with her right hand to the sky, she sings with a passion and conviction that I can only look at with admiration and longing. My eyes close, my skin bristles, a small tear forms in the corner of my eye. The music makes me feel vulnerable, open. She begins to freeform, she breaks into a rambling tearful prayer. I’m mesmerized…

The Holy Spirit is what she’s having. And I think I want it.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have had a complex and difficult relationship with God. Once “Born again”, or so I thought in my teens it wasn’t long before I lapsed into a state of agnosticism which later devolved into what I can only call Atheism. I rejected all of it. I have no problem telling you why; I saw too many people praying for themselves and their own advancement, and I had a very hard time understanding why a kind and benevolent God would give babies cancer. While tolerant of other’s right to worship and willing to engage in a debate with anyone, and I could argue my side as good as anyone, I didn’t budge for years.

Much ado was made about my atheism when I got married. We got married in a hotel. A Justice of the Peace presided. It was a civil ceremony and I told the J.O.P. quite definitively that I wanted no mention of G.O.D. My wife, a non-practicing Jew and me a Atheistic angry ex-Protestant…well we sure pissed off our families. That, the pissed-off thing reached new heights when we failed to introduce our kids to religion. No baptisms, no Bar or Batmitzvah’s. No church or temple. I do regret teaching my children my views, as impressionable children I may have ruined it for them.

I wouldn’t begin to come around, and I only came around a small bit, until I petitioned for membership in Freemasonry. Freemasonry is a organization known for making good men better. I was by all accounts a good, if not flawed man and I was a good candidate by all standards. But I was required to acknowledge a faith in a higher power. No specifics required as to denomination or name, but no atheists. I had to really evaluate my stance because one thing I did not want to do was enter a faith-based organization characterized by worthy men on a lie.

Hard questions followed and if not for a good friend I wouldn’t have started on the path that I am now discussing.
“A good friend came out of nowhere and gave you a kidney, saving your life?”
“Yes.”
“And that was just a accident or a coincidence?”
“No.”
“You know for certain that there is nothing out there?”
“No. Nobody can honestly say that.”
“Then if you dismiss nothing, then you logically have to ackknowledge something?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t it possible that you don’t need to know why things happen, that it’s beyond you?”
“Yes.”
That was the conversation that opened the door for me to acknowledge that maybe there’s more to it. My compromise was to call it Spirituality.

Then my father died. My father was a Godly man. He lived by a strong moral code and he loved Jesus. Especially towards the end as Parkinson’s ravaged his once strong body and spirit. When he died I started doing two things I never did before; I talked to a granite gravestone, and I began seeing shadows in my house.
The Paranormal is a great indicator of God. The shadows, hopefully my father, seemed benevolent but I had heard enough stories to know that not all are. You can’t believe in evil without acknowledging its polar opposite and that is something holy.
Still, that one incident aside, I really didn’t move beyond the label of Spiritual.

But I began to open myself up a bit more. I began to find the chirp of the bird, the deer sightings, sunsets, mighty storms and reflections on the water as particularly beautiful and less of a coincidence of nature. I found God outside the walls of a Church. I adopted the “Kayaking” doctrine.

“Kayaking” worked for me. But the selfish praying for a football victory, a winning lottery ticket and the hateful vitriol or outright fucking hypocrisy that I had witnessed in past “Church” phases was still with me. And I still had a hard time with the whole dead baby thing.

Recently I have been talking a lot with a lovely woman who has shown me what I had been missing. She is kind in her actions and her prayers. She prays for others, not for personal gain. She is humble yet strong, she controls what she can and has faith in that which she cannot.
She has shown me what I have been missing and didn’t know I was searching for.
Faith.
People have a hard time with control and I am no exception, letting go of that white knuckle grip is a daunting task. And I’m not quite ready to fall in lockstep with the old “Everything happens for a reason”, or “It’s all predetermined”. But I am coming around to the possibility that I will learn someday, not today the reason for the triumph, or calamity that has just occurred. It’s called FAITH and I’m starting to come around to it.

The people of faith that I have been watching with a keen eye have a special walk. A special smile. They are not acting better than you and I, they just convey a feeling that something has their back. That everything is going to be ok even if they don’t know how, why or when.

I think I’m on a journey that will take me there. I think that my hardships, lessons, and scars have happened for a reason. I may be a vessel, placed on this earth to help one person or many. I may have to hold on to my questions for a while to see if they ever get answered. In the interim, I want to spend more time around people of faith.

I want what they’re having.

A reluctant conversation with God

Hey God. It’s me, Mac.

I’m in your house now, one of many I suppose, sitting in the back taking a hard look at my life. I rarely look for you in a building, instead I often search for you outside these walls, in nature. As I walk this earth I am on high alert for signs of you and in the process the purpose of that which I observe.

Now, I sit elbows on knees, asking for help finding my own purpose. This is a new thing for me, praying. If you are indeed all-knowing then you know this already. I was a bit late to the party.

I reluctantly accepted your existence because, like most mere mortals, I refused to believe that the beauty which surrounds me is a mere accident or cosmic anomaly. I decided that I was not atheist because they are certain that there is nothing, while I do not possess the audacity to be sure of such a thing. Logic dictates that if you rule out nothing then there has to be something. I therefore came around to believe that there has to be a higher, driving force in the universe. But I still can’t quantify or define you.

Are you the mighty, smiting God from the Old Testament? Are you the forgiving, benevolent Grandfather type with a flowing white beard and a staff in your hand? Are you to be found in the beauty of the setting sun, the awe-inspiring power of the crashing wave, the melodic chirp of the bird or the wondrous, innocent smile of a child?

I don’t know if you are a God that cares about who wins a football game, or grants requests for promotions and lottery jackpots. That’s what I think a lot of people ask you for. I also don’t know why you allow babies to get Cancer, bad people to live long lives, good people to suffer and assholes to thrive. But I suppose that’s the essence of faith. The faithful have to believe that there is an answer to every question and a reason for everything.

One thing I know about faith is that if understood properly, it reminds you of your place in the scheme of things. The mightiest of men are no match for the raw power of the tide. Should he survive he will recognize his smallness. He may resent it, I myself embrace it. I value my smallness.

Which brings me to the point. If it was your will, a pre-ordained event, or simply a plan to prematurely remove me from a life of chasing status, personal wealth and achievement and render me the most humble me I’ve ever been, then would you enlighten me as to what I am to do next? I’ve learned so much in the last 2 years. I’ve learned the value of humility, kindness and charity in the face of crushing circumstances. I’ve been to the very bottom and clawed my way out time and time again but my victory laps (with a modicum of humility of course) were short-lived as I am hit with yet another setback. I’m a fighter and I always found motivation to push on.

Until lately. I’m not feeling the fight. I’m taking knockout punches and choosing to stay on the mat until the count of 9. I’m looking for a reason to push on and simultaneously looking for reasons to give up. If you agree that my earthly journey has been wholesome and moral, that I am doing your work then would you please give me a sign? A sign that I am indeed on the right path, that I may be infused with the light to carry out what I think is my true calling. To be an inspiration to others. Not as a bigshot, but as someone who says or does the things that helps others with their own earthly journey. Shine your light through me and illuminate my future journey.

Please.

Well God, Yahweh, Mother Nature, Supreme Architect, Big Guy, whatever you go by, I’m not sure how to wrap this up other than to say thanks for listening. Please remember that I rarely ask you for anything, if I do it’s never for me. I’m in need here and my eyes and ears are open for your answer. Take care and if it’s not too much, tell my Dad that I miss him more than anything.

Mac