I’ve had a tenuous relationship with religion at best and found some comfort in spirituality.  Connection and grounding to source made sense to me, but the idea of these rules written in a book that was largely up for interpretation just never sat right with me.  It seemed to me that we didn’t know enough about that divine plan and it seemed like that may be something too personal and specific for us to share the exact same lessons from a deity.  I can’t say that I didn’t see the point in shared practice and communion because that is a beautiful practice, but the idea of every single human on Earth adhering to a specific set of rules to determine the fate of their souls just didn’t seem right.  I can only speak from my religious upbringing, and I will say from the time I was a child, the idea of a punitive savior just didn’t seem right to me.  I never got that inherent feeling that someone who wants our souls to be pure and aligned would expect every single person to conform when we are all blessed with so many different ways to live, such varied creativity.  If each of us has a different purpose and goal, then how can we be expected to be the same in every other way? It didn’t make sense that we would all be created uniquely if the savior was telling us to be the same.  Why would our main goal in life be to fight who we are when we were gifted with difference?

A while back I shared my thoughts/feelings on death and I haven’t changed my stance on it—I still loathe death.  I still do NOT see the purpose of it.  And that, too was another reason for my tenuous relationship with an almighty figure.  When you are exposed to death at an early age where you’re aware enough of what’s happening to understand that person/being isn’t coming back but you don’t understand where they really went or why, it’s traumatic.  Death itself is traumatic no matter the age because it is the definitive cleaving of before and after, the presence and absence all defined in one.  I understand concepts like energy recycles but I do not understand the need for life to end.  That’s something I know I need to work on psychologically as well as spiritually, but I want to clarify that death is another large reason for my tenuous relationship with religion.  I never felt any type of safety from a savior that could take life away indiscriminately and seemingly without cause.  We’ve seen good people die, people important to us die, influential people die.  I still don’t understand how the idea of loss of life is supposed to encourage vitality and when we witness death in such a way (unexpected or not), I don’t see how we find a point in life ending.  There is a whole lot of living to do in this world and it seems cruel that we’d be given a taste for life we can’t experience (like if we can’t afford certain things) to have it end.  Or we’d start a life we thought was right for us to have it cut short.  A teasing taste of the good seems childish, a bit too much like a carrot on a stick.

The concept of our mindset determining our experience on Earth and potentially our experience after physical existence makes sense to me.  And lately I’ve been reminded of all the painful things, the loss, the mistakes, the anger, the frustration, the manipulation, the lies, the constant being shoved down for the sake of others (only to be told I’m selfish for asking for the same attention in return), growing up believing my needs didn’t matter and that my role was to be as small as possible.  Well, I lived small my entire life with some pretty big ideas and that, too seemed cruel—I was given a lot of advantages mentally and academically and I had so little fear until the pattern of judging my appearance took precedence over what I had to contribute.  If the message was so important why were we trained to judge on appearances first?  Sure, I get the whole survival thing and need to make a quick decision but we’ve long evolved past that yet still keep the practice, just applied to different things.  We’re taught that we need people yet our support systems don’t offer that structure.  So it’s this constant contradiction between what is and what we are “supposed” to do that gets me every time.  I do things out of the genuine nature of my heart and soul and people have said that’s all fake.  I am the first to say that I am usually pretty firm on not doing what I don’t want to do—I mean, I’m human, I’m not perfect in the contradiction department either but fighting who we are seems pointless so you can rest assured that if I’m doing something, on some level it’s because I want to.

So human nature in itself has made me suspect toward a higher power.  Seeing people who have succeeded in alternative lifestyles while others don’t, seeing how much effort some people are required to put into their goals while others seem to have to do nothing frustrates me.  It seems if we are all expected to adhere to the same set of rules that we would all be treated the same way.  We aren’t.  Seeing how some of the most intelligent people lose their minds to diseases like dementia or how singers get vocal or lung damage or artists/surgeons get their hands damaged, how we have to see things yet lose our sight or we need to hear them but can’t hear—all of that seems incredibly cruel and unnecessary.  To spend a lifetime giving and being made to feel guilty for ANY modicum of receiving is tortuous.  To fear joy, believing that something horrible must happen for any amount of happiness is disgusting.  And losing those we love, the ones who truly understand and support us merely reminds us of how alone we are—and if we are supposed to feel connected, how is that helpful?  At the end of the day, maybe it really is all just a test.  Maybe these are all different ways and means of discovering who we are and what we are made of, but I can’t help but think there may be an easier way.  I can’t say that because we don’t have an answer that the almighty doesn’t exist but I know my frustration comes from not understanding what that relationship is.  If religion does it for you, that’s great.  I’m still trying to find my connection.  Perhaps one day I will understand it.  Until then I can only hope to release the confusion and anger and fear.