God?

I've never really been big on the whole God thing.

When my parents made me go to shul with them on Rosh Hashanah -- long after I'd turned thirteen and they'd promised that religion would be my choice -- I became irate. Why did I have to go? I didn't see the point.

I remember trying to feel something during services. But all I got out of it was a lot of standing up, sitting down, reading along, and boring lectures made by Rabbis who didn't have a very good grasp on proper grammar. It was boring, really. I didn't feel some overwhelming sense of community. The dogma was bothersome. I could (and still can) recite the Sh'ma, but it's wholly rote; it means nothing to me.

For a while, I dated someone who is very involved in spirituality and personal growth. When I told him that I sold my soul on eBay, he insisted that despite that, I still do have a soul. When I spoke of my refusal to believe in some higher power, he pointed out the fallacy of my thinking in ways that I could understand. And so I became interested, and even hopeful, that there really is a something out there, something more, something bigger than us.

I tried to be spiritual. I read a lot, I learned a lot, and I talked a good game. I developed personal philosophies and pontificated on them. I talked about nonduality as if I had a clue. I professed to be uber-learned about earth-based spirituality and polytheism. I developed my own mores, and was often told that I had an extremely skewed moral compass. I relished that.

At the same time, I began to loathe all organized religious acts. I had a visceral reaction at weddings, at the recitation of Hebrew words, and the empty acts of Jewish tradition (not empty unto themselves, but empty because the people partaking in them had no clue why they were doing what they were doing, but followed the tradition blindly). At work, I would listen to people talk about their relationships with God. I would abstain from comment, holding my tongue, lest I say something offensive and and awful.

These days, I don't really have a set of beliefs. I abhor dogma in any form, including some of the tenets of Judaism. The mysticisms are fascinating, but I know so little about them. I can't stand blind faith. I don't look to God for the answers. I don't trust that everything will be "okay" because God will make it so.

Instead, I have faith in myself. I know I haven't lived that long, but I have gotten through everything that's been thrown my way thus far. I am strong and I am confident that everything will be okay. In fact, it's not even so much that I'm confident that things will be okay: I know it. I know that no matter what happens, things will be, well, fine.

I wish I believed in something more, something greater. I wish I could have that sort of faith in anything. But instead, I have to be content with knowing that I make my own decisions and that I am what makes me happy, or sad, or successful, or not. That will have to be enough.