The Gray Area of Faith (Adam the atheist and Adam the priest)

Recently I was talking to lisa about attending Peace Day in the Park. I told her I would be attending with Adam. She responded with, “Adam the atheist or Adam the priest?” which of course made me giggle considering how black and white that made it sound. While talking to Adam (the atheist) this evening we were discussing the spiritual views of Karen Armstrong the ex-nun who is now a religious scholar and no longer religious. He asked if she was an atheist, but I responded with “Well, I don’t know that she believes in God per se, but I think she is still spiritual. I can’t really tell, because once you leave organized religion it all gets to be a gray area.” I began thinking about religion and spirituality as a whole after this conversation. My initial response was that the religious spectrum could be similar to the scale used in psychology about sexual orientation, where very few are entirely gay or straight or exactly in the middle. Most of us lean one way from somewhere in the middle. I thought about my brother who is atheist and believes that everyone should be and compared him with the regular attending “church people” who believe that everyone should be like them. I realized that beliefs are all a gray area, because it is so complex. I feel like everyone judges faith and people in general on one question, “Do you or don’t you believe in God.” Everyone has different ideas of God. Some individuals' God hates other people who believe in the “same God.” I don’t think this praising of a higher power can be summed up in one three-letter word.

My friend, Adam (the [aspiring] priest) once told me a story that I believe came from Buddhism. The story was something about how 3 blind men come across an elephant. One man has a hold of the leg; another has a hold of the trunk, while the other has a hold of the tail. Each man describes what he feels. Each man’s description is different and missing the big picture of the elephant, but that does not mean he is not describing the elephant. He claims that is what religions do. They each describe pieces of truth that they can cling on to, but no one will ever see the whole elephant, because we are all blindfolded.

I feel so restricted spiritually. I feel like I could just fly if someone would unchain me, but everyone is afraid of where I might fly. I once talked with April about how despite everyone’s fronts of having strong faiths, we are all so vulnerable and feel better to know we have support. That is why everyone pretends to care about your belief system and feels offended when you disagree with his or hers. There are very few people in the world who will accept you for your beliefs alone when you do not adhere to a particular label. They all want you to see their truth, which isn’t necessarily the truth you are seeking. Everyone can talk religion and their beliefs, but I know very few people who live it. The people who seem to live it the most are usually the ones who are open with the fact that they can’t live their faith at all times. The people who I feel most spiritual with are the ones who are exceptionally self-aware by realizing their weaknesses and accepting them (whether they believe in God or not). That is an incredibly difficult task, and while everyone (myself included) can claim to be accepting of his or her faults I find that not to be the case. That kind of acceptance takes a lot of meditation, mindfulness, and maturity, which is scorned upon in our technological society. My friends get upset when I want to spend a night to myself, just sitting outside. I feel self-conscious when people see me sitting alone outside, doing nothing. I always have the protection of my ipod, computer, or phone around just like everyone else to let people know "I have stuff to do. I am important." I find the more I sit outside alone the more at peace I feel, but the more isolated I feel when I am with my friends and other people my age.

I believe the reason that I am feeling spiritually dead is because I am undergoing a big transformation that will be beneficial in the long run. I find that I feel a lot less instances of paranoia that someone is watching me or judging my thoughts, but a lot more moments of peace and self-acceptance. I read a lot of spiritual books still, so I know that there has to be something in me that seeks more than anything I have ever come across spiritually. I have many mentors on every aspect of the belief system and as helpful as they all are, I don’t like the way most of them don’t entirely support my beliefs if they are different than their own.. I feel frustrated, because I feel that I am supportive of most people’s belief systems, but very few are supportive of mine. I have many people that “tolerate” my beliefs, but I think that should be a given. I am okay where I am at, which could be a first. I don’t feel like I need to change anything about where I am at, and that makes me feel good. Maybe maturity is not so far away.