It's Easter Sunday morning, early, and I've just rolled out of bed with thoughts of other people's lives on my mind. I was thinking about my friend Christina who was confirmed as a Catholic last night at Holy Name Cathedral. It was quite an affair because it was coupled with the Easter vigil service. The whole Mass took four hours. Gods, I thought, make us do the craziest things. Also, Christina's daughter, Lucy, was baptized as a Catholic. They both had their first communion and it was very special for them. For myself, I felt very cynical about all of it. I sat in a reserved pew just for friends and family of the new converts and I stared at the ornate ceiling and rolled my eyes as the offering baskets went around. Does the Catholic Church really need any more money? That's what was on my mind. I also couldn't help but pity one of the priests who gave the sermon (oops, that's a Protestant term ... homily) and he gave it like a freshman essay. "Three points," he said. "I'm going to cover three points on why [G]od is love." He went on to lay out a very shaky foundation based soley on a Catholic perspective on why [G]od is love and how human beings reject that love because we are sinful. "[G]od," he said, "doesn't need man but made man because he ..."(A little aside here, what's with the gender id on gods?) "... desired someone to love and he loved us into existence." Now, isn't desire very much like need? This priest, the other Catholics, my friend, and her daughter all seemed so moved by it all last night, but, for me, it all fell on deaf ears. It's their lives, I thought.
My life has been about learning and experiencing. And through the life I've led, I can't possibly, in good conscience, lead a religious life. I wasn't even able to take to Paganism. However, the idea of a sense of spirituality does make sense. There is an aspect of being human that is also spiritual. There are those aspects of ourselves that are beyond explanation or outside the strict boundaries of science. Sometimes I feel in touch with the entire universe, while other times I'm so drawn in that I'm only aware of myself. When I die, when this body putters out, will that be it? A blackout? I don't tend to think so, because I believe in those things outside the realms of science and, perhaps, outside the realms of any religion. Religion was created to deal with death, not with life. It was created to give people something to look forward to and something to keep themselves occupied so that their minds weren't dwelling on the inevitable. However, why do I suspect that there's something more than this life? Honestly, it's inexplicable. Although, I do know that no religion can tell me why I believe it or should. In a world of labels, what am I now? Agnostic? Diest? Just spiritual, I guess.
