God (Again)

[poliphilo]

Most people make religions last a lifetime. I wear them out in a decade. I was a Christian for ten years, then I was a Witch for ten years. Right now I'm nothing in particular.

I think (but I'm not predicting what will happen tomorrow) that I've worn out religion altogether. And I mean every religion, all possible religions. I no longer see the point of getting together with other people to commune with A Mutual Friend who isn't actually there. I'm not saying there isn't a value in this for others, or that I didn't derive benefit from it in the past, but right now, at this particular point in my earthly pilgrimage- no.

For much of my life I was crazy for it. I left Christianity because I was desperate for something sharper and bubblier. But when I eased myself out of Wicca it was because the whole enterprise had gone flat. If I'm still interested in religion (and I am or I wouldn't be writing this) it's as an outsider- almost as an anthropologist.

But I still believe in God. Though "believe" isn't really the right word. It implies that God is there and we're here and there's a gulf between us across which messages may or may not be sent. That's not how I see it. Ask me how I do see it and I find myself lapsing into the kind of mystical twittering that has come to seem stale to me. So I'm not going to try. Any God I can verbalise, even if it's in the woolliest terms- "ineffable, inexpressible, unknowable"- becomes a presumption that stands in the way of the true God taking me by surprise.

I know what She isn't and that's enough.

Comments

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

Hopefully without sounding too trite, isn't this the difference between religion and spirituality?

I wonder if this doesn't explain my own exodus from organized religion. God is out there, but believing in a Deity that is codified, athropomorphized, and personalized will only take you so far. No wonder people give up on believing in the Infinite - as limited, finite beings we can't hope to fully understand or rationalize God. If faith isn't there to fill in the gaps of a religion, if all we hold onto is what the religious rites and teachers provide, then it becomes stale all too quickly.

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

The difference between religion and spirituality isn't really very well defined. Spirituality is part of religion and religion can be a part of spirituality. It depends on the precise definition of terms. For example, one could define spirituality as an interconnected network of symbols of faith and meaning, but that's also a good definition for religion.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Religion is public, spirituality is private- maybe that's too simplistic- but, yes, I agree there's a difference.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

And as the first comment suggested, the two aren't mutally exclusive. Perhaps when religion loses its spirituality is when it begins its decline.