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1c1l-blog · 8 years

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About the rails to faith

Ever since adolescence I struggled with religion and belief. Unlike how it’s normally articulated by prominent atheists, I never had a bad experience while attending church. Being a black American, church was a part of my life and I never questioned it; it just was. But growing up I could never shake the feeling that I didn’t believe.

Despite that, church was life.

I went to a lot of church camps growing up. We had spring church camps where we would spend a few days on retreat in the woods in Athens, Texas. Kids would go to summer camps spending two weeks surrounded by nature. We would kayak, make arts and craft, watch the stars at night (a rarity for most of us city kids), pray, and talk about faith. During one camp we were taught safe sex protection over abstinence in a church environment.There were national convocations where my parents, family, and I would drive across the country to participate in our denominational churchly duties. I saw America through the back of various cars and vans thanks to our devotion to church. I took up leadership duties and actually became one of the top appointed people of my church denomination’s youth program within the state of Texas. When it was time for university, I went to one owned by my denomination - Disciples of Christ - via a scholarship anointed by my leadership in the church.

Church was life and my life was surrounded by the church and its community.

Disciples of Christ Athens, Tx campus. I prayed here often as a teenager

And yet through all of this I didn’t know if I believed or not. One of the most striking memories I ever had regarding faith was during one of these many camps. There I was surrounded by my peers - teenagers - crying because of Jesus’ sacrifice. I could never get over the fact I was the only one not crying. To be frank, I didn’t even know why I should have been crying at that moment to begin with.

I felt so alone. Alone in my doubts and alone in my confusion of what I was even worshiping while being surrounded by true believers. I wanted to cry too. That moment was the first spark that lead me to non-belief.

Like many atheists, I began to lose my faith during late high school and college. No evil professor convinced me of atheism or told me belief was stupid as the cliche goes. Atheism wasn’t even the first place I went in my post-Christian search for truth. All I know is that in my time as a Christian - my entire life up until that point - I had never felt the presence of God. Chalk it up to my church which had political skirmishes and couldn’t manage to keep a pastor, how I was taught the religion and its virtues, or maybe that I wasn’t actively trying to explore it enough. In the end I still never felt it, but I longed for it. I wanted in on what everyone else was feeling. And yet during my times of adversity and doubt, no one could offer any compelling arguments to stay Christian or to continue believing. Convinced I was simply in the wrong religion I started looking into Islam because the ever growing “spiritual but not religious” excuse I was giving started to feel like a cop out. Suffice to say, Islam didn’t work out; I never found God there either.

I continued to seek.

The mid and late 2000′s were typified by a new open atheistic rhetoric in the public. Before this, it was taboo and absolutely rare to find someone who openly denied the existence of God. This movement was called New Atheism, partly due to its more anti-theist argumentation that came from a place of emotional response than the philosophical, which was traditionally ascribed to famous atheists in the past. Helmed by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett, the new atheism was gaining more and more traction. Wavering in my faith, I decided to pick up some of the books from this new movement in hopes it would invigorate my search for God. It ended up crushing not only my faith but me as well. The week I accepted that I didn’t believe after seeking for something, trying to find truth and God for so long, was one of the most stressful weeks of my life. I didn’t leave my college dorm the entire week unless to get food. Technically I became an agnostic then, but it didn’t take long for me to lean into agnostic atheism.

Richard Dawkins and one of his many infamous buses. The late 2000′s were a weird, innocent time compared to these days of darkness.

I say agnostic atheism because the gnostic atheism of militant atheists such as the aforementioned new atheists who claim with authority that there is no God never really sat well with me. I was perfectly satisfied toeing the line and having the courage to say,”I don’t know if God exists, but I don’t personally believe in God” which is a completely different statement and ethos than “God doesn’t exist.” I remained open to the idea of theism and held on to the hope that I eventually find evidence of God’s existence. This will be important for later. Armed with new information and lack of belief, all bets were off and I started to drown myself in philosophy.

One of the many misunderstandings about atheism is this idea that it comes with tenants; it doesn’t. No one hands you a book and says it’s the Atheist Bible, at least not without irony. For this reason, the more the new atheists went out of their lane - arguing with Christian fundamentalists - they came off like babies because they didn’t arrive at their positions through philosophy or challenging their minds but through “reason” and “science” and intellectual grand standing through the lens of sophomoric naturalistic scientism. The simple fact that atheism lacks any tenants forces one to take up a philosophy in the place of religion for guidance for the sake of one’s sanity. It could be Nietzsche or some other philosopher. It could be a non-theistic religion like Buddhism. It could even be yourself. It’s generally agreed upon that atheism without some philosophy is hollow.

The Thinker.

For a long time I couldn’t find a philosophy to help compliment my atheist life and continued wandering in the dark, holding the rails tightly, hoping to find truth. Without a philosophy it’s really easy for an atheist to descend into nihilism in my experience. Atheism is lonely and it’s partly why so many new atheists form communities together hoping to rekindle some magic of religious community life. It never matches up. I eventually settled on eastern philosophy as nothing in western philosophy really resonated as a life style or community or code of ethics for me personally. This is when I decided to look into Buddhism.

Considering looking into Buddhism was tough initially because like all atheists, I was skeptical of any religion at that point. I like Buddhism, though. It has really nice people. Meditating was a spiritual experience for me and slowly increasing my time meditating from 10 minutes to 30 to 60 felt like a continuous incremental achievement. I found Buddhism practical. The beauty of Buddhism is that I didn’t have to believe in God because it was non-theist, but also because it explained basic truths of the human condition that all religions. We fear death and sickness, we have problems fulfilling that career goal, we all have expectations, we all want to be happy. Buddhism is a look into the human mind and its vulnerabilities and strengths. Buddhism covers every asset of human living. Buddha himself instructed people how to live their lives in a good manner beyond the typical theistic tinge of morality. He taught people how to deal with living with family, or how to reconcile Buddhism’s peace loving nature with ruling a country or being a soldier. I felt that Buddhism strikes to the heart of humanity’s biggest problem: our suffering and expectations of this life and how we deal with it. For a long time, I considered Buddhism almost as a form of psychology or therapy more than a religion. But religion it is and religion it shall remain.

The most important thing Buddhism taught me was the importance of religion. It firmly made me realize how silly and groundless anti-theist positions truly were. Buddhism taught me that faith was a virtue worthy of courage, not mockery. It taught me that many religious people deserve respect and that each religion has its own unique truths and perspective to life, regardless of what their worst practitioners do. I realized through Buddhism and my exploration of Taoism that the modern atheist viewpoint that religion had no place in the modern world was unfounded and completely baseless. If anything, religion taught to offer a structured guide for living in today’s world of temptation, full of isolation. With today’s world growing more and more isolated religion and spiritual practices offer a means to connect with different people of different backgrounds with a similar goal. Religion was still relevant to modern man, probably more so than ever before.

Buddhism helped revive my spirit.

I was convinced of Buddhism’s truth for a while but I never really officially joined the religion. Rather, it’s less that I was convinced of Buddhism’s truth as much as it was that I realized that religions carry the same truths and that there was no one true religion. The type of Buddhism I prefer is Zen, which mean making a layman rakusu if you want to make it official. A rakusu is an apron-like piece of clothing the practitioner wears. It takes a year to stitch one together (by hand) and different colors correspond to different hierarchical positions within the temple, with blue being for laymen and black for monks and nuns. Making a rakusu is a spiritual practice. It’s long and arduous, and in many ways it acts as its own form of meditation. Despite connecting with the religion, I never started on my rakusu because I felt that maybe if I did, it’d make things final and a commitment. Given that I believed in Buddhism, I knew full well that actually becoming Buddhist meant I would have to act Buddhist. Something I’m not sure I’m capable of. Furthermore, it would signal my spiritual search had come to an end. But I still yearned for truth and a means to boost my spirit.

Despite that, I pressed on and planned on officially becoming a Buddhist and making my own rakusu this year.

A layman practioner with their rakusu.

Donald Trump being elected forced me to do some soul searching. I quickly realized that in the near future that spiritual matters would be really important. To bolster one’s self in the midst of adversity is how truly great people are created. I found myself during and after the election at my lowest and the only thing that helped was working on my spirit and meditation. The day Donald Trump was elected I went to the Buddhist temple to meditate. I walked in angry and full of hate for people who voted for him, most particularly white people; I walked out realizing how awful I was being. Religion saved and helped me live with the current word when nothing else could. This forced me to re-evaluate my stance on all religions, including my bias against my religion of birth: Christianity.

For months I planned on dropping in on a church during a random Sunday worship. I kept putting it off. Part of it being related to fear because I hadn’t sought out the church for spiritual reasons since I was a teenager. Admittedly, I missed being Christian so much and It had been so long that I knew I would be a foreigner in some strange land even though I spent over 20 years of my life as a Christian. Then something happened that forced my hand, as if someone or something was tired of waiting for me to “return home”.

One day at work I went to a restaurant. I was going back and forth on whether or not I should go because it could be pricey. Feeling good about myself, I decided to go. Earlier that week I had started a search for a new job in a specific part of the Houston metropolitan area to make the commute to my daily Brazilian Jiu JItsu classes shorter. So I happened upon the restaurant and ordered a bowl of ramen. As I ate my food a lavish man with a cowboy hat sat down next to me to eat. Interested in his hat because it was Go Texan Day and thought it would be a decent conversation starter. In the end, we had a nice talk and I admitted I was seeking new employment. He handed me his business card and told me to send a resume by the end of the night. I thought nothing of it and figured it was just good luck on my part. When I googled the company it turned out that they were located exactly where I started looking for a job that week. To make matters even more interesting, the man with the card was the CEO. Meeting a random CEO in a short five minute window, at a restaurant I originally was going to pass on, who wanted my resume and owned a company that was located right where I started looking for work just a few hours before?

The old me would have harped it as mere coincidence; the new me that was more open to religion and spirituality came to the conclusion that it was divine fate. I thought about it all weekend to the point where I had trouble sleeping.

I realized that I had to get to a church immediately.

I missed church that Sunday because of work, but as soon as Monday rolled around I visited the closest Catholic Church I could find so I could talk to a priest about my meeting with the man in a cowboy hat. At the local parish I was told that the priest was out for the day to volunteer at a hospital, but that I could come back tomorrow. She invited me to visit the chapel in the mean time.

It rained that day. As I approached the doors to the chapel I let out a gulp. Despite being atheist, I have been to numerous churches since losing my faith. Being black, it’s impossible not to because of how intertwined church is within the culture and how it acts as a community beacon. I had been in at least a dozen or two churches in my life time, maybe more, and I never felt anything like that Catholic chapel that day. Walking into the chapel I felt an immediate presence that wasn’t human. I had an intense fear of judgement. My shoes squeaked through the echo of the halls, but I didn’t feel alone. I sat inside an adoration room with a few other people. Taking cues from them I decided to pray. I hadn’t prayed in earnest since I was an adolescent and didn’t know how to anymore. I prayed for God to open my heart to help me believe in Him and to help guide me to a peaceful life. Shortly into my prayer I started to cry. I’m not sure if it was from joy or sadness, but for the first time in my spiritual journey I finally felt home.

I realized what I had been searching for this entire time: God.

What was the difference between that moment and the previous times I had been in a church? For all I can tell, the biggest was that in previous visits to churches I had a closed heart and wasn’t willing to take any of it seriously. This time however, my heart was fully open and vulnerable. I came back the next day to talk to the priest, thinking I couldn’t possibly have another emotional response.

I did. I felt a joy I had never felt before in that room that I simply could not explain away with my “science” or “reason” or “logic”. No voice came down and spoke to me, but I did feel like something greater was in my presence.

These feelings culminated to a climax when I went to morning mass the next day. I cried a deep cry not once, but twice, during the service. I could finally be like my peers that day in Athens, Texas. I finally understood Christianity.

An adoration room.

Coming back to Christianity was never in the plan. I never considered this. When I reconsidered religions a few years back, I gained new respect for Christianity and came to terms with my old faith, but came to the conclusion that hey, it’s just not for me, ya know? And here I was crying during mass, of its beauty and splendor, thanking God. It felt surreal and couldn’t be explained to me with real world logic. It was as if the church sought me and not the opposite.

As I continue to climb the stairs to faith, I’d like to say I see light at the end of tunnel but instead I”m back where I originally started. Finding God, it feels I’ve come full circle to where I started ten years ago but with so much more wisdom and experience. Having fallen heads over heels for my birth religion like a fish to water, I felt so humbled by the fact that this time I had chosen it willfully with all of my heart. I haven’t talked about how the priest I spoke to gave me a free Bible. Or the theist vs atheist battles I’ve waged in my head. Or all the philosophy I’ve absorbed since attending church just to find logical arguments to believe.in the tradition of the likes of Aquinas. Or my struggles finding spiritually fulfilling churches that accept trans women into their flock, because none of it really matters for this post.

I still have so many doubts and questions but I’m letting them all slide down my back. Unlike how Richard Dawkins and his ilk posit, faith isn’t weak. It requires the courage to dive into its waters head first with the hope that you’re on the right track.

Maybe it’s all I needed to begin with. Maybe we’ll never know.

#religion #christianity #christ #faith #spirituality

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