all ye faithful

Lately, it's become even more difficult to answer the question, "What religion are you?" Sometimes a casual person, noticing I haven't gone up for communion at a school mass, asks. Sometimes the question appears on surveys, on college application financial aid forms, other random places - and in my own mind. It's hard to answer!

Someone asked today and I said, "Miscellaneous." He then gave me an incredulous look and I went on, "Well I believe in God and... but, not just one religion...," Then he said, "Agnostic?" And I said, "No!!!! Well, agnostics are kind of like, maybe, maybe not, but I'm..." "A deist, then." "Okay."

It's funny to think of the ways in which I could answer, though. Truthfully I could say, "A little bit Christian, a little bit pagan - a healthy seasoning of Taoism - with an admiration for Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism too. An early transcendentalist..." The truth is that I love all these religions so much that I cannot just pick one! Their prophets are all amazingly enlightened and worthy of being looked up to, their scriptures are all achingly beautiful, their doctrines all have glorious glittering truth behind and within the words. How could I pick one?

Such an idea would have seemed very, very strange to me a couple of years ago. How can there be more than one truth? But now I think that truth is so amazing that it needs innumerable religions to describe it and even then it can't be described fully. I've also realized that God can be found without religion - that spirituality and religion are different - that God exists outside of doctrine (in my opinion). Every feeling of goodness, to me, is part of God, every wind, every leaf falling, every gesture of kindness. I think that some get disillusioned with religion because they keep expecting God to be some supernatural feat - like some blue-colored lightning suddenly seeping through the air and asserting itself as supreme. And when one does not find something like that staring him in the face, he may become disappointed and decide religion isn't true after all - or he may become wiser by realizing that maybe God doesn't need to put on a show to be felt, that in simplicity lives the meaning.

So yeah. I think I'm getting closer... to something. Just be prepared for a hugelong explanation or a small weird answer like "This and that" when you ask me what my religion is.