Do Wonders Ever Cease?

This is the longest blog post I’ve ever written.  It could have held a lot more, as you’ll see if you indulge me to the end.  I’ll have to elaborate later.  For now…

I often don’t get very personal in my blogs, but I’m making an exception today.  This has been on my mind a lot lately, and it’s important to my wife and I, so I thought I’d write it out.  Plus, some of my family and friends might be rather surprised.

My spiritual journey has been … pretty dull, I guess.  Probably the first steps involved attending Vacation Bible School in Montpelier, Louisiana, in my early teen years.  One of my mother’s friends had kids attending and convinced Mom that we would enjoy it.  So, my siblings and I attended.  Most of what I remember involved popsicle sticks and Elmer’s glue and making Christmas trees out of TV Guides.  I remember sitting in neat little rows of seats while somebody spoke to us about Jesus and God and how they loved us and wanted us to let them into our hearts.  I remember singing hymns I barely understood and learning pantomimes for some of them.  I think that was the first time I ever read a Jack Chick pamphlete.  In them, God doesn’t have a face, and I thought that was a little funny.  That week, though, was when I really started thinking about the metaphysical.

It made sense that there was a reason I felt bad about things.  It was comforting to think that somebody out there loved me unconditionally and was willing to accept me and look after me.  Barely knowing what I was doing, I accepted the invitation and walked up to the preacher afterward and said a prayer with him that made me a Christian.  I no longer remember how it felt.  All I have left of that time is vague sensory memories.

Shortly thereafter, I started to go to a small Baptist church nearby.  I got into it.  I joined the youth group, got baptised, and witnessed to my family.  Eventually, over the years, my entire family came with me to church.  It was all so easy and comforting.

To be brief, let’s say that I grew out of it.  It probably had a lot to do with the distractions of high school, but I stopped attending church, although I still prayed to God every night.  Once college rolled around, I started thinking that the whole deal made little sense.  That was when the whole Christian lifestyle really started to feel like a sham to me.  It all seemed like brainwashing, and I resented that a bit.  I started to swear for the first time when I was a freshman at LSU.

Since then, it’s all been “downhill”.  This is getting long, so I’ll sum up.  I’ve variously called myself agnostic, aetheist, and undecided since then.  My problems with Christianity blossomed into questions about religion in general and the belief that there really wasn’t anything else out there.  Still, I could never bring myself to believe completely that there is no other plane of existence or that the sum our beings is a collection of vague sensory perceptions.  I’m a deep thinker (despite what some people think), and I couldn’t reconcile it.  How could I know?  How could any one idea be right?

Now, I’m studying a book on Paganism.  I’ve known Pagans, mostly Wiccans among them, but I’ve never considered any alternative to Christian thinking.  I asked a friend of mine who teaches classes for Pagans for information, and she lent me a book.  I’ve been reading it for a couple of days now.

So far, it feels right.  The book says nobody “becomes” Pagan; rather, they find that “Pagan” describes what they already are.  It looks like my spiritual journey may be turning onto another path.  It’s exciting.    

In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination.
-- Mark Twain