Some people who've followed my blog may have noticed that while I used to talk about my faith a lot, now I don't much at all. Please don't misunderstand. I still have faith. I'm still following a spiritual path. But I'm feeling the need to be somewhat more private about it.
Even that may change as time goes on. I'm not someone who stays the same. I hope to always be growing, changing, and learning. I have to do, at each point in my life, what I think it best for that time. Of course, in hindsight, sometimes I'm less than happy with those choices. I think that's just a risk one takes in life. Especially when you tend to share almost everything on the internet, and use your real name.
I'm at a place where I want to share a faith with my children that offers hope, peace, and love. One that stresses the respect for the planet we've been given. One that teaches them stewardship and care for themselves and their own bodies. I want them to be able to see God not as some distant deity but as one that is in everything they see around them. I want them to have a faith that empowers them rather than fills them with fear and suspicion.
The spiritual path I've taken has often been more of a long and winding road. I know it has annoyed a few people on the net that I seem to have tried so many different things. I can see their point. When I look back, I annoy myself at times. I've struggled so much to find the "right" thing, and have hung onto that idea in a way that often did not bring out the best in me. At the same time, I don't know that I've changed my faith so much as a searched for the best way for me to express that faith. At this point I'm not looking for a new god, just a better way to touch God. A way that makes me a better person instead of a narrow judgmental one.
I don't know that where I am now with my faith is where I'll be forever. Like I said, I'm forever growing, changing, and learning especially about myself. Sometimes that's a few steps forward. Sometimes I realize I was on to something a few steps back. Maybe I just needed to follow it in a different direction. I don't want to announce my faith as if it defines me. It doesn't. But it does inform me. And at present, I couldn't care less if someone wants to follow Buddah, Allah, Jesus, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, so long as it brings them peace.
Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it. ~Andre Gide
While these folks aren't my speed, they have provided exactly those things you have listed for my mother-in-law (and I suppose my husband as a child). I tease my husband all the time about how I'm more Catholic than he is (I'm Mormon) just because the only thing Catholic with these folks is the words in the Mass, from my perspective. That said and teasing aside, my MIL is a deeply spiritual person who does her best to follow a loving path. We don't really get along, but she tries to be loving and gentle and kind. This church is her home and she still feels just as Catholic as she did before, just more supported. Anyways, before meeting her, I didn't know such a random version of Catholicism existed, so here ya go:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.saint-matthew.org/index.php
I loved the beautiful traditions of the Catholic church, but sadly, not much else. I know that others are able to find within it things that I did not, and I wish them the best.
ReplyDelete"I don't know that I've changed my faith so much as a searched for the best way for me to express that faith."
ReplyDeleteSo well said!
Just found your blog. I'm not a mom, but I think I'm lots of kids' "second mom" in spirit. I am The Auntie, in other words. :)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, not that it matters whether I'm a biological mother or not, what I want to say is, "Thanks." You make me feel less crazy in my faith experiences.
I once called myself a Christian in young adulthood. But the faith of my childhood, the one expressed in the dark of night when I felt afraid or in the joy of sunshine and running barefoot in grass, was much more of an earth-based, nature belief in all things living. I am now almost 30 and have come full circle back to a simple awe of the natural, scientific, though also magical, perhaps-unable-to-be-known phenomena we call "life". It brings me much joy. :)