This is a rather long and perhaps somewhat controversial post. I won’t be offended if you choose to skip over it.

Shephard caused me to pause and reflect on my own life recently thanks to a series of posts on his blog. Isn’t it interesting how you find the motivation to deal with things in the strangest places? I find most of his posts worth reading but specifically in this case were several articles on what he believed and his motivations in life. It was serious food for thought.

In my case, I was for the most part involved with one church or another most of my life. Born into the Catholic faith, even attended St. Leo School in Leominster, MA. You can’t get much more Catholic than that. As I got older I didn’t really continue in the Catholic faith but I did attend a variety of non-denominational churches. I was eventually baptised as a Christian, married in the church, and went on to raise my kids in the church, taught Sunday School in the church, tithed in the church, almost became an elder in the church. Looking back, it’s safe to say I drank the kool-aid.

The puzzling thing is, it doesn’t really work for me any more. I still attend church occasionally but I find it unsatisfying. I enjoy the music, it’s still an emotionally uplifting experience. Beyond that, I find most of the trappings unnecessary. I don’t mean to say that I’ve lost my faith, that sounds like a negative thing. On the contrary in many ways my faith is stronger than it ever has been. I simply am no longer driven to understand and explain it all.

Fundamentally, I think that’s what religion tries to do. Create a framework for man to understand the things that puzzle him. To explain why things happen the way they do. To give him comfort when the world isn’t going his way. But for me, it’s all become too complex. The wonder of the world gets buried under layers of rules and restrictions and guilt and politics to the point that you can’t recognize it any more. I choose a simpler faith.

I believe the universe was created using means I can’t fathom for reasons I may never understand. I’m ok with that. I choose to believe that things work the way they do because a sufficiently intelligent entity intended them to do so. This Creator may or may not resemble the God of Christianity.

I hold the Bible to be a wonderful history book filled with practical wisdom. I can accept this without having to believe that every single word is meant to be taken literally. Like the holy writings of other world religions I believe there are truths to be found within it’s pages, inspired words written by man in response to life going on around him.

Distilled down to it’s essence, I believe that it ultimately comes down to motivation. You will be motivated by one of two things… fear… or love. Everything else fits into one of those two categories. I try to reduce or eliminate fear and experience love in all of it’s many varied and wonderful forms. Does it need to be any more complicated than this?

If you’ve read this far I congratulate you. This wasn’t meant so much for others to read but as a way for me to get it straight in my head. Putting it into words helps me find clarity and make these choices intentional instead of just something I drift into. You should not interpret this as an attack on anything you may or may not believe. Faith and belief are personal things, I would not attempt to force mine on you.

Hmmm… perhaps a song is called for?