More Labels

The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing-- to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts. 

- John Keats

A friend and reader commented not too long ago on my reading list.  Knowing me the way she does, she was surprised that I was reading Christopher Hitchins, a devout atheist.  But as the above quote indicates, how does one's gestalt take form if we only engage in the things that strengthen our bias?

As far as our personal gestalt is concerned, most of us can be labeled theist or atheist.  Under the label of theist, we are labeled Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist to only name the big five.  Under my particular label of Christian, there is Protestant or Catholic or Orthodox.  Under Protestant, there is Lutheran, Anglican, Episcopalian, Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Mennonite, Quaker.  I could keep going.  Really.  Because there are more.  For instance, under the label of Baptist, there is American Baptist, Southern Baptist, Primitive Baptist, General Assembly of Regular Baptists, Independent Baptists, and many, many, many other Baptists that I am probably unaware of.

Now, from the ages of birth to seven, my classification was such: Theist, Christian, Protestant, Baptist, General Assembly of Regular Baptists.  At the age of seven, my parents started looking for a different church that had a more active youth group for my teenage brothers.  We decided to change to the First Baptist Church of our neighboring town.  However, this was an American Baptist Church (ABC), and the General Assembly of Regular Baptists (hereto known as GARBS) did not recognize the American Baptists as legitimate believers.  Their doctrine was too liberal in their eyes, so they refused to transfer our membership over to the ABC.  So, under the fear of hell fire and the promise that their children would become apostate, my parents changed churches anyway.  

At the age of 14, my parents and I (brothers were out on their own by now) longed for a more local community, so we decided to attend the little Methodist church in our own hometown.  If you think it was heretical to hop between Baptist conventions, can you imagine the horror when we decide to attend a church with an opposing doctrinal basis?  After all - Methodists were from an Armenian background that did not believe in the security of the believer.  Baptists came from a Calvin background - once saved, always saved.  My family had REALLY stepped over the line now...

As a young married couple, we tried a Weslyan church, stepped outside the box even more by going to a contemporary “hippie” church, ended up in the “seeker” driven church movement, dabbled in the emergent church, until we ended up where we are now.  

We don’t go to church.

Funny.  Theists are suppose to believe in god of some form. Yet the divisions in just one sect of Christendom defies the prayer of Jesus that his followers be unified.  Other theists are just as bad - how many sects of Judaism? Buddhism? Hinduism?  Islam?  Practically every day on the news, I see reports of Sunni Muslims killed by Shiite Muslims.  Don't they ALL read the same Koran?

Yet the atheists seemed remarkably united by the simplicity of their unbelief.  Interesting...

I’m tired of labels.  

Sometimes I thinkI am an atheist - I don't fit in to any of the prescribed religious institutions that exists.  Concerned friends believe I am apostate.  Today I told my husband, "I can't go back to church now; they'd burn me as a witch."

But underlying it all is this sense that Someone is always with me.  Alone in the car, I am having a conversation -- with Someone.  Since childhood, I have had this feeling like my life is a movie and I am an actor on the screen.  And it is all playing out before me.  And I just have to go along with the plot line and scene changes and chapter movements...  But in all that, I still have this sense of Something that is Bigger than I am.  And I like it...  I am not willing to give up that Awe and Wonder and Immense Love that some people like to call God.  

Yet I am not a Theist in the prescribed definition of countless of churches, temples, and mosques.  I simply believe that Love is what makes the world go around.  And Love seems to be the thing that eludes most organized religions - at least in my experience.  And I think the man Jesus did a really good job of living a life of Love.  So, he's my hero.  And I look to his life as a model for my own.

For those of you that totally track with my thoughts in this blog - be at peace.  You are not alone.  There are quite a few of us out there.

And for those of you that have made it this far in life and have found that religion answers your questions and fills all your needs, pray for the rest of us.  Maybe some day we will figure it all out too.