Sunday, October 26, 2008

The thirst for spirituality. Part VIII

I didn't want my relationship with God to be an one hour Sunday morning formal affair.
I wanted a religion that was an every day presence, an integral part of my life, and God in his infinite wisdom, and that screwy sense of humor of his, delivered it to my door.

Ring, ring, goes the bell. I opened the door and there they were.
The lovely bunch of people standing in front of me chirped in unison; " Good morning! Have you find Jesus today?"
Oh yes, my spiritual life was about to take a turn to the wild side.
If the "churchists" - I call the people that worship God by going to church once a week - were bad enough in their religious superficiality. My new found friends - I called them the "bibleists" - were the exact opposite. Religion was what they did 24/7. To be more precise, the study of the bible, which for them was a constant endeavor. They studied it so hard that the most advanced of them would reach a point that all their conversation was nothing but bible quotations.
They use the bible to justify anything and everything that was advantageous to them and their cause. You wanted a male prostitute, no problem, drugs, incest, theft, no problem. Jesus had already died for your sins and if you joined the bibleist you got yourself a free pass to heaven no matter what you did in this life.
And people wander why the moral fiber of America is falling apart. Well, when there are no more consequences to your acts, what do you expect?
On the other hand, if you didn't join them, no matter how decent of a human been you are, you were condemned to a faith worse than hell.
But even worse than the eternal damnation was trying to get out of the gang.
Once you joined them, it was like getting herpes, you have very little chances to get red of it. So I had to change my residence and disappear for a while until they lost my scent.
For now my church was an old book store and my temple the neighborhood library. My sermons were by Nietzsche and St Exuperie, my hymns by Mozart and Bach.
It looked that my quest for God had come to a dead end...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You have hit such an interesting point with organized religion - in some ways you are damned if you, damned if you don't. And in many cases, outward signs of believe (ie going to church every week, preaching the bible, etc) is about as spiritual as these people get, meaning there isn't much inside to back up their outward shows of faith. I believe in a strong individual connection to your interpretation of god, and make time in your life as you see fit to communicate and connect with them in the ways that are natural to you. Bravo for this honest expose on a search for god!

Descartes said...

One of my favorite writers about Spiritual matters is Richard Bach, famous for a very silly book about a Seagull-anyway, he was not a fan of organized religion either. Neither am I. I like the whole bit about Nietzsche and St Exuperie.

One a bloggy note, I think you need a bit more space in your posts. Those big blocks of text look a bit intimidating, so skip a line once in a while.

Keep up the good work.

Unknown said...

@ descrtes
You're absolutely right about my writing. I need a lot of improvement and any suggestions you can give will be greatly appreciated.
I've seen your blog and it is very impressive both in layout and content. I hope one day I will give you some good competition lol!

bradacus said...

This is a really objective and to the point post. You have done a fantastic job.