Life, the Universe and Everything
Wednesday, May 25, 2005 by Michelle
My partner and I (Topher’s blog is at topher67) embarked on a spiritual journey in late November 2004, trying to find exactly what it is that we believe. It was brewing for a while, just not articulated… until one day I said to him, “don’t you think it’s time we started being intellectually honest about what we believe?” He jumped at the opportunity, agreed wholeheartedly and was two steps ahead of me before I knew what happened! Turns out he’d been feeling the same way a lot longer than I had. I hope god doesn’t mind that we stopped going to church and started asking a lot of questions. We started listening to tapestry on the CBC for other insights, reading all kinds of stuff to get as many perspectives as possible (although initially in my exuberance I got too many books so it’ll take a year just to read through it all) and we even went to an interesting Philosophers’ Cafe one evening. We decided to write out our own Statement of Faith, something we should have done years ago and I would highly recommend. No formula there – just write down what you honestly believe. It has really clarified our beliefs and sometimes even why we believe in something, where we agree and disagree about our beliefs, and who do we think god is anyway. We’re not so much looking for god (or God), and certainly not religion, but trying to figure out what it is that we really do believe about life, the universe and everything (to quote Douglas Adams). How about you? I’m interested learning more about your own crisis of faith, if you’ve ever had one.
Well Michelle I think you know what my beliefs are. I applaud you and Chris for thinking ‘outside the box’, or church in this case.
My church beliefs ended the day we were turned away from a well-to-do church in the Edmonton area. We apparently weren’t the ‘type’ of people that this Alliance church was looking for. Then when we did find a church (Baptist), all they wanted us to do was panhandle their Amway* products… Hey, don’t get me wrong… I like Amway* products, I just don’t think we should have to act like criminals to push the Amway * way of ‘life’ especially in and amongst church.
We weren’t looking for the ‘class’ of religion, just somewhere to believe in something with the masses. Terry had a really bad situation once where the church he attended, YEARS AGO, wanted his tax information each year to determine if he was contributing enough money… What a bunch of bull-shit. When did god become the almighty dollar? When did church decide who can attend? When did ‘spiritual leaders’ become rich and flaunt their investments? (Look at the houses of some of these whacko’s… they MAY need to be audited a little more).
My god isn’t hateful and revengeful. My god didn’t invent money. My god is LOVE. Pure love. It’s not about what you drive or where you live. It’s about helping one another. Caring for your neighbours. Looking after this gift I like to call ‘Mother Earth’. Welcome to my world… I pray… I learn… I help… I listen… I love. And if that isn’t good enough… then I’m sure I can pay at the golden gates… if they will have me!!! J
* Just to be fair to the Amway groupies…. “ http://www.amway.com ”