Permission Granted

**I've been writing this post for over a week now, and still don't feel like it's finished, but maybe it's good enough.

These days I'm actually thankful my regular followers have dwindled. I have always believed in having here a safe space for the questioners, the wanderers, the heretics. However, over the years I have gathered and lost many readers who are still devout; this is why I'm glad their numbers have faded. Not because I don't love them, but because I don't want to trip up people who are in full possession of their certainties. Because I'm not.

Lately I have been on a quest to be true to myself, no matter the cost. Not in all areas of life, mind you, but in the area of spirituality. In recent weeks I've been trying to clarify where the chips have fallen, and have been making the effort to give myself permission to be honest with myself. 

The other day, a post by David Hayward, aka the Naked Pastor really hit home. I don't presume to know precisely his meaning, but I know what it meant to me. It meant 'permission granted'. Finally. Why did I need permission? Well , let me quote a bit of it, and maybe you'll understand. 

"You have come to realize, after serious study, thought and brutal self-honesty, that the beliefs you've held on to are now bankrupt. They used to be valuable to you. But now they are worthless. You know the honest thing to do is to dump them."

Something in those words unlocked a door for me. The truth is, I have known I wasn't a Christian since I was a teenager. However, the reality of admitting that at any time in my past would have been devastating and impossible. I was far too bent towards the expectations of others. I tried very hard to be a Christian, just because I thought that's what I was supposed to do; not because it really meant something to me. for awhile, being a part of a charismatic denomination convinced me that my true, honest spirit was really Satan telling me lies. I fought it with all I had, and in the end, that fight damn near killed me. My spirit is has a broader wingspan and is far more mystical than any dogma, and would not be contained.

I have tried to retain some version of belief for these last years, primarily from fear of the alternative -- having to admit to others that I no longer possess belief. I have sought the middle ground between religious and atheist. I always believed it existed and somewhere I would find it. Inevitably, I have released religion and all it's trappings, completely. I chose the other path. But you already knew that. And yet, I'm not fully on any path, or at least not as defined by anyone else. I'm okay with that. Atheists would never embrace me, because I willfully choose to retain the mystery of what we do not yet understand; knowing full well that I'm atheist of any definition of God that would have me, but also believing that when I die, there is something beyond. There is -after.

In conversations of late, I have been known to say that I believe God is created out of a connection that we feel, that we cannot deny, but that is, in essence, biological in nature. We do not know the scientific manifestation of love, but we know it exists. In that way, I know God exists. In other words, God is within us -- but not in the incarnational sense. It's more a neurological process that we do not yet understand. Ancient people created the Gods of history in this space because they had no other way to relate to it. However, as intelligence and knowledge has increased, we have come to learn that there is no white-beardy guy in the sky who is playing chess with us. Instead, God is that which is inherent in us that causes goodness and kindness, but also the sense of connectedness to nature and one another that we tangibly feel. I call this "Creator", not because it has created in the biblical sense, but because it is the force that causes us to create - art, relationships, learning - it causes us to want to know more, be more. It is the desire to make progress, to grow, to connect in deeper and more meaningful ways. It is the longing to serve others, to be to them whatever we are able. I believe, for my own life, that Jesus, whether real or imagined on some level, is the clearest example of that force, how it should operate and behave.

Who was Jesus? I'm not right sure. I do believe he was someone that regular folk were impressed enough by to write about him. I believe he turned some tables over, but people were far more preoccupied by the tables than what the act really meant, and therefore his existence has not been preserved accurately. Instead he has been shaped by agenda and fear and the loss of time. How did he know to turn the tables over? Probably, he was a revolutionary and had seen first hand the damage done by the religion of the day. Conceivably, he was more than all that, because something draws me to him yet. But I believe most of religion has missed his point entirely...and I seek to rediscover that point in my own life. The first step is freedom. Jesus ,to me, is an example to follow, not a dogma to cling to.

Quite new-agey, right? Maybe from a listeners perspective; not from my own. But, then, the term "God" is always and entirely user defined, and I have defined mine. While I believe there is a force that is greater than the sum of our knowledge, and I believe that force is benevolent, it is not the God of any religion. I believe science is able to move us always toward a new understanding of the cosmos, but that understanding is always fluid. I believe that understanding as it is revealed refuses to deny the reality of something bigger than ourselves. What, exactly, remains to be seen. The universe is the great Creator -- it gives life because of a process it cannot stop and cannot control, and never consciously began. It just IS. Or, "I AM". I find God in the stars and trees and rivers and wind -- not because those things are gods, but because there is LIFE in them. Origins, freedom, motion and mystery.

The point of my post is that somehow in the last weeks I have come across something that has freed me to admit the whole truth. While I haven't chosen a defined -ism and will be the last to jump onto any bandwagon, I have found words that give permission to where my spirit lies. However, I'm not going to tell you what those are, because above all, I believe the spiritual journey is highly personal and it's highly likely you might misunderstand me to be a subscriber of something I am not.

While I will always continue to seek, I have discovered something in myself. I can't believe it's taken six years to get to this point. Then again, I can. It's a long journey, unfolding. It's unlearning decades of beliefs, and opening my arms wide to what I've always known -- that Creator is out there in the spaces between religion and science, filling in the gaps as a placeholder until the two shall meet.

As always, I reserve the right to change my mind tomorrow. However, I feel more peace and wholeness than I have any time in these nearly six years. I have given myself permission to believe what I believe and to feel what I feel and to know what I know, without having to put it into any box.

It is a neverending story, and I look forward to it's continued unfolding.