Facing My Faith, Faithing My Face #1

In which I blather about trying to explain why I’m writing this…

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I cannot name what I believe. I feel it, and I try to share it. Sometimes I ignore it, forget it, or explore it, but it is always there, and I always come to the conclusion that it isn’t changing or going away. It’s an infinite, solid thing.

I was brought up in a practicing Catholic family. Mass every sunday, unless we had a reasonable excuse like a dance rehearsal or scout camp. Extra mass on days of obligation. Practically living in church during Holy Week. Confession twice a year, which I hated (and got out of as often as I could). Up until the age of around 11, I never really questioned any of it. At secondary school I did, because I was asked questions about it. The questions kept growing until I no longer knew what I believed. This was a good thing, because it helped me work out the things I didn’t believe, and by a process of elimination and many accidentally-on-purpose mistakes, I’ve started to see what is real, and what is fantastic.

Today, I don’t identify with any particular religious creed. I try to read bits of everything. (This is a lie, I don’t try to read, I just stumble across things and am impelled to read them. Don’t put things you don’t want me to read somewhere I could find them.) I get useful ideas from most writing about religion/spirituality/faith, but I rarely fully agree, unless something is put very simply. I might still be a Catholic, if Catholicism is a trust in the existence of universal love and faith, but then you might as easily call me any number of words. The Catholicism I was brought up with has been a strong force in shaping the way I think about belief and the world, but I am not a Catholic, if Catholicism is defined by doctrine and church “authorities”. I haven’t followed all the rules and I don’t ask anyone else to either.  Rule(r)s are for people who don’t make decisions and won’t draw a straight line alone. I like my freedom to be in control and make choices. Free will is important. My most important choice and freedoms are my choice to give or take my freedom, and my freedom to make or deny my choices. I don’t need other people’s rules for this.

I’m not so keen on the idea of pic n mix religion either. Most of all, I don’t like people who push their beliefs on others, or people who think they are always in the right, or people who try to draw attention to themselves. This makes me a hypocrite, because I am writing about myself about things that I believe are true, and I’m sharing it in the top secret hope that someone might recognise some truth in it for themselves. At least I am an honest hypocrite. You have been warned. I will tell the whole truth, including the bits I made up, and the bits that don’t add up properly.

Why? Because there is reality, and there is an underlying truth. The universe is a strange and vast space, but it is held together by something, and it grows because of something, and it moves because of something, and it exists because of something…

… if it exists at all.

I often lose myself in circular logic. I forget how to get to the point in the middle. I forget that the circular logic draws a massive big splot of logic. A big red ring around where the empty truth is. I am very good at existential crisising. I’ve tried to understand philosophies. I’ve tried the thought experiments. What if this is a dream? What if what if what if? This is important. It helps me work out the pathways to different possibilities. But it isn’t practical. It doesn’t give me the probability of their actual occurance. It doesn’t give me the time to reach what I perceive. It doesn’t matter, because it isn’t matter.

So, at the end of this ramble, I have decided that instead of wandering aimlessly in my head and not doing anything, it might be of slightly more use to the world for me to wander aimlessly here and make a series of blog posts. I don’t know how  how readable the posts will be, but I needed to start somewhen.