So… where was I?

Okay, so church created the foundation of my spiritual journey, I guess you could say. Even if I was bored to death in a church, the reality was I have always been interested in living a spiritual life, and understanding what my greater purpose was – or if I even had one…. I just didn’t feel that I would find those kinds of epiphanies sitting in a pew. So instead I started doing my own searching at a relatively young age. When I was about 11 or 12, every night my dad and I would read different passages from the Bible. But it really became more of a reading exercise/ quality time sort of thing, than it was a path to self-discovery and enlightenment.

So at 14, I decided to take my exploration into my own hands, and I took on the ambitious task of reading the Bible cover to cover myself – hoping to find some spark of inspiration or some great truths to the meaning of life. Because my upbringing had always been so tightly entwined with the church, I really believed that the Bible HAD to hold all the answers… I mean, where else were you going to look, right?

I really expected that these great truths would be found somewhere within the pages of the spooky Book of Revelations that we never ever discussed in Sunday School. But rather than skipping to the spoilers in the last chapter, I forced myself to read the whole Bible in order. Of course, instead of absorbing every word, I merely found myself in a mind-numbing race to reach the end. Once I finally made it to the Book of Revelations, I realized that it was so full of metaphors that it didn’t quite offer me these great universal truths that I had been seeking... However, at 14, who knows what the heck I was expecting to discover or even comprehend anyway? Too bad I didn’t have a Coles Notes version of the Bible… I could’ve saved myself a lot of time.

I think it was around that same time that I had my confirmation at church. I have to admit that I really didn’t appreciate that we were *told* to accept Jesus into our hearts. It was like being pushed down a production line… confirmation was just a part of organized religion’s process… You spend X number of years in Sunday School, and at the end of it all comes your graduation, when you accept Jesus into your heart. I couldn’t help but wonder why it was the job bestowed upon my Sunday School teacher to tell me and my fellow Sunday School classmates that now was the time when we were ready to take this important step. Shouldn't this be a personal decision -- and not an assignment?

Actually, in my mind, I was more insulted by the fact that I felt I had already accepted Jesus into my heart years ago… So whose business was it to tell me that I haven’t? Was it just because I didn’t proclaim it in front of the church? Was it because I hadn’t finished memorizing all the books of the Bible in their proper order? Or did I simply miss reading that verse in the Bible that says you must be *this* tall to go on the Jesus ride to salvation? Yet, I was a little mouse of a girl, and never the type to rock the boat. So instead I simply went through the motions of buying a pretty little dress, accepting Jesus into my heart in front of the church, having my picture taken with our minister, and then enjoying a little celebration lunch at Grandpa’s place.

Great… so I’m confirmed… Now what?

I didn’t feel like all my years spent in Sunday School or weeks in confirmation class had answered any of my questions. I felt like I had to keep looking on my own. Since reading the Bible didn’t really provide me with any satisfaction, I thought that maybe I’d stumble across some of the answers by getting more involved. So that’s just what I did.

Over the next few years I started to increase my involvement with various church activities. I became a teacher’s assistant in the Sunday School. I sat on our church’s Official Board as a representative for the youth (where I also found out where all that money everyone gives goes to. Our church was relatively small so it mainly went towards paying the church staff; repairs to the church and our church bus; cemetery maintenance; and outreach programs overseas, in the community or to people in the church who sometimes couldn't afford to make ends meet -- people like my parents.) I also worked at the summer church camp that my Grandpa founded.

Eventually I felt my connectedness to “something” grow – especially during those weeks I was at camp. I had never experienced such a high as when I was there, and I wished that I could carry these feelings with me throughout the year. But this feeling of being connected to something greater, these tingling goosebumps, these mini-epiphanies… none of them were a result of scripture readings… rather they seemed to come from the acceptance and love I felt resonating from those around me, combined with the magnificence of being so close to the elements found in nature. Sitting around large campfires. Watching the sunset sparkle over a calm lake. The soft echo of the loon. Picking wild blueberries on top of a mountain. Spinning beneath a starry sky. Waking up to see the underside of a squirrel jumping right over my face. Even now my heart sings to think of these wonderful memories. It was during these summers that I learned that God was not found in old scriptures written thousands of years ago. To me, God was within nature. God was within all of us. God was within every single moment.

To be continued…