God?

(This is a little bit of my personal essay on religion I've been working on for this writing camp.)


I’m so confused.
It’s difficult to imagine that the earth and all her beauty weren’t crafted carefully by a divine being. Naturally it’s the easiest belief to live with. As an atheist, I don’t live easily under my system of non-beliefs. I’ve been told by a handful of spiritual and/or religious persons that I can--and should--choose to believe in something miraculous--something infinite--something all-knowing.

My first confession is that I did believe in a god for some time in the past. It was a humid night in June, and I was about seven. Mom had fallen asleep early, so I stayed up and watched the clock nervously, waiting for her to wake up and check on me. I sang to myself while I waited. I would sing three or four words one way, then I’d dress them in a new melody again and again. I loved my voice. Amber from school always thought she had the better voice, but I thought she just heard it all wrong. I figured that God must have chosen me--out of all of his little children--to be something quite remarkable. I knew he wanted me to write songs for him. I had been making up little songs since I was three or four, but I was now able to write them down, and I took advantage of that. I wrote in a sparkly blue journal with moons on it, and I locked it with a generic key that came with every journal like it. I made sure to write as neatly as possible, with my best vocabulary, so that one day when I’m famous and important it’ll be worth a million dollars. I wrote songs about nature that I pretended held a poetic meaning, and I would sing those songs all the time to my friends. As I was lying on my back in bed singing, I decided to talk to God. I closed my eyes and said a prayer with my hands at my sides. Then I’d say it with my hands clasped in front of my face. Then I’d say it with “Amen” pronounced differently. My logic was that prayer was like a magic spell, and God only heard it if you did everything right.




...... (a bunch of other stuff I don't want to post in a blog and that you wouldnt want to read) ......



I don’t want to be a rotting lump of chemicals when I die. I want this temporary body to contain a permanent soul. I want to know more than this life in this body in this family in this world. I want to be more than a face, more than innate behavior. I want to feel my heart stop, see a white light, walk through a tunnel, and have a cup of tea with lost loved ones. But I’m so afraid. I’m fearful that there’s a definite end, just the way there’s a definite beginning. Where did my soul exist before I was born? Are souls simply created on a random day, and then later released into eternal greatness? I don’t think so. But I hope so.

What does the man on the subway with nowhere to go have in common with the little girl who blows out her five candles? What are men fighting for, dying for, living for, even? What keeps one person from associating with another without having so much as exchanged names? Religion is an aspect unique to humans, but not every one of us has an appreciation for it. I won’t force myself to believe in something seemingly imaginary. More importantly, I won’t let something inevitable keep me fighting against this life--the only one I’ve got. Maybe.