Tuesday, July 31, 2012

When The Real Work Begins

I have been a parent for about 10 months and the only thing consistent is that it is always changing. Not that this is always a bad thing, but your child goes from staying put and spitting up everywhere to keeping their lunch down and getting into literally everything they are not supposed to. You give one struggle for another, always. This has me wondering about when he gets older and the parenting becomes more difficult than reading Dr. Seuss & keeping them from electricuting themselves. I wonder about the lessons his father and I will teach him and the beliefs and values we hold as a family.

Alan and I share the same belief about God and organized religion: we prefer the former, thank you very much. We don't go to church or read the bible. My family stopped going to church after a devastating situation with one of the pastors. Alan stopped going because he just did not believe it. I can remember searching myself, reading the bible and practically anything involving religion to find a belief. I felt lost as a teenager, searching for a faith or at least someone that understood my concerns involving most organized religions.

For instance, we are told over and over again that God's love is unconditonal, yet this is a fallacy. We must be constantly repenting for our sins, lest be banished to the firey gates of Hell. There are conditions to experiencing God's love in the afterlife, according to most monotheistic religions. I'm already going to hell for fornication, poisioning my body, tattooing my body, having a child out of wedlock... man the list goes on! I talked down to my parents, for crying out loud, something wholly unforgivable. Isn't eating meat on a Friday during Lent a hell-worthy tresspass? I just get so confused as to which parts to take in and which parts to discard.

I want to tell Connor that he is going to wonderful place after death, regardless of how he's lived his life. Life is all about experience. He is going to be a good person, I do not need to scare him with stories of a hoofed beast to get him to be a better man. I want him to believe in God. I do. I fully believe there is a higher power, greater than ourselves that helped us get here. It's not a man or a woman or even any sort of human. I read a book once called ''Conversations With God'' by Neale Donald Walsch. It changed my life. Whether or not Walsch actually communicated with a higher power is irrelevant once you delve into the theories this book has to offer. We are all merely souls in human bodies, searching and experiencing to figure out Who We Are.

If he wants to go to church to learn about the bible and religion, we will take him. If he wants to say he doesn't believe in a higher power, that's his business, I just want him to be a good person. I want him to believe that good things done bring good things in. That doesn't begin with ink and paper, that begins with our family and the foundation we lay for him. There is always room for bettering, after all... isn't that what this journey is all about??

No comments:

Post a Comment