I want, desperately, to believe in God. I state that frankly. It is absolutely how I feel and as far as religion and myself goes, it is something that drives my thoughts and feelings. As with so many things in my life, I’m ambivalent. I don’t know if I do or I don’t. The technical term for this is agnostic. At times in my life, I’ve really struggled with this, and I’m struggling with it again now. If you have seen any of my recent anti-religious posts, you may have gathered I’m a little unsettled.
It is always during dark times that the question arises. I am a selfish person. When all is well, religion doesn’t factor in for me at all. I don’t even think about it. When I’m sad, when things are going badly for a time, that’s when I begin to wrestle with it. And what I wrestle with is this: ultimately I’m a scientific man. I believe in testing theories and arguments to see if they stand up to scrutiny, and tend to respect or rally against them thus. I’ve always had a hard time hearing things I believe utterly wrong and being quiet about it – and I’m very happy when it turns out I’m wrong, because in that moment, I can grow. I’m not a fundamentalist; my opinions aren’t fixed for all time regardless of evidence. I’m a scientist, and if you show me evidence that the earth is flat which supersedes that which we currently hold pointing to its spherical form, I’ll change my beliefs overnight. Yet despite all of this, and the fact that (to me) there’s no evidence of God whatsoever, I want to believe in him (I say him, I couldn’t care less which gender God is).
And the reason for this is at 32 years old, I crave a safety blanket. I want someone to wrap me up and tell me everything in my life is going to be okay. It’s been a turbulent few years for me, after 27 of sheer predictability for a kid like me. I grew up as a middle class child, enjoying all of the privileges – and I use that word carefully, because children like me had privileges and head starts in life that others didn’t have. My mum was home when my sister and I were young. She didn’t have to work, we were well clothed and fed in a spacious, comfortable home. Not nearly all are so lucky. She taught me to read quite early, and this, along with the maths she would make me do, gave me a solid foundation to start schooling well and begin to move nearer to top of the class. This continued. My exam results were nothing special but comfortably allowed me to carry on along my path. I went to uni, became a teacher, married, and life, humdrum though it was, ticked along nicely. The safety it afforded me in a salary that made life affordable (without too much money), and in having a wife who, though we often disagreed, I felt loved me, and supported me, when things were well.
Then came Thursday, 15th November 2012. A little on edge, talking to a colleague, I felt a sudden, sharp pain in my face. I lost concentration on the chatter and began to panic, as you do. As I carried on talking, mostly to test the pain, it happened again and again. I ended politely, went to sit back in my classroom, and try to understand what was happening. This pain would come and go, however it sadly increased in intensity and the length of time I’d have it for. When it was bad, I couldn’t teach, and eating was nearly impossible. This post isn’t about my journey in this regard, but the background will help you to understand why I am where I am with spirituality. Having had more and more time off, my marriage finally broke down in July 2015, and I left teaching in the September. I felt a new start – no stressful relationship especially – no stressful job (I’d become obsessed with being perfect in paperwork and it never ended) – and I’d be okay. Wrong.
I can’t get rid of the problem. I feel it has ruined the life I worked to create, in terms of employment and family. I see my two daughters two days a week now; it should be seven. That’s what I wanted. I know that when I delve deeper, I have a lot of responsibility in my choices down the years, but my condition has taken life from making it hard for myself to can’t function. And I feel angry. I’m angry at what I believe has been taken from me and I don’t think it’s fair. I feel an injustice.
But here’s the catch: if something has been taken away; if there’s an injustice, there must be something regulating fairness in the first place, a power higher than me, than us. A power who can do what he (there I go again) likes and I’m nothing more than a lab rat in his cage. I have some choices but if he wants to change the rules, he can. And I am powerless to stop him.
At times, I pity myself, I guess. I think maybe we all do a bit. I think, ‘Why me?’. Why can’t I teach? I believe I spent over a decade helping children to learn skills they would benefit from in life, both academic and in terms of discipline – being responsible and making the right choice even when it isn’t what they want to do. Working quietly improves output sometimes, even if you want to be chatting with your mates. There’s a life lesson in there. I am not the best person, far from it. But I don’t think I’m the worst either. This feeling of injustice plagues me when I’m unwell.
I’m never one to settle, and I explore this. If there is a God, why would he be unjust? What would he get out of it? The problem would have to be me, right?
Recently, I read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, which through a process of scientific principle and conveying harrowing tales, ridicules religion and its believers. It struck a chord as it was an outlet for my aforementioned anger. I could join this club. With my logical mind, I’m part-way there. There are so many bad things in religion, from hatred and persecution of people to continual warring between rivals. There are all of the circular, rather childlike arguments about if God created everything, who created him?
At the same time, there are so many good things, too. For any of my teaching colleagues, you may remember a colleague who was in her fifties and so full of the joy of life. She didn’t worry about a thing. Such a lovely, good person, and I miss working with her. She used to belt out Michael Bolton in the morning and once even sewed my jacket! She wore a golden cross around her neck, she was a weekly churchgoer. She is the embodiment of why I want to believe in God. I believe her faith gave her this underlying contentment that things will always work out right in the end. Even when terrible things happen, it’s part of a higher plan, and things will be okay. This is the safety blanket. I can grasp it.
Spirituality has always been a very personal thing to me. If you read the Bible literally, you will find atrocities – in the Old Testament in particular. This assumes my God would be a Christian God; I was baptised, attended church schools and even my wedding was a religious ceremony as we had both wanted it that way. The Ten Commandments, remembering hard and fast rules all of the time without exploring the latitude of life, would stifle me and my liberal outlook. What I take, or have taken, from God is the idea of love and warmth. That even when you are alone, you’re not really. The love and warmth is always there and when you do good things to help people, to help animals, to help plants, that feeling of warmth and love grows. It becomes security. Everything is going to be alright.
Then there is the fear. I have lately insulted God and the idea of religion. I have wanted to embrace the teachings of Dawkins’ analysis, wanted to decide once and for all about God and forego the continual battle in my head. My condition has worsened significantly in the last month and in the back of my mind is the fear: am I being punished for blasphemy? Is it guilt? I’m running out of explanations, and historically, turning to God provided one.
It provided me with that safety blanket away from I am getting it hopelessly wrong all of the time. It allowed me to rest easier in the higher plan. And if it could allow me to be a little more secure, feel a little more loved, and be a little happier, how can that be a bad thing? For now, the battle goes on.