This week: What's Your Story? Edited by: NaNoKit More Newsletters By This Editor
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How did you come to believe what you believe? Do you think that you’d be who you are now had your circumstances been different?
This week's Spiritual Newsletter is all about becoming, and what forms our personalities, and our views.
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What’s your story? How did you come to be who you are? Why do you believe what you believe?
Everyone has a history. From the moment we are born, we are surrounded by different influences, different people with their own stories that made them who they are, and that shaped the beliefs that they are passing on. The people around me when I was little were, for the most part, Christians. My granny was a member of the Salvation Army, and she sang in its choir. My great-aunt and great-uncle were members of a different branch of the Salvation Army – a somewhat stricter one than my gran’s, it seemed. As a child I visited both, and even sang for their congregations. I’d always attend my gran’s on Christmas Eve, and I have good memories of those nights, and of the journey back, in the dark, counting the Christmas trees twinkling by the windows of the homes that we passed.
I attended a Christian kindergarten and a Christian primary school. Any Christian elements to my education were pretty mild, however. I remember colouring in pictures of the stories from my Children’s Bible, singing songs, some arts and crafts projects… Far from everyone in my school was actually a Christian. In my class were kids from Muslim and Hindu households. Once or twice a year we’d hold events sharing food and stories from a wide variety of cultures and faith. I always enjoyed those. Everyone got along. Any differences were interesting, rather than a source of tension, let alone conflict.
I have always been someone who’s filled with questions. I recall asking my great-aunt questions like what is outside of the universe and where does God come from and her answers that the universe is endless and that God has always been did not make any sense to me. Everything and everyone has to start and end somewhere. She did not encourage such questions. In fact, she once told me that I was evil for asking them.
Perhaps it’s those endless questions that led me to study Philosophy. In my very first year my professor told me that it was clear that I’d taken to it like a fish to water. My many questions have, sadly, prevented me from ever finding a church that I felt comfortable attending. I’ve tried. I even attended a youth group at one, and had a good time, but there are parts of Christianity that I struggle with. Like the concept of original sin, and that of hell. Yet, I believe in God.
I’ve had my share of struggles throughout my life. I’ve had several near-death experiences. Some people have done me badly wrong. I have made my own mistakes. I’ve done myself wrong, at times. Throughout it all I have had my doubts, yet I have always come back to there being a God and to God being about love, when you get right down to it.
I have sometimes wondered if my views and conclusions would have been different had I been born into a family of a different faith and/or gone to a school of a different faith, or none. We aren’t raised in a vacuum, and what is around us, especially during our formative years, will have its effects.
What do you think, dear reader? Do you think that you’d be who you are now had your circumstances been different? Do you think you’d still be of the same faith, the same spiritual path? Perhaps you would have started out differently, but got to where you are now all the same?
It’s interesting to ponder. At least, I believe so.
I wish you well,
NaNoKit
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