The Fresh Persepctive

I went through a religious phase between Sophomore and Junior year of high school. I got really involved with a Pentecostal church a couple friends went to. I went every week to service and youth group. I was pulled in and felt like I had found something that would answer all my questions. I even took a week off work and went to church camp.

I struggled a lot that summer. I was confused about myself and my place in the world, as is every 16 year old. I thought that church would solve that problem. I also was jealous of a friend who had “found Jesus” and got a very enthusiastic response from my religious friends.

I felt like I needed that same feeling of love and acceptance from those friends. So I “found Jesus” and I started going to church. I bought a bible and just jumped right in. No lifeguard on duty for this pool though. I didn’t even know what denomination the church was and had a meeting with one of the youth pastors to figure it out. I was that focused on being part of the in crowd that I just went to whatever church my friends went to.

I used to adhere to a Jedi sort of idea of spirituality. Energy that binds the universe together, you know all that sort of stuff. I did actually think about god a lot that summer and I think it was my week at summer camp that really gave me the most insight.

You see I didn’t have any friends going to camp but I felt like it was important to go. I got out into a cabin with a cute boy (I told you I was struggling with my identity) and I did nothing for a whole week. I went to meals and the nightly services and I felt fulfilled. Yet I think it was the afternoon we went to the lake or river to go swimming that I really had my first moment of clarity.

You see I had not come to came prepared for camp. Because I had chosen to go of my own volition my parents didn’t help me pack or anything they just signed the permission slip. So I didn’t have a swimsuit and didn’t want to swim in the clothes I was wearing but also I didn’t come to camp to do activities I came to be closer to god.

So instead of joining everyone in the water, I laid on a picnis table and watched the sun and clouds through the leaves of a tree, for like 3 hours. This was before cell phones with internet and I had only brought one book with me, my bible, so I just relaxed on this picnic table and cleared my head.

I look back on it now and realize that I may have actually been meditating or something. I didn’t achieve Nirvana or anything but I felt calm. I had gone into that summer with a lot of confusion and odd feelings so it felt like inner peace to be sitting on the table and not having to worry about anything. I also fancied myself an introspective child. One who stared into the abyss and doesn’t flinch. I wanted to be the cool kid that didn’t have such messed up emotions or feelings. I wanted to be seen as cool, calm, and collected.

I am an adult now and have had many years to reflect on that summer. I was an idiot that summer and yet I never for once think that laying on that picnic table was a bad choice.

I don’t have any answers about what happens after death. I think Keanu Reeves said it best, “I don’t know what happens when we die but I know the people we love will miss us.” I don’t need God, or some other spiritual entity (unless Keanu is a spiritual entity than for sure him), telling me what to do to make it into their club after I die. Whatever happens will happen to me just like in life and as long as my family and friends miss me. Miss me because I loved them and cared for them and showed them they were important to me. I made sure that they were the reason I went to work every day, not some higher being. That they will look back at memories of me and remember me just being me, not me spouting words some other guy said 2000 years ago.

Life is hard enough without feeling like I am being judged for the decisions I am making. So spiritually does not play a role in my life at all. I want to be here for my loved ones and enjoy the little bit of time I have with them on this little spinning ball of rock.

I leave you with a thought. I can’t remember the exact quote/joke but it is about the difference between a religious man doing good and an atheist. The religious man does good because he has been incentivized to do that good so he can get the ultimate reward. Yet an atheist who does good does not do good for a reward but because it is the right thing to do. So who is truly the better person? Thai is not to make it a debate about god just to say that I do good without the reward at the end because I want to have a good place for my family to be when I am gone.

Maybe heaven isn’t the destination but the friends and family we leave behind along the way?