Letters to the Editor
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Well done, Cary
...yes, this is the beginning of adulthood....
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A word from a Samaritan
I'm sure you are familiar with the parable of the Good Samaritan.
The phrase has entered our language to the point where most people do not realize the original intent of the Christ when He related the parable to the student of the law that was questioning Him.
Samaria and Samaritans were considered unclean by the Jews of Biblical times, so much so that pious Jews would go a long way out of their way not to pass through Samaria. And this in a day when transportation was strictly by foot or donkeyback.
The fact of the matter is that, in the parable, the Christ had two pious Jews, a Levite and a Priest, bypass the injured man as if he was rotten meat. And then the Christ said that the very first unbeliever who came by, the Samaritan, took mercy upon the man, bound his wounds, carried him to an inn and paid the innkeeper to tend to him.
From your writing it's obvious that you are intelligent.. I shall leave you to draw your own conclusions from the parable and my emphasis.
What you are going through may be a deconversion, what a theist goes through in the process of losing his/her faith. For some deconversion is a relatively painless process, for others it involves losing their family and friends and indeed their entire support system.
If you eventually end up becoming a Samaritan, just remember the parable and rest assured that Samaritans do not have to be bad people, the Christ Himself said so.
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Study the bible on your own -- it can be surprising
Much ink in the New Testament is used with Jesus ranting against the religious leaders of his time, to whom he said, for e.g., "Woe to you lawyers also! For you load men with burdens that are difficult to carry, and you yourselves won't even lift one finger to help carry those burdens." I honestly can't understand how one can read the New Testament and be a conservative. The burdens of "correct" sexual behavior alone are impossible for anyone to bear, and yet masturbation, which has probably been practiced by every human to walk the face of the earth, is denounced as a grevious sin by Baptist preachers and Catholic priests alike. Study the New Testament. Jesus message of compassion and acceptance far overshadows the laundry-list interpretation by the Scribes and Pharisees of our day.
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Good luck to you
Please don't let anyone, including yourself, tell you that you've got reason to feel guilty. How you feel is how you feel, but you have no reason for it.
Anyone who can write the letter you wrote, who can maintain a loving relationship with her parents during this kind of intellectual, religious, and emotional turmoil, is a very good person indeed.
I second what one of the other people in this thread said about college. Get yourself to a secular, solid, residential college; take the most challenging courseload you can find to keep you thinking; and take things one at a time, with the same rationality you've displayed.
Good luck. People like you, who remember the good and the bad of where they've come from, yet head for their own choices, are the future of this country.
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You've got to doubt
Or your faith-- in whatever it is you eventually decide to believe-- is meaningless.
Nice advice, Cary. LW, you're strong, and brave, and obviously you've at least found Salon to read. The Internet is full of crazy trolls, but it's also full of fun, sweet, interesting people, some of whom are going through the same issues as you are. Look around and you might find some like minds to help you feel less alone. Good luck.
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Well here's what I'd do
As a guy who rejected everything anyone ever tried to teach me from about age 10 onward, I can tell you the one thing that gave me the most solace was my own curiosity. At 48, I believe that pure, honest, relentless curiosity is among the greatest of human gifts. It protects us from physical danger, and from the ignorant, manipulative, unimaginative forces that will always vie for influence over us.
Read your friggin' head off, travel rough, fearlessly engage the people who attract your mind, find your own answers and learn how to structure and defend your beliefs around knowledge and experience. Do not let yourself be constrained by close-minded, hateful, ignorant or drugged-up influences -- because if there's a devil, that's where he lives.
If you keep your mind full of ideas and questions, and keep feeding them with new ideas and questions, you can only become a more independent, insightful, strong and reasonable person. Look for the universal moralities -- the ones that all the great cultures and religions have decided are necessary to hold themselves together -- and let them inform your conscience. Don't take yourself too seriously. Hang out with funny people and become funny too, if you have it in you. Give others, including the ignorant, the benefit of the doubt (they're ignorant, how can they know how ignorant they are?).
And don't study too much psychology. That quest turns far too many people into self-centered, passive-aggressive weirdos that no one wants to be around.
Oh, and don't try crack or meth.
Good luck to you, woman.
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It's all One
Dear LW,
All you need to know is right behind your conscious mind. You are the Universe (God) expressing itself in corporeal form. It is your own true (Divine!) nature to be at one with ALL creation.
You don't "have" a soul - you ARE a soul, and all the attributes of your true nature are already within you. You don't acquire them when you die. Then, you merely see more clearly because your brain is no longer filtering "Reality".
Take control of the only thing any of us can control - ourselves. i.e., our own thoughts and feelings. Here's how . . .
Pick up your Bible, go to Psalms 46:10, then put the book down. Possibly, for good. (Remember, Jesus and the early "Christians" didn't have it. It didn't even exist until He had been "gone" for 300 years - and lots of people "Got It."
The "Word of God" is not the book, It's what the book is about. "Be still, and know that I AM God."
Be patient ("...wait upon the Lord.), and you will be pleasantly surprised, as you slowly unfold.
Peace, sister,
Rev. Michael McCarthy
"Church of the Rude Awakening"
Love others as you love yourself, because they are. That's the nature of Love, which, according to the Bible, IS God.