If religion and spirituality make you feel any kind of way other than happy and/or curious, you might want to skip to the next one because that’s my main personal focus here in Q4.
Yeah, talking about religion is probably the fastest way to lose followers ever. Half of you are gone already. But it’s probably not going to be what you’re thinking.
If you have a religion you love and you’re convinced it is the correct one and everyone else is doomed, you’re probably right and I am probably wrong. Alas. Pray for me. I can use all the help I can get.
Where was I? Oh, yeah, Q4 Personal Experiment(s)
To recap, we have covered my experiments in making money and learning some skills. Now we come to my personal goals, which are of a spiritual and religious nature. This will require some background, so please forgive me for the long and boring story that covers the time from my childhood up to today.
My path has been extremely long and winding. I was raised Methodist and Catholic, but never missed an opportunity to go to other churches with friends. Being raised between 2 denominations, 2 parents who were not well matched, and having been a voracious reader, I ended up essentially raised with nothing and everything.
Yes, I am a GenXer with Boomer parents. How did you guess? Once when I was around 10, I pointed out to my mom that the ancient Greeks believed in their gods and they were as likely right as anyone else. This turned out to be a mistake. I made a little shrine to Apollo in my closet out of spite.
Anyway, I grew up being spiritual, but also wanting a spiritual home. I am one to try things on to see how they fit, so I have participated in everything from Wicca to Islam.
And the truth is that I just love religion as a cultural phenomenon. It is such a human thing, a sort of mass artwork created by priests, prophets and practitioners together.
I tend to view all religions as a set of spiritual techniques and teachings, all having some portion of a literary sort of truth. This is the same sort of truth that makes ancient myths and great literature true. Moby Dick is fiction, but obsession with revenge can wreck you without the help of that white whale.
This does not mean that I am not a true believer. I have had some deep personal experiences that make God* and the spirit world real for me. I worry that saying that makes me sound like a nut job.
(* “God” is used here in a generic, universal sense.)
At some point around 2010, I decided I needed to pick a path and start climbing the mountain, rather than circling the base and going a few steps up every trail. I told myself that the next religion that put itself in my path would be my final destination. Shortly after that, I met an Orthodox priest and his wife and went down that rabbit hole.
As a quick aside here, if you’re looking for a different perspective and experience of Christianity and you haven’t checked out Orthodoxy, I do recommend giving it a try. But of course I would, given my fitting room approach to religion.
Fast forward a few years and I moved away from the Orthodox church I had attended for a number of years. I never quite made my way back. I think I managed to find one of the few towns in Western PA without one or more Orthodox churches less than 10 miles away. I have visited the closest Catholic church in the local parish with my in-laws. I have dropped in at a local rock’n’roll nondenominational church. I have looked back and reconsidered some of the paths I walked when I was younger. I feel lost again.
And that brings us to Q4 2024. Finally.
For all the background I gave you to get to this point, my experiment seems so small. This quarter I am going to read, contemplate, pray, meditate and then write a manifesto of what I have decided I believe and what I am going to do with that.
I had already reached the point of having a non-Trinitarian (unitarian), non-Pauline take on Christianity, but there are plenty of things for me to consider, and maybe my spirit guides or angels or god(s) will step in and tell me the easiest, most expedient path to the top of that mountain.
I somehow doubt that, though, since the climb is the point.
The Mia Experiment 