In my freshman year of high school my parents sent me to confirmation classes, and I found that I really did not understand what it truly meant to declare your loyalty to something so much greater to yourself before having explored yourself fully. I was then confirmed the following spring, and realized soon after that it was not something I should have done. I was not ready to make that commitment, and was more forced into it. Sophomore year, after a summer of give and take with my parents over whether or not it was necessary for me to attend masses on Sunday, I headed (with three friend) a group that explored what religions of all kinds had to offer. The group was comprised of about 20 friends of friends who came by word of mouth varying from Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, Muslim, and even atheist. We called it SEARCH, for that was what we intended to do. People then chose topics from which they wanted to lead discussions for future weeks on different aspects of human life and how opposing religions viewed them. For me, it was probably the most pivotal time in exploring what religion and spirituality meant to me. It was the period of time that I found myself struggling physically and emotionally dealing with day-to-day life with social problems, and more pressingly my father’s diagnosis/prognosis.
I do not in anyway detest religions, and what I have learned more than anything is that religions are a great thing for certain people to lean on and if it works for them, then great! For me, I would refer to myself much more spiritual than religious. It is something that I have come to based upon what Lionel Stevenson refers to as man’s awareness as “he becomes aware of his own insignificance, bounded by inefficient senses and ‘moving about in worlds not realized’” (653). As I have written about before, a vital fear that I have is not amounting to enough. As time progresses I realize more and more that the time to act is now, and I must take everyday as a chance to celebrate and take in as much as possible.
In my quest for greatness, I realize that nothing can be worth anything without having the steadfast foundations placed, and should be the central theme to which I focus my attention more than fame or fortune. “GOD” to me is a word that refers to an individual that you surrender your life, and not really what I like to think as an essential part of my being. However, I have spent ENDLESS nights trying to decipher what it is that gives me the strength and simple stamina to make it through a day, and although most is attributed to science, I, personally need something else to connect me to other people and the natural world.
At the end of my Junior year AP English class, having already taken the AP exams and not really having anything else to practice for, my teacher assigned the final project as to define your beliefs. I called my “religion” pitta, which meant KNOWLEDGE in some language. In an attempt to be intellectual or I don’t even know what that is what I had pledged my allegiance to. I think that today it resounds just as true.
In Tennyson’s poem he writes:
But in my spirit will I dwell,
And dream my dream, and hold it true;
For tho' my lips may breathe adieu,
I cannot think the thing farewell. (CXIII)
I think that this a very appropriate quote that describes my situation thoroughly. I continue to search myself for the answers to my individual philosophy of life that I feel is granted to everybody. Through this search I hope to find a solid founding that allots for success, and will follow me to the end of my life and may even carry past.
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