Somewhere on the long road I’ve traveled in my life I have found peace. It’s not a fish I can always hold on my line while I’m trying to reel it in, but at my age I have finally learned to trust a power that cares about me. I suppose I’m like anyone else who has taken the idea of God seriously. I have seen the terrible avenger of my childhood transformed into a caring father. Certainly, one of us must have changed.
In a nutshell, it’s been a long but worthwhile trip up here from the jail of my youth. Enough scary things happened to me as a child that allowed feelings of real fright to transfer to my religion. Being left alone, a first haircut, going to the dentist … whatever it was … I well knew the stomach-dropping feeling when I felt defenseless and lost forever in a storm of terror I could not escape. I knew the worst could happen. The pit of hell, belching forth a stench of burning with all its demons and fire could open up to swallow me as I hysterically tried to claw my way back up the slope crying, “But I only ate one hot dog on Friday!”
Much of my childhood up to age 12 was spent worrying about my moral peccadilloes. I knew that the occasional swear word, disobedience and fighting with my brothers were Venial Sins and weren’t serious enough to warrant a ticket to Hell, thank goodness, but Purgatory wasn’t a great destination either. When I infrequently thought about growing up, I guessed the most prevalent Mortal Sin … the wages of which were to burn in hell for all eternity … would have something to do with sex or girls or something like it, but none of these things were of very much interest to me at the time.
One can imagine my shock and dismay to discover at puberty the gaping maw of the Evil One’s kingdom was opening again as I struggled with the terrible sins I found so attractive and impossible to defeat. I spent the entire year of my 8th grade in real panic, dejected over getting so far in life only to crash and burn, my mind in the gutter and my hands too deep in my pockets.
As an adult, I overcame these childish fears. I have found a God I can trust. I can probably tell you much about what wise men through the ages have said about God, but I cannot tell you actual details about him or her or it. She is beyond my understanding. When it comes to my welfare, he is beneficent or so I am convinced. I don’t know where I’m going after I die, if anywhere. I don’t need to know. (Heaven is tradition, not a dogma of the Church.) I have chosen to believe I am in the careful hands of a being who loves me and a being I don’t have to worry about offending. I no longer have a God to worry about.
A group of scientists and thinkers, some with more pomposity than our beloved Churchmen, now call religion and spirituality a Memeplex, an intricate mix of behaviors and beliefs from quark theory to rock and roll to religion that results from humans having imitated each other since time began. Much has been written from a Darwinian point of view treating why we are here. But the concept of the memeplex doesn’t quite explain why music and sunsets pull on our heart strings and cause us to whisper a little prayer to a God who isn’t supposed to be there. Nor could Darwin.
Beach Boys and Lorrie Morgan - Don't Worry Baby.
When you can no longer get it up (your voice,) you find someone who can.
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