Excerpt: Religion in my Mind

Religion is something that everyone thinks about at one point of time or another, whether they are furtively searching for the truth or actively attempting to get away from the thought of any organized spirituality. In our society, it is something that is discussed though many are brought up to understand that it is not something ever to be talked about in polite company, that and politics. Yet, the subject inevitably arises and we stumble through the various spiritual topics, our verbal ability to converse based on our knowledge and previous forays into the strange realms of religion.

There are many different types of religion in the world, each professing to be “the right one” and many being the basis for people’s arguments with one another over which is correct. There have been many wars in the name of religion or various gods, fights, arguments and rarely any peace that many profess. Religion continually is used as an excuse to hash out differences in how we think the world and the universe work and many times we are stuck with more questions than what we started with. Many times, most of us do not even know where to start.

I was always one of those people who was brought up never to really think about religion, I happily went along my merry childhood barely thinking twice about the subject and never really understand anything about basic religions such as Christianity let along some of the more far out religion uncommon to where I lived at that point in time, such as Buddism or Taoism. This story is an attempt to put on paper my various experiences, thoughts, decisions and spiritual paths that I have embarked upon through my short life, as well as to attempt to figure out what path I am on currently and where it is that I seem to be going in my spiritual life. I do not intend this to fight or defend any religion and any offense given from what I write is certainly not intentional as I am merely writing about my own experiences and giving things from my own personal point of view, which was the situation correct for me at that particular moment in life.

Like many, I have made mistakes and even have some regrets. I am lucky that one of the gifts that I was given was an ability to appreciate all of the lessons learnt in my life, even if they were incredibly difficult to digest, and to come out of it happier for the knowledge that I have gained. I have learnt much and done much and look forward to what life may have for me in the future.

At that point of writing this novel, I am 25 and writing this for National Novel Writing Month. I have no plot, no characters other than the people I have met in my life, only a willingness to write and see where I end up. I truly do not have any intention of anyone ever seeing this novel, which is why all of the names herein will be actual names of the actual people that I met and interacted with throughout my life, to the best of my memory. There will be blanks where I cannot remember names or places or even the specific circumstances and not all of it may make a lot of sense. I know and understand that I am still young and have a full life ahead of me where I may come to different conclusions than what I end with here, but at this point in time I feel that the path that I am currently embarking on may lead me down a road that I will continue to follow for the rest of my life, but you will see that much later throughout this story. So if you are actually reading this, please sit back, relax and try to enjoy this adventure into the Religion in My Mind.