Happy Hour

This morning’s drink: Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf Genmaicha Green Tea

On Tuesday, I was gripped by a force as I was getting ready to leave for work. I lotioned my arms, put on my watch, clipped in my earrings, and turned to leave, but something stopped me before I reached my bedroom door.

My body followed as I turned my eyes back to rest upon the jewelry box sitting on the dresser. Nut-brown and worn, each drawer is filled with trinkets I rarely wear anymore, or even think about. Yet, instinctively, I reached for the left wing that opens like a door, and holds a small series of gold chains. On the far left is a roped one, with a delicate gold crucifix looped on. As if I’d done this every day, I unlatched it and put it on, then grabbed my things and locked the door.

That evening, as Big Josh and I drove to American Shooting Center to look at 9mm’s, I told him he was driving me to prayer. He laughed before he apologized, but I can understand a little as to why he would. We haven’t talked about religion much since we started seeing eachother – though we have had somewhat extensive conversations about faith. It’d be a lie for me to suddenly say that I’ve held on to my relationship with God all my life; the mismatched background almost by default lends itself to comedy.

Still, in times of need, I find myself drawn back into the religions I’ve known. Then, almost as quickly I find myself alienated all over again. The Protestant faith I celebrated in Sunday school seems too flaky, the Adventist faith too cultish, the Catholic faith too intangible and the Buddhist faith too self-centered. Obviously, I haven’t tried them all, but I find myself wishing for someone to simply give me the raw materials of faith so that I can cut through the middle man.

Some of them are easy enough to pick out; in Protestant Faith and Catholicism, many of the Ten Commandments:

4. Honor your elders

5. Thou shall not kill

6. Thou shall not commit adultery

7. Thou shall not steal

8. Thou shall not bear false witness

9 & 10. Thou shall not covet

These seem pretty safe as basic premises of not being a jerkface, and a generally unpleasant person. And let’s face it – some of us actually need rules in order to achieve this.

I also like the objective outlook and logic of responsibility in Buddhism’s law of dependent origination, which basically mimics Newton’s 3rd Law of mechanics – every action has an equal and/or opposite reaction, or do unto others as you would have done unto you. When science and faith collide, I’m pretty much sold.

Finally, despite the crazy childhood experiences I had in the Seventh-Day Adventist school, I have grown to appreciate the tenets of the faith that are flexible with the times (i.e., a rather liberal view on abortion) and yet maintain that a simple life is the best way to celebrate living. Plus, they extol the benefits of eating crickets and grasshoppers, and they argue that Saturday is holier than Sunday, so someone over there has got a sense of humor. Also important for faith.

So I suppose I’ve got a decent sense for what my ideal faith teaches and believes, but if I’ve created a faith, who do I pray to?

When I pray now, I imagine that I’m talking to God, and I haven’t been struck by lightning yet. And, really, I never pray with the expectation that I’m going to get what I ask for – it’s more to achieve that sort of relieving release that I imagine Victorian doctors proffered in the practice of leeching.

It’s amazing what happens when you simply get things out of your head.