MY PERSONAL RELIGIOUS CRISIS, OR WHY AND WHAT I FEEL COMPELLED TO WRITE ON GOD

C. WESTMAN
In autumn of 2012, I first knew God. Before then, I had largely discounted religious experience as myth, as legend, as psychological mumbo-jumbo fit only for the uneducated. After all, these days we have a great deal of knowledge about ourselves, the world around us, and most importantlyour ignorance. We know that there is much we do not know, and we have an expectationa faith, almostthat what we do not know will, given time, become plain to us through our scientific observations. We know now why the rain falls, how the clouds form, why there are volcanoes and earthquakes when and where they are (though we cannot yet predict their striking). The world, as a whole, seems as though it works smoothly as by sets of basic rules. At least, it does where we stand. We also have discovered things vast, small, and bizarre--things that seem to be at odds with much of our old Christian thoughts. We have found a universe vast, cold, and empty in which we inhabit but a small corner, where life may be anywhere but we are certainly not prime. We have found that the universe we live in is, at its most basic foundational levels, based upon randomnessthat dice create the patterns that dictate the fine structure of the universe. We have found the universe to be ancient, at least 13 billion years old today, and have managed with great struggle to firm up estimates on certain cosmological and thermodynamic constants with enough accuracy that we have a sense of how the universe will die. Not just the planet earth, whose life and death have been known for decades, but the whole of the vast cosmosa slow and cold death as matter itself gradually decays into a

vast sea of light sometime around 10150 (that is a one with one-hundred and fifty zeros following) years from now. There are, of course, things we do not knowimportant things, like why people might become so angry that they take up a firearm, waltz into an elementary school, and slaughter children. Why people love. Why some people feel gender outside their sex, and if it is a trait inherit to themselves in a natural manner, or some sort of mental imbalance that forms over time. Yet, over even my short life we have seen so many questions with unknown answers (what causes cancers, why is HIV/AIDS so hard to treat, etc) find their solutions through the wit and will and focused communal efforts of mankind that we feel a calm sense of certitudemankind will find a way. Of course, your mileage may vary as to how much that is a good or a bad thing (the classic example, of course, being our discovery of nuclear reactionsthe vast destructive power of the nuclear warhead, the beneficial cancer treatments, and the debated benefits and costs of nuclear power.) Why do we need God? And does not, after all, the burden of proof in rational discourse fall upon those postulating the existence of a thing? So, I justified an emotional denial of God. It was, after all, an emotional denial first and foremost. In puberty, I found an attraction not only to the pretty gal in pre-algebra, but also the guy with the labret piercing who would skip high school and hang out at the convenience store near my middle schoolmore for the latter than the former. Its something that most people do not really grasp or feel within themselves, the totality of attraction, unless they have it called out as something shameful. I admit that at that time I had a belief in God. Why shouldnt I have had one? I had been raised with it, after all, and children tend to accept their parents teachings until they gain some reason to disregard themeven if that reason is nothing more than just obtaining that peculiar age where everything that the older generation claims is true must plainly be false, and everything new must be truth (oh, how I laugh now to see me shouting out truths in violation of my parents will, truths that I now know are the same things they were teaching me but clothed in more divisive and self-righteous language!). But the family was

not regularly church-going, and though we had a church I loved, and a wonderful priest who would always sing the Eucharist, I got the bulk of my religion on Sunday mornings from an old man who came on the television at five-o-clock on Sunday mornings. It was two days after I had had my first kiss in eighth gradea redheaded punk in a little jean-jacket when we were held up late getting changed for gym, an experiment he claimed, that turned into a crush that lasted me until the start of high-schoolthat my crisis of faith began. Generally speaking, I believe in coincidence. That is, if two unlikely events happen alongside one another due to chance, I generally hold that it is actually chance and not a greater meaning. I do not change that stance for this unlikely occurrence, however wonderfully story-book it may be. Two days after that Friday kiss, I was sitting on the couch in the basement, hugging a pillow and daydreaming about the boy Ill call Alex (because that was his name) and drinking a glass of milk and watching the old man whose name I cannot recall. He was talking about sin, which in my youth I always connected with evil in the fantasy-novel sense murder is sin, torture is sin, heinous acts are sins, and that final to -be defines the totality of sin leaving no room for small non-heinous sins like cleaning your house on Sunday or getting a little pissed off at your older brother. So I was happy, that wonderful emotional confliction that teenagers confuse for love in my heart, and a fantasy-novel sense of God in my mind. If the reader cant immediately guess what the topic of that morning televangelism program was, then I have done a very bad job of foreshadowing. (If you cant guess, it was the sin of homosexuality.) Please take a moment, and try to get a sense of what it must feel like to have the man on the television tell you that you have just sinned against God when you have that fantasy-novel sense of sin. It was a sort of what? moment, the type we all experience throughout our lives when we know that one of the things that we had taken as granted up till then must plainly be false. In that moment I found myself caught in a dilemmaeither God was wrong, or I was. Of course, I never thought that maybe the televangelist was wrongfor the quotes he referenced were quite plain (this is the main reason why I hate quoting biblical

passages, for they can be so readily removed from context and made to give an air of divine authenticity to otherwise false and harmful assertions). I watched the program in silence, ate breakfast, and went to church. This third coincidence, that my mother felt that it had been too long since we had gone to church and suited us up to go on the same Sunday that I had been placed in a crisis of faith but two days after having my first homosexual experience, I do place now as an exception to my coincidences are coincidences rule. I see in it an opportunity God placed before me to have a third optionthat the televangelist misrepresented Godoffered as the correct one. Indeed, that same morning before the service the priest came up and had a long chat with me. We chatted about school, and about the cute girl in pre-algebra, but I most certainly did NOT bring up Alex, or the cute guy with the labet who would skip high school and hang out at the convenience store by the middle school. Absolutely not. I took the opportunity to have a conflicting issue handled immediately, and hid from it out of fear (a unique fear that was stronger than any I had felt prior, and one which I would feel again only rarely and that I now believe is the reaction of my own ego under the gaze of Goda personal sense of my own insignificance, and of the consequences thereof for a proud man.) The service, I recall, focused on Gods love for all men, but it is only in hindsight that I realize the importance of it. At the time, I could not help but silently add except for me. The confliction was a consuming source of depression throughout the rest of middle school, and was compounded by Alexs decision that he wasnt really gay, but thanks for helping him make sure. It led me to read the bible again, and for the first time in my life I found myself stuck and unable to read past Leviticus. In the Law, I set aside the Bible and decided that, whatever the truth of God might be it could not be that, for I was certainly not evil. I decided to look at other religionsskipping Judaism since I knew that it shared the Law. I read the Quran until I found condemnation. I read old Norse myths and felt appalled by their violence, old Greek and Roman myths and felt concerned by their decadence for I was then as I am now, a hopeless romantic. I read and read and read, and

could find nowhere a sense of God that not only felt firm and true in the world but also did not state condemnation. It was in high school that I would meet atheist spiritualists, and the conflict within myself came to an apparently swift close. If the world exists by its own accord, and without a God to judge it, then where is the condemnation? Where is the conflict with the world that you see, for it is? It was a third option in the false-dichotomy I had tortured myself under, and even though I now know it to be another incorrect choice, I jumped at the opportunity. I kept up acolyting (something I had enjoyed in elementary and middle school, felt shame performing in those months of my confliction, and felt contempt for after) to please my mother, but in time my schoolwork, the time spent on internet chatrooms with my friends, and other pursuits (read: video games) eventually led to my effectively quitting that service to the church. And I didnt care, for it was plainly just a bunch of old people who couldnt stand to live in the world and made up Gods and Angels and Saints and Devils to make themselves feel better about the problems of the world and their own insistence on not following through to fix them (said the teenager who spent most of his day playing video games and reading fantasy novels). That was late August, 2001. September happened after, and I now think back to 9/11 and the violent mugging that ended up saving the life of one of my friends parents, who would have otherwise been on the very floor that the first plane hit in the world trade center. At that point, I remember thinking thank God, and then returning to denial. It was easier to pretend that he wasnt real than it was to try reconciling myself to the truth of the world, even when coincidenceswhich I again repeat are almost always just that, coincidencesmake us know the sense of the Lord in the world. Throughout the next eleven years, such moments would happen nearly weeklyyet only rarely would they be something difficult to brush off, or demanding a decision. On those rare occasions, the fear would come and I would shy away from it, and would suffer as a result. The second time the fear gripped me was not until November of 2005. For the previous four years I had, alongside various boyfriends and girlfriends, had a small not-so-secret crush on my best friends younger

sister, who had that year begun high school as a freshman. Due to marching band, I hadnt been able to try to get near her as I had hoped, and when marching band ended and I switched study halls (as my band class moved at that point from first hour to second, since I was in the elite Wind Ensemble), I found myself assigned to sit right beside her. Throughout the year, I felt that I should ask her out on a date somewhere, but each time I thought of it I would be gripped by that fear, and shied away. Then homecoming came, and I went for the first time in hopes of being able to dance, and she asked me a question prefaced with what is perhaps the worst sentence anyone harboring a crush can hear: As a good and reliable friend. What she asked was how to tell her older sistermy best friend that she felt she was actually a guy. I had no answer, since it came out of nowhere and its not exactly something that you normally have, and I advised her just to tell her sister and not to worry about the judgmental teasing to follow since that was going to happen anyway and its just going to be on that instead of on her jeans. (Yeah, not the best advice, but I never claimed to be wise!) From then on the existential fear was gone, leaving only the normal high school nervousness. I eventually confessed to him (no, the pronoun change is not a mistake, but a recognition), got rejected, and had a damaged friendship that has never been repaired. The fear next gripped me when I considered taking a smaller scholarship to UCLA instead of a full-ride to UNO. I again shied away and ended up at UNO. There were no major negative consequences, besides an eventual BAD marriage, but Im certain that I missed many opportunities because of avoiding the fear for comfort. I had an opportunity again with my best friends younger brother in 2007, and the fear gripped when I thought of confessing again. I didnt, it passed, and I later learned that he had been contemplating a crush on me during that time! Then, in 2008 I met an attractive exchange student from China, and we started dating. After about six months, though, an error in her visa came up and she was threatened with deportation. The idea of marriage (for we were in those throes of passion and emotional conflict

that young people mistake for love) came up, and when I thought this is too fast, the fear returned. So, again, I shied away from the fear and we were wed. By 2011 I was unemployed, locked in a room, and abused regularly. Throughout the intervening years I thought of leaving several times, since it was plainly a bad match. Each time that I did, fear overtook me and I shied away and stayed. But in the latter half of 2011, when I was locked in a room, I looked back over my life and saw each moment that the existential fear had struck me and I observed that in each case shying away from the fear had led me to make a choice that either missed out on great opportunity, or had led to great suffering. In December of 2011, right before Christmas, I noticed that the telephone was on the bottom of the stairs as I was permitted my daily shower. I contemplated taking it and calling for help, and the fear gripped me. This time, I took it as a sign ran down the stairs, grabbed the phone, and dove into the kitchen, hiding in a corner of the pantry. I called my motherperhaps, as she says, the wiser choice would have been to call the police, but the fear gripped me and I did what seemed most frightening that day, and that was to admit to my mother that she had been right. That afternoon she picked me up, I got my kids from daycare, and we spent a week at my mothers before my wife sent the police to take them. In the year 2012, I fought for a divorce, and even now I find myself waiting for legal papers to be filed. By August I had found a stable job my first everand was paying off debts and putting my life on track. That year mother had taken me to the old church, where I had met the new pastor. During my atheist years, I had learned that the Episcopalian Church, which I had grown up in, discounted the idea of homosexuality as a mortal sin, so I no longer had the conflict within when I heard his preaching. So, I read the bible again that year and no longer was stuck on Leviticus. As I read, I noticed so often people praising with great joy the fear of the Lord, and I knew that the fear was not a fear of him as one fears the violent, or the cruel, or as one fears the judge or the uncovering of wrongdoing. It is the fear that one feels when ones pride comes face to face with ones insignificance. The fear of the Lord is the same cosmic fear that HP Lovecraft would try (and readily fail to convey) through his writingsman is not at the center of the universe. Man exists because

another entity wills it. If that other entity so willed it, Man would end. It was the fear I felt on those rare occasions, when I contemplated making a choice that could end so terribly for me and God, in his love and compassion, looked down to say that is the correct choice! Late summer, again in an August (oh what an august month August apparently is), I walked during a lunch break as was my custom, and I was believing in God but I could not say honestly that I knew he was real, or that I knew him. It was an intellectual belief, the sort of cool and calm belief that you have because someone else tells you that you should have it and you have had no reason to deny it. I walked, down the road across from a local Catholic university that in the old days trained nuns. I glanced up, and saw the cross upon the roof of that university peaking above the trees, and it felt as though the sky opened and the world turned, and the infinite universe collapsed into a single point in an uncountable infinite space, which in turn collapsed into a point, and so on and so forth for what seemed like the entirety of time, the insignificance of all things crushing down to nothing as layer after layer of uncountably infinite void collapsed down, and I felt myselfa single point wrapped up in the tightest insignificancealongside the greatest of infinities, numbering themselves infinite on an order the same as he. This paradoxical idea gazed upon me, and all the thoughts I had rose up and flowed, and I felt in that moment a great love and peace like none I had known before or since. Then, the thought came to mind: praise God and serve him. The existential fear gripped again more firmly than I had felt before, and it carried with it a sense of love and joy that burned into my heart. It seemed all of the greatest infinity folded in upon me, like a hug from an all-seeing eye, and a voice within echoed out yes. And all the vast nothings folded out again, and I was on the side of the road staring at the cross. The time I had left my office to my lunchtime walk was 10:45am. I walked into the Arbys behind me, ordered a milkshake, and asked for the time. It was 10:55am. This seemed to me as something impossible, for I had felt that all of time had passed and was certain that I had stood there gazing at the cross for far longer than the single minute left me between walking to that point, and going into the restaurant. Yet a joy and energy flew through me and stayed until well into the next year.

Unlike the last time something strange religiously happened, this time I went to speak to the priest. He had me contemplate if it was a calling to priesthoodwhich I had felt at the timeor just an affirmation of faith. Again, I find that the correct choice was not there. Knowing now the responsibilities of a priest in administering sacrament, and knowing that the experience was more than a simple I am here, yes I am, I find myself asking what am I called to do? Then I look back upon my life, and I realize that I lived through something amazing. Throughout my atheist years, many tried to convert me and all failedfor I had already been converted by the spirit and denied him. Yet the moment that my pride was broken, and the last obstacles to faith were removed, I believed, and then I knew. Therefore, I write to remove obstacles. I write seeking to serve God as an editor of sortsseeking to find where people misrepresent his word and do harm to the primary purposes of Christian activity: to share the good news of Christs death, resurrection, and forgiveness of our sins; to love God with all our hearts; to love ourselves as we love God; to love all mankind as we love ourselves; and to live, each of us, in the manner that God intends we ourselves to liveguided by the holy spirit. This last idea is the one that so often leads to misunderstandings, which in turn lead to misrepresentations of God, the Scriptures, and the Good News. So, let me borrow a phrase from the anti-Christian occultist Alistair Crowley which in its simple summarizing of the final aim of Christian life offers the truth of St. Pauls observation that even the nonbeliever cannot help but see Gods will in the world and that many obey it even as they seek to deny it: Every man and woman is a star, with a unique path across the heavens.