This I Believe

Belief has always been an interesting concept for me, even during my early childhood days. As most children do, I was given a belief system by my parents and by the culture that they submerged me into. That culture was Catholicism. As a young child I learned about God, Heaven, Hell and the moral order of things as perceived by the Church at that time. For me, belief was instilled through fear. “Do this, don’t do that….” “Follow the rules that you are taught, don’t stray from the specific details of the catechism that you learned or else the everlasting flames of hell will envelope you.” Eternal damnation awaits you…… You will not be saved!!!!

How can learning a belief system like that at a formative age NOT be everlasting??? No matter what you do in the future, what you learned at an early age somehow someway stays with you forever. Even if you don’t believe it at a later stage in life, you cannot forget the experience it brought to your young, vulnerable mind. At least that is what I experienced.

I was taught that God was good and the devil was evil. That if I followed the laws of God, good things would result. I was taught that there was only one God and that God was a Christian God. You must respect other beliefs and other gods, but they were not the “One True God”. You were not to question what you were taught; you were to “believe” what you were taught without question!!!! Questioning actually was part of the evil – fear factor. If you questioned, you did not believe…. If you did not believe, you were done for!!!!

I NOW truly believe that this is one of the reasons why as I proceeded through college, graduate school, and than later when I became a college administrator and educator myself, the need to study, write and teach about comparative religions and mythologies became an obsession with me. What I was “MADE” to believe was simply not enough. I could not be satisfied with mouthing the words that others had mouthed before me. And although at the start, I felt uncomfortable about denying my faith, or at least seeking the true nature of my faith, I did truly believe that the desire for knowledge and truth was absolutely necessary to live a satisfying life; even if it was at the cost of my childhood beliefs…

So I started on my journey to seek (what I hoped would be) knowledge and truth. It all started with the study of poetry (in college), which led me into the world of mythology (during my graduate years). I was soon introduced (through this study) to the parallels that this discipline had with all religions. I than found myself immersed in the study of every religion possible. Keying in on the major belief systems (Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam) I began to see (especially by reading sacred texts as literature rather than as religion) that the metaphors, symbols, rites, rituals and numerologies were all very similar. Taking the texts and reading them as poetry rather than prose; seeking out the “connotation” rather than the “denotation” of what was being said proved that they were all similar too.

Now, as an instructor of comparative religions at a small catholic college in Connecticut; I sometimes feel that teaching itself is a ministry. Not a ministry that professes a doctrine or a creed, but a ministry that allows openness of thought, investigation of truth and the pursuit (without prejudice) of intellectual questioning. Teaching and instructing the similarities between all religions and all peoples through the use of myth and literature unlocks the door to learners who have always been a little afraid of experiencing the unknown. After all, why wait to experience the unknown, when we can do it right here and now. As Robert Frost noted in his wonderful poem Directive: “Here is your water and your watering place. Drink and be whole beyond confusion”.