Our spiritual journey

My husband and I have been on (and quite frankly, still are on) quite the spiritual journey. He was raised Catholic and even went to a Catholic grade school. I was also raised Catholic, but there wasn't a whole lot of emphasis on religion while growing up. It was just kind of an automatic answer for me to say "I am Catholic" whenever asked what religion I followed. That all changed once I got to college. That was my first exposure to other possibilities in religion. A co-worker of mine during that time was really in Buddhism and he encouraged me to attend a class with him on meditation. I had planned to go when he mentioned later that it had a connection with Buddhism and I backed out at the last minute, fearful that it was going to be a pressure-filled ceremonial event. Not my style. Regardless, that first incident reminded me that there were other religions, other options, other beliefs. I had never felt a big connection to the Catholic religion as I had only gone for a few years when I was very young and my only recollection of it being the cookies offered downstairs afterwards. However, with so much else on my plate at the time, religion took a backseat again in my life as I plugged away at my studies.

Then my hubby and I got serious and moved in together. We were only dating at the time, but knew we were in love since we had first met many years ago. It just took us a while to find each other again. On a snowy cold day in March, he proposed to me and we wed in August that following summer. Very soon thereafter our little one was conceived and thus begins the next chapter of our spiritual journey. For many months, we watched as my belly grew and little kicks and jabs became evident. Ultrasounds were like tear jerkers for me as I saw my little boy growing bigger every time. As I walked around for those months with my hands on my belly, I felt an undeniable, powerful spiritual connection to my little Bean. My body was nurturing him and it was so in sync to work perfectly and provide him with whatever he needed to continue growing. It was just mind blowing to think about. My hubby and I had many conversations on this topic and were in complete awe of God's glory.

By around Christmas time we had a sudden urge to discover our beliefs. We had been talking about it for a while and we even whipped out a NY Times Guide to Essential Knowledge book to read up on the differences between religions. We only succeeded in overwhelming ourselves and ended up more confused than we had begun. Then one night we were sitting down for dinner and we decided to turn on the TV for some amusement. We were only pulling in two fuzzy channels (we do not subscribe to cable- that's a whole other post someday) and the clearer of the two happened to be Oprah. Oh joy. But we left it on for some reason. After a few minutes of watching, we were actually very interested. She was doing a special on Blue Zones. This is where people live the longest and they were investigating what traits they all have in common. The only blue zone in the US is in Loma Linda, CA and lo and behold the biggest common denominator there is they are all practicing Seventh Day Adventists. They went on to talk about how the Adventists eat a vegetarian diet and how that is a big factor as well in their longevity. We were floored. We had just been delving into a vegetarian diet. We are both very big believers that signs appear in life to help guide you on your path and we were convinced that this was a sign. As odd of one as it was, it just seemed to be right. So my hubby got up, grabbed a telephone book and found the nearest SDA church. We attended a few days later.

The SDA church was a complete 180 from the Catholic church we had tried to attend in our area. At the Catholic one, nobody wanted anything to do with the newcomers. We just got blank, intruding stares. We tried to introduce ourselves and we got a quick "hello" as they continued on. At the SDA church, the door was opened for us before we even got to it, with a gentleman boasting a big smile and warm "Hello". There were only about 8-10 people there and they were all so excited to meet us and get to know us. There was a fellowship dinner afterwards which consisted of health-conscious vegetarian dishes which were super scrumptuous. We felt like we had found our niche. We continued to go and requested to partake in some Bible studies to learn more about their religion. Their religion focused entirely on the Bible and we got a big kick out of that. How could they be wrong when they have us open our Bibles and read the verses during mass while they read it out loud?

The Bible studies took months. They continued, in fact, until after Bean was delivered. During that time, we learned a lot about their religion, but we were tired. We were tired of the rigidity of it, the expectations, the pressure. There were a lot of things that felt suffocating to us; keeping Sabbath (which included things like not fueling up or harvesting your garden...i.e. any work whatsoever), wearing no jewelry, restrictions on listening to music/watching movies, etc. It started to seem quite...crazy. A bit radical. But we like crazy and we like radical. We quite enjoy being different from the mainstream. So we kept investigating. We even gave it a whirl. I took out my nose piercing and all jewelry except my wedding ring. We studied the Bible, attended church, and kept sabbath. But it just seemed like we were going through the motions rather than doing it because we wanted to. It seemed like we were fulfilling expectations and there's nothing more that we hate in life than to fulfill expectations.

Then came the fateful day of the last Bible study. We had just finished going over the study, when the pastor looked at us from across our kitchen table and began to talk to us about baptism. In order to become members of the church, we needed to be baptized. In order to be baptized, we needed to sign this paper stating that we agreed to the above listed beliefs of the SDA church. It all felt a bit awkward, not to mention hurried. We expressed our hesitancy and more pressure was applied. Then we really started to feel like something was wrong. We informed him that we would get back to him within the next few days as we thought it over. My hubby felt that something was off in this situation and he was suspicious. This also raised my suspicions. We informed the pastor that we had some disagreements with the beliefs and he challenged us on it. This was a frustrating time for us, as here we were dealing with a man who had gone to college specifically for this type of stuff and he would hold up the Bible and say "Prove it to me". My biggest disagreement was with jewelry-wearing and most specifically about my wedding ring. When I brought it up, I was read Bible passages that were supposedly supporting his claim of "the truth" on this subject. It frustrated me to no end. The pastor even brought in his wife and together they read verse after verse to me to try and prove their points. My hubby had grievances in regards to tithes and was answered in the same manner. Ultimately we began to question the authority of the Bible itself. When this book is written by man who is prone to error, how can we be 100% sure of its accuracy? This was the deal breaker for us. The Bible is the whole premise for the SDA church and if we doubt the Bible, then the SDA church has no grounds to stand upon. So we left.

Since then, I have been working on trying to free myself from the last shreds of guilt that the SDA religion had born upon me. Everything from what I did on Sabbath, to what I wore, to how I spoke on Sabbath, to what I ate was racking my brain from guilt. I just never felt good enough. During one specificly heated Bible study, I ended up in tears because I felt so guilty about how I dressed and what jewelry I wore. I now believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with that. I feel that God is going to love me no matter what mistakes I make, what I wear, how I act, etc because God loves everybody.

My hubby and I are still searching. I think we have come to the conclusion that there is not going to be any one organized religion in particular that we are going to agree with 100%. Thus, our beliefs will probably end up being a mix of a lot of them. And that's okay. As long as we have a strong love and belief for God, I think we are going to be just fine. We believe in the golden rule and we have a very strong belief in respect for nature. The rest we are still figuring out and again- that's okay.

As for anybody reading this who is in a similar position, remember- keep your focus on God and it will all be okay.