I Wish I Were Religious

Religion is a lot of things for a lot of people. For some people, it may be what their whole lives are about. For others, like myself, religion is an annoyance in life that must be tolerated because of how pervasive it is.

Needless to say (though I will still say it), I don't understand the religious fervor all that well. In my opinion, religion is a crutch that people use when they want someone to blame for the bad parts of their life. "God has a plan for all of us" and all that. I sincerely do not subscribe to that idea. Not to mention I find it a little far-fetched.

Religion can also offer good things, like a solid moral code. Many people take this code too far, or pick and choose the parts they want to believe in (ever heard of a very religious gangster? I have). This moral code is definitely a good thing, extremists give it a bad name, but the foundation and idea of this part of religion is solid. But a lot of people don't need religion to have a solid moral code now. Mostly you just need a conscience and some common sense. I, for instance, am an atheist. I don't believe in any sort of god or higher power. But I have a very strong morality and I refuse to let other people sway my morals.

Morals aren't why I wish I was religious. It's more of the first reason I talked about. I wish I thought there were some higher being that was pulling all my stings to lead me to where I was meant to be. Life is a scary, scary thing and I'm at kind of a really difficult part. I'm almost out of school. I'm in this area where one foot is in the real world and the other is still protected. I'm terrified of what will happen to me once I'm all on my own in the real world. If I believed there were someone out there, looking after me and listening to prayers, I'd be praying all the time "please push me in the right direction." and it might make me feel a little less lost, a little less out of control in this big scary world.

Many people would hear that little confession I just made and say "well then you do believe in a god." or "well then it's easy, just put your faith in god" or something like that. But it's not that easy. I'm not even entirely sure it's possible. Once you don't believe in god, there's no way to recover that. My faith is set firmly in science. I admire the religious for their god.

Most of all, I think I'd like to say grace. My family isn't religious, so we never say grace or anything like that. but I think it's a marvelous idea, being thankful for the food you have every single day. I don't think you even necessarily have to be religious for it, it just gives people a good reason for it. If I went home right now and suggested we say grace before a dinner, I would get strange looks and maybe a few laughs. but it seems like a good idea to say "I'm really grateful that we are together and we have food for this meal and for the love we share." Is that such a bad thing? to be grateful for the things we have that make our lives easier? for the people we love that are in our lives?  I don't think so. I think it's a very nice idea.

The world we live in is one where people often take those things for granted and I think it would be nice if maybe just once a day we could be thankful for the things we have. Most of us do it on Thanksgiving anyway, and we don't have to make it particularly religious. why can't we just do it every day?

But then again, maybe we don't need to say it out loud. maybe if we just think about everything we are lucky enough to have, it would be good enough. maybe I just feel like I need to be able to acknowledge this wonderfulness that I have even if somethings in my life aren't great. especially if things aren't great. Maybe the worse things you have in your life, the more you need to acknowledge the good things. the more you need to say out loud "I'm really grateful I have this in my life." so people can hear you and they can think about it too.

Maybe religion doesn't need to be a part of it. Maybe I don't actually want to be religious. life would still be scary. I still wouldn't know what is going to happen to me. nothing would actually change except the social acceptability of being able to be thankful for what we all have. . . I don't know.

Enough of this weird rant.
"I'm really grateful to live in a time where I am allowed to go to college and that I have the means and the desire to do so. I'm grateful that my family is supportive of me and that I have the few friends I have. I'm grateful to have food in my pantry and my refrigerator. I'm grateful that I have a dependable vehicle and a means to fill the tank with fuel. I'm grateful I have a warm home and a warm bed (creaky as it may be). and I'm grateful for you, whoever you are, if you decided to read this."

Citrina