What I Believe Part 2: Awakening

It’s trite, but one of the things I believe more than anything is that everything happens for a reason.

The other key theme that has bubbled up throughout my adult life is to seek multiple levels of meaning – you can take something for what it is or you can search for a deeper understanding of the things that people say and do.

So on a very basic (and rather humorous) level, God was in fact telling me to live alone.

But on a much deeper level, living with all those whacky Christians led me to try and figure out what this Jesus Christ person was really about and why he had such profound and varying effects on so many people.

My first impression of Jesus wasn’t all that great, to be honest.

Think about it. What’s the most common image of Christ, especially in a Catholic church?

Scary, emaciated, half-naked bleeding man, hanging half-dead on a cross.

That’s how it was for me anyway, the first time I set foot in St. Peter’s in Mount Clemens, probably around the age of three or four. Da will have to verify that.

I remember thinking, who is this guy? He must’ve done something pretty terrible to be hanging up there like that.

I know, I know, I know. It’s supposed to be a reminder that he died for our sins.

But something about that explanation never quite cut it for me. I wanted to know the real story.

So in 1993 I started reading. I read everything I could get my hands on about Christ and Christianity and the history of religion. Here’s a partial reading list:

The Chalice and The Blade by Riane Eisler
The Gospel According to Jesus by Stephen Mitchell
The Nag Hammadi Library by James Robinson
Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism by John Shelby Spong
The Historical Jesus by John Dominic Crossan
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus by Marvin Meyer
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu
The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra

I know what you’re thinking: You can’t believe everything you read, you silly girl.

I know that. That’s why I read so much. I figured the more I read on the subject, the easier it was to figure out who was full of shit and who actually came close to the truth.

And lemme guess, you’re also thinking: Just read the Bible, all the answers are in there.

I did read the Bible – everything that was referenced in those other books, I looked up myself to get a better understanding of their reasoning. Some of it I agreed with, some of it I didn’t.

The fact is, we’re all guilty of interpreting things the way we want to see the world. 20 different people could read the exact same passage from any book, including the Bible, and get 20 different meanings from it.

Here was my approach: I wanted an understanding of Jesus that was logical and historical, not personal, and certainly not emotional. I wanted to know who he was as a person, not what he means to people who follow him. I figured that was the only way to really understand why he had such an amazing impact on the world.

It took about a year until I was satisfied.

Next Episode: What I Believe Today