Inspiration

***I wrote this thought piece almost two years ago, and I never posted it. At the time when I wrote it, I felt fearful that it was too offensive to publish. I came across it this morning while cleaning up my blog a little bit. In retrospect, it doesn't seem so bad. It also relates to the quote I posted yesterday about nonreligious people caring about morality, so I decided to share it with you.  

Recently I've been rereading the memoirs of Karen Armstrong, the former nun turned contemporary religious commentator and author. They are truly wonderful books. I can relate a lot to her, as someone who also came out of a somewhat painful religious past. Of course, nothing in my young life compares to the strictures, discipline, and breaking of will that she experienced in a convent, but her feelings of inadequacy and her discovery of doubt speak to me. I'm reminded again of why her books were so important to me the year I left the ICOC, because she puts into words feelings I have had about my lost faith.

At the conclusion of Through the Narrow Gate, the book about her years in the convent, Armstrong says, "I had recalled and thus reawakened some of that longing for the sacred that had carried me into the religious life. But what could I realistically do with this nostalgia for transformation and transcendence? In a world that was now empty of God, I could see no place for it and did not understand what, if anything, it meant." Ultimately Armstrong found her place in life by reading and writing about world religious traditions.

I can't say that I've reached total acceptance and contentment about my past. I sometimes resent the ways that my sensitive intellectual proclivities were harnessed and damaged by the intensely narrow scope of faith that was imposed upon me from without. I had to get away from teachings and practices that violated my conscience and my spiritual sensibilities. I know that none of the people from my former church intended me harm, but my personality paired with that kind of church was not a good combination. I think that this is the reason I mostly approach religion from an academic standpoint. I feel defensive of religious people, whom some scholars I know would denigrate as unintelligent or foolish, and yet I cannot be one of them. That way of life doesn't fit me.

Nevertheless, I have realized lately that some of the things that I valued about a religious life still matter to me. I still care about the 'big' questions. The meaning of life, if you will. I still want to understand how ideas and beliefs can and do motivate people. I still care about which ideas and beliefs should motivate people and provide meaning to their lives. I care intensely about morality, and while I don't think that everything is black and white, I still think it matters what we do and how we treat others.

I also hope that I can find a way of thinking about these things that is beyond academic. I don't mean that I want some sort of ecstatic or religious experience or even faith tradition in which to situate myself. (I'm honestly still deeply afraid of idea systems with rigid boundaries and rules. Strong convictions about religion make me extremely uncomfortable.) I just don't want to live a life that is always, and wholly, rational. I want my ideas to matter and to make a difference. Armstrong inspires me, because she found a way to do just that. Maybe there's hope for little ol' me too?