"Life is glorious, especially to the cursed and the damned."
These words, spoken by Anthony Hopkins in his role as the patriarch in the latest version of "The Wolfman", had - and continues to have - tremendous impact on me.
Life is glorious! And who better to understand that than a condemned man?
Ever since I left religion, I have felt an insatiable hunger for LIFE. I have become hyper-sensitized to the pulses and rhythms and vibrations of life around me. I yearn - you could almost use the word "lust" - to live life at its craziest, beyond full, beyond meaningful. I want to move beyond a peak state of consciousness and catapult into the universe, soaking up every drop of life that there is.
I have always had this madness for life inside of me. However, religious culture put a cramp on that in me. Religion, at its heart, is about control...a system of doctrines, roles of authority, social programming and reward that causes people to step in cadence to whatever values the religion holds dear. The expectations put on me by religion nearly killed me - while I had to acknowledge my own worthlessness and sin (which, in the religious mind, are just nomenclature for natural and instinctive desires, our animal nature), I had to acknowledge the awesome glory and goodness of God - which I did not actually always see or believe in or understand. A beautiful sunset, or a tender moment of sexual intimacy, could not be enjoyed for the pure pleasure of itself, but had to be recognized as a gift from God...the same God who apparently had no time for healing cancer or alleviating injustice or eradicating disease.
The wildness of rock music? In my particular religious group, it was declared as sin. Enjoying the "fleshly" pleasures of life - food, sex, drink, even a little controlled violence? Sin (except, of course, for football).
I think you get the point. Religion - for me - was not about affirming the glory of life, but of controlling the wildness of human nature, and therefore robbing glory from life. The Bible actually taught that "all creation groans" because of the sin of man. I agree with that to an extent - witness the Gulf of Mexico. However, "all creation" is not groaning - I hear singing, and laughter, and raucous joy. Only a rigid, frightened and judgemental religious mind could hear the music of the spheres and call it "groaning."
Leaving religion, I left with a sense of condemnation. By the reaction of many religious friends, and through the thoughts of my own mind, programmed as it was by years of conforming to the religious machine...I felt cursed and damned by turning my back on religion.
Oddly, however, I felt more alive. In the past six years, my health has improved, my attitude has improved, my experiences have broadened my knowledge, and I am a more expansive person than I have ever been. I love more, laugh more, accept more, and actually serve more.
I am a spiritual man - my hunger and thirst for spiritual things has only increased. I am currently working towards a Ph.D. in Transpersonal Psychology, which is a study of the spiritual dimensions of consciousness and relationships. I meditate. I often journey to a "peak state" where I contemplate mysteries both ancient and future. I experience lucid dreaming. I howl at the moon. I embrace the wildness of my human beast. In my dreams, I run wildly through darkened woods, filled with vitality and energy and power. I devour everything I can. I pray. I weep. I laugh, hard. I play guitar and write songs. I paint.
I make my son mow the yard...one of the benefits of being alpha male.
I do not know if I am cursed or damned...though, when I get around religion I certainly feel that way. Occassionally, when the car blows up or the sewer line breaks, I wonder if God has cursed me for choosing not to believe in Him the way I used to. Then I wonder if He is sending calamity in order to get me to return to Him. Then I ask myself, why in the hell would I return to an understanding of God that includes Him sending calamity to woo me back into His arms? Sounds perverse, doesn't it?
I do believe in a Spiritual Mystery...a Life Force that underflows everything that is. It is good, playful, loving. It embraces darkness, violence, death, and even pain and suffering...for it embraces everything, and everyone. I don't understand it...I seek it.
In the meantime, I am daily learning how to live my life more gloriously. I am loud, I am intense, I am opinionated, and I try to be loving, affirming and to be the most intensely loyal friend you will ever know.
Welcome...to the glorious life of the cursed and the damned!
Namaste!
I study and really do admire the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It's not like any other earthly religion. Not everything is set in stone and you are free to have a relationship with heavenly father, (who I find to be real in my inner life). I cannot in all honestly adhere to Mormonism 100%, but I agree with most of what they teach. When I found their teachings to be in line with thoughts and experiences I've had in meditations and even on acid trips when I was young I was drawn to see what religion was all about and was disappointed until I found the LDS Church. I had been an enthusiastic student of the Bible, especially the New Testament. It really does set your mind free to be you and not what they think is right for you, (to a certain point). I realized years later that most religions are the reason for rampant atheism. If all I understood is, what the other "christian" churches taught, I would probably be an atheist because to me they make no sense. But I do not feel that way about the LDS church. I joined the church in 1976 and left in 1984 for the same reasons you say you left religion. 30 years later, after many meditations, studies, prayer and most important, dreams, that were definetly from an Angel or God himself, and I was brought full circle and am currently studying and trying to build my life for an eternal existence...which is ours regardless, but we will go to that place we are prepared to go to. No one can see the father if they have not prepared themselves because he is as fire and is a pure spirit and we are a mortal. We will change in a twinkling of an eye when we die. (well, we don't die, we just shed this physical body and have a more refined body in the afterlife). I don't want to rant too much, but I have been reading your posts on FB and know where you are coming from and want to tell you that you are doing well and what's right for you. God will bless you for your efforts. I too, am in the school I need to be in. If people just understood that, we would all get along fine. I'm not into the, "my God is better than your God rubbish"....Our heavenly Father loves us all regardless of what we believe. Cognitive dissonance is a teacher too. :o)
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