with open arms and

Religion is always a strange thing for me to really stop an examine, at any of those points in my life (which tend to be frighteningly frequent) where I feel I need to stop and examine it. My father is one of those people who will talk loudly and to whomever is listening all about his opinion of just about everything on the planet, and one of his favorite things to talk about is how much of a lie things like religions, spirituality and God are. He doesn't broke talk of these things around him without sounding off vehemently in their opposition, and I suppose living for twenty-three years under that kind of anger denial forces one to come to a few inevitable conclusions.

I find it very hard to put my trust in organized religion. Some, less than others, but it remains that there's something inherently creepy to me in the walking in single file, chanting the same empty words in unison, or--my personal favorite--staring at a piece of bread in a gold statue and calling it worship! I don't get the hive mind mentality, but then again maybe I've never really been the kind of person who's good at doing things or thinking things just because other people are doing and thinking them. I am a late bloomer only because it takes me a while to decide whether or not blooming is even a good idea.

Which isn't to say I don't believe in spirituality or sanctity, because even my father's Doubting Thomas-ing couldn't shake that root from my soil. But I've come to decide that your spiritual self, that bit of you which is sacred and holy, isn't supposed to be paraded in front of others or part of a ritual. It's what's unique about you, what's special and timeless, to think you could touch on it just by reciting a few lines somebody who died in 1865 put to a drinking song! No, that's not how it works, not for me. God isn't a man in a starched white robe with a perpetual scowl.

God, for me, is everywhere. In the details of my writing, in my cat when he suns himself, in the bum by the Burger King asking for my change. It's everything, it's the way I carry myself and my awareness of the world around me and the sound of a bike tire on pavement. I have always wanted to be the kind of person who approaches things with innate respect and gentleness, the kind of person who moves mountains one patient pebble at a time. I am hardly in that place--I'm brash and irreverant, quick-tempered and judgemental--but I'm closer now than I have ever been, and I think every step down the path of life brings me closer to the center line I'm trying to walk along. I'm only twenty-four. Maybe I need to be closer to thirty, or forty, before I find the yellow lines. Maybe I will never find them at all.

The point is that I keep looking. On my own, in my private time, and through everyone I meet.