This I Used To Believe

One of my favorite radio programs, This American Life, borrowed this week's theme from another great radio project, NPR's revived "This I Believe" essay series (originally hosted in the 1950s by acclaimed journalist, Edward R. Murrow). "This I Believe" engages people to write, share, and discuss core values that guide their daily lives (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4538138). Like This American Life, "This I Believe" is so interesting because it simply allows people to speak. Our own words are fascinating in a way that is unique to radio and media, more generally.

This American Life's theme twist was "This I Used To Believe," featuring four stories about lost, abandoned, and disposed beliefs. I was wrapped up--I loved it. So much so that I wanted to write my own:

I used to believe in impossibility.

I used to believe that certain realities were so unlikely, so remote, so strange that they could not be. I was more convinced about inevitability of certain realities: I will always feel this way about this. This is just who I am. I will always know this to be part of my life. I also believed this about certain aspects of the world: People are fundamentally this way. Religion and politics are in perpetual conflict. Some people are so invested in their beliefs that they will never change. Since, I've learned better.

Throughout my early life I was an aspiritual person. God had a benign presence at home. Both my parents were God-believing but neither were religiously observant. From time to time my mom remarked about God being within me or God being Love. I expected my father to pray for strength and courage during difficult moments or before sports events. My few church visits on major Christian holidays felt accidental. My family had good values even though we appeared "secular."

High school was a particularly explorative time. Over four years I became increasingly resentful of suburbia's pretensions. I sought to form my own personality in a place devoid of one itself. It was no surprise, then, I defined myself by determining who I was not. In 9th grade, I was a passionate atheist resisting God-fearing Christianity. After all, I was a 14. I didn't fear much, even the jaw-dropping expressions to my dry, sardonic (usually bombastic) responses to prostelyzation. One woman, in particular, put me into her and God's attention. She reasoned with me almost everyday during the school-year arguing for God's logical existence. I always had a clever reply--"when speaking to God, exactly which direction should I look? (Looking up.) A little more to the right? To the left?" My counterpart always laughed. Really hard. It's possible that my flippant replies were funny but these days I'm convinced that comfort in her saved-soul peppered my jokes to make them much funnier.

During my remaining three high-school years I became less defiant as I grew into my own. I continued to struggle with faith when secretly dating my first girlfriend who was a Fellowship of Christian Athletes leader. My areligious parents revealed to me their different beliefs in chance encounters. I earned Student of the Year awards for Philosophy and Comparative Religion my senior year. And by the time I entered college I declared myself a secular humanist.

Five years later marks a true evolution. I became more curious about my mom's intuitive feelings about energy and reincarnation, and I began to seek out explanations. T'ai Chi meditation came next, then, I was able to learn about Christianity, Taoism, Confucianism, Shintoism, and Buddhism in history and theology courses. Upon graduation I had a coherent set of values, still without a religion or spirituality to call my own. Today, I consider myself a deeply spiritual person, possessing "many faiths," as a Buddhist practitioner.

I had to find my own way to spirituality and eventually spirituality found me. I'm no longer naive enough to believe that I will always be this way or that it is necessary for me to be my true self. Interestingly, five years ago, I may have been offended were anyone to suggest that I would become who I am. At last, I may "lose my religion" in another five years. I don't know. A reminder that life is a humbling experience. In the same way my outlook has changed. I can be anything. More accurately, I am everything. As we are of the nature to change, I may soon discover which "anything" into which I may transform. Change is not only possible but it is who we are.

This belief is the source of my optimism and the anchor of my realism. Today, when asked whether I can believe in something, I reply: "It's not beyond my imagination." I remember "inclusiveness," one of the Six Paramitas, which encourages me to open my heart to any and all possibility. So that my heart deepens, mind expands, and eyes widen, for strength and courage. Within these visions lies the universe's beautiful complexity.

Please enjoy the beautiful day.