On Sheep and Goats

I suppose with the coming of a new year the time has come for me to make some explanations. I have been avoiding doing so because I feared such explanations could be painful to those I love and care for deeply. For this reason I have been avoiding doing this. The other main reason I have been hesitant to explain myself is not my desire or intent to challenge the values and beliefs of others. I will to the best of my ability try not to do this. I realize I will likely fail but I must make the effort at any rate.

Firstly, I must say that I am not caught in the throes of some petty juvenile rebellion. Rebellion may be the right term for what is going on with me in the opinion of some out there but it is far from juvenile and I find it offensive that anybody could possibly make such an assumption about me and my motivations. Another concern I have is that there may be those who believe that anybody who turns away from a strict religious system is somehow simply seeking to justify bad behaviors, or rather avoid the guilt inherent in engaging in forbidden activities. I find this idea highly offensive and disingenuous. I suppose it is necessary for those who persist in their beliefs to try and find an explanation that is accessible and understandable and simple. I suppose that if there are any now reading this of that mindset these words are only lost to them because they likely feel I am guilty of self deception. Whatever, I have too long worried about the perceptions and opinions of others. That is not to say that I am not concerned with the feelings and sensibilities of others. I am. I always have been. I have however realized that I need to be able to be honest with myself. Unfortunately my efforts to live a life that is true to who and what I am have the unintended side effect of causing pain to others. I am truly sorry for any pain or heartache my behavior may cause anybody. However, I cannot live my life with eyes tightly shut just to avoid causing others pain.

I am also greatly offended by any thought that the military, or military service, has somehow ruined me. There may be those who think I have picked up some bad habits due to unworthy associations that I have only due to my military service. I assure anybody who has this idea that the vast majority of people with whom I associate in the military are strongly religious and exemplary in the maintenance of their religion, in spite of, or perhaps even because of their service.

My issues are extremely fundamental. The easiest way for me to put it I believe will most likely be the most difficult for others to accept. I have no faith. Religion, or at least the concept of religion with which I have the most experience requires great faith. There is no real tangible support for any one religious philosophy. There are various things, small and great, that can be interpreted, with faith, to support certain religious ideas, but without faith all it really becomes is a mingling of mythology and superstition. To me faith has always been a difficult process. It has been a conscious decision to believe something in spite of the mental concerns I have with them. To me faith has always had to be a conscious effort to believe. I am still capable of this conscious effort, but I have become increasingly exhausted with the process. The western system is based on questioning and searching. To me faith has always meant not asking certain questions. Beyond that it has meant a fear of what the answers to forbidden questions might be. I have always struggled that I have a mind that will not stop questioning. I have grown tired of trying to contain it.

I realize that to those whose belief persists, I probably seem extremely arrogant. I can understand this perception. There are minds vastly superior to mine that are able to accept faith and belief. I have been extremely frustrated because I have tried to find a way to join my intellect with religion and all the resources that have been available to me have basically been written from the perspective that there are some things that are inexplicable from a religious point of view, and that one must simply have the faith to ignore these things and hopefully they will eventually be sorted out. I find myself incapable of doing this. I have spent my entire adult life and perhaps longer living this way and it has been a constant struggle. I have to often felt like I did not belong among the faithful. I tried so hard to be what I believed I was supposed to be. Inside though, I was always empty. I struggled so long to understand in what way I was unworthy. I wondered why I do not feel the way everybody else either truly feels, or at least acts like they feel. I went on wearing my mask and hoping the outward illusion would eventually become the internal reality. Through the years the weight of my dishonesty and deception became painful for me to bear.

Again I must return to faith. Faith is where my failure lies. I have an incredibly difficult time with the concept of a loving God who wants his children to be happy. I have a hard time reconciling the realities of human existence with the concept of some divinely benevolent being. I cannot understand how it is the weakest and most vulnerable, the most worthy of God’s love, who suffer the most. And truly many little children suffer. I have seen too much intolerance and bigotry justified on religious grounds. Religion has far too often been justification for oppression and tyranny. I struggle with the idea that a God who loves all his children equally, would for some arbitrary reason put some in his children in a position where they know only waste and abundance, when so many others have nothing.

Anyway, I fear that I am not saying what I want to and basically any point I may have been trying to make has been lost. I just want anybody who has any questions at all about me and my decisions to realize that there is nothing I have undertaken that I have done so lightly. Actually, I take that back. There have been many things I have done in life solely because that is what you are supposed to do. I don’t feel it. I never have. I do not want to perpetuate something that for me has always required a grand deception. I need to face life without the mask.