Losing(and Finding)My Religion
I’m not a fan of organized religion. I don’t go to church unless forced to do so by circumstances. There have been times when I was pretty certain God didn’t exist, and there are days, even now, when the jury is still out on that. I know there are a lot of people who find solace in organized religion, and I know that there churches and pastors and religious laypeople out there who do a lot of good, but it has just never worked for me. I don’t know if I’m too cynical, or too skeptical, or if I’ve been burned too often by people who claimed to speak religion but really spoke hypocrite. I just don’t buy the whole organized religion thing. For me, it just doesn’t work.
Given that I’m not much of a fan of anything connected with religion except, in some cases, their architecture, you’d probably imagine that I’m quite spiritually impoverished and drifting without any moorings. If that is your thought, you couldn’t be further from the truth. Although I don’t have a brick and mortar church, and I don’t speak to a flesh and blood pastor, I do have a cathedral of sorts, and I do talk to someone or something. Sometimes, not often, I think someone or something talks back.
I first found my cathedral in the worst year of my life, the one I still call “the dark year”. When I was 24 I entered a dark tunnel called clinical depression. I didn’t care about anything. I lost my job, there were days when I didn’t eat, and I probably would have killed myself, except I couldn’t be motivated to care enough to do it. After years of dealing with a variety of issues, I’d had it, I was done. The darkness was pulling me under and I didn’t care enough to raise my hand for help.
During that time, one of the things I did often was spend hours sitting at the window of the small apartment in which I lived, watching what I called my “Monet Trees”. Through the screen on my window the trees across the park from my apartment looked pixelated and rather like a Monet painting. As the year went on and I sank deeper, the trees grew and changed color, then lost their leaves and drew stark lines against the sky. I’d walk by the trees on my way to the library, which was the one place I did go, and scuff my shoes in their leaves, and see that things could grow and change. In a strange way, at a time when it all seemed hopeless, the trees gave me hope. They were still striving and growing and living. If they were doing it, maybe I could too.
It took a lot of work and some help but eventually I did get better and I started living again. I moved to Northern Michigan, and I found solace in the lakes and the rivers and the beautiful scenery. I’d walk along the beach of Lake Michigan and think about how small my problems seemed against the immensity of the lake. On occasion I’d write my problems in the sand and let the lake wash them away. I’d drive along the winding roads in the Fall and let the beauty of the leaves feed my soul. I’d scamper around in the snow with the dogs because my Mom who was standing at the window had cancer, and me being a cold and wet idiot made her laugh. The outdoors soothed a part of me that nothing else could quite reach. I didn’t even have to experience the beauty first hand. Just seeing it through a window was enough.
The outdoors became the place where I went to ask the big questions. “Why me?” when I had to have heart surgery. “Why her?” when the hospice nurse told us my mother only had days to live. “What next” when I wasn’t sure which way I wanted to go with my life. I sought guidance, and even if it came only from my own brain and my own heart, I got it. Maybe it was just that being in the outdoors quieted the chatter of my mind and my heart and let me hear the still, small voice that spoke the truth, but I found the sharpest clarity in the moments when I contemplated the outdoors.
I’m not a religious person.
I’m not entirely certain I believe in the conventional idea of God.
I do, however, get the moment that motivates people to say Thank You when they’ve seen a particularly beautiful sunrise. I understand why hunters often say a prayer or thank the animal they’ve just taken for its sacrifice. I identify with those who love the cool, crisp stillness of an autumn morning or the smooth, unblemished whiteness of an early morning snow.
I’m not religious.
But I do have religion.
Can I get an Amen?
20 Comments
Jules
Amen.
I’m not religious either. Up in the mountains is as close as I come to stepping inside a church for my own reasons. I can find peace there; the clamor inside my head settles down and once in a while I feel closer to something bigger. Those trees and hills are all the church I need.
Bonneville Mariner
Amen, sister! A beautiful post.
Wolfy
How about a double Amen??
You’ve very eloquently addressed a dificult to communicate feeling many of us share about the Outdoors. There is a deeper reason to walk outside – anywhere – than simply to look at the weeds. We draw a sense of being from the intricacy that is the Outdoor World. At least I do. And it sounds like you do, too.
Wolfy
Gabe Davis
You may not believe in God but he does believe in you. I also find being alone outdoors is the place I am more in tune with what you call a small voice, I call the holy spirit. I believe you have mistaken church and organized religion as a place you should be able to find God. However in fact a church is a building full of people. Your relationship with God is personal. Once you find faith that your existance is not just an biological accident but you are a being with a soul who was created by a power beyond our understanding, just running around living your life will seem silly. This is where “Organized Religion” comes in. I have been a Christian for a long time and I looked for a church full of like minded people to help me do good in the world and to support me when I was down and for me to support when things are not great for them. It took me until I was 34 years old to find that place in the United Methodist Church. After a lot of dissapointment my determination finally led me to a place that I feel at home. We meet every Sunday morning to discuss, study, and debate God. We all don’t agree on everything but we do agree that we should follow Jesus’s lead and do good instead of harm. We pool our resources to fill our food pantry for the poor in our comunity, and support youth programs like the boy scouts. I hope you don’t give up you search for God, he is there. If I am wrong and there is no God then I have lived my life turning away from sins such as adultery, thievery, and blasphemy and looking to be of service to people in trouble not only physically but spiritually. Not a bad thing if you think about it I mean I am truly happy. But if you are wrong and there is a God……..You may be more dissapointed when you pass away than when you were alive. Loved the post you, are a talented writer with a powerful brain. I hope you give God another shot and instead of letting the actions of people sway you, look at it yourself, logically. It is no more of a stretch to believe that the complexity of the universe was created by an intelligence than that it happen by accident. If you look at a impressive machine that works perfectly you would not say wow it is amazing how all those parts just flew together on there own and now it is a machine. You would wonder who made it and why. Time to ask who and why…. your friend the Envirocapitalist.(Gabe)
Arthur
I have a big problem with organized religion as well, Kristine. But I’ve found that being in the woods is an excellent way to experience life and experience God and what he has created.
I definitely don’t attend a brick and mortar church, but I think that my religious experiences – those that are experienced outside, or while watching my daughter being born – are way more beneficial than spending a day in a building full of hypocrites and clicks.
Anyway, I’m glad the outdoors, and getting outside, provided you with a means to heal. I can completely understand.
The Hunter's Wife
Beautifully written Kristine. For most of us it seems we find our connection with God our own way. Sometimes when and how we need it most.
Blessed
This is beautiful Kristine. As you know, I do attend a “brick and mortar” church and I do believe in God and I do participate in “organized religion.” But I’ll freely admit that I find my closest connection with God when I’m alone in the outdoors talking to him, and oftentimes it’s the hugeness of the outdoors that reminds me that my problems are really not all that big.
Lon S. Cohen
Great post. I have share some similar experiences as you, depressions, finding solace and inspiration in nature. I don’t think anyone has to apologize for finding spirituality in the natural world rather than in organized churches and temples. The world is more beautiful and uncomplicated without organized religion, or politics, or big businesses, really.
Debi
What a beautiful post! I am totally with you on this one. My moments of sharpest clarity — the ones in which I truly hear my inner voice — have all come when I’m out in nature.
NorCal Cazadora
Amen!
I’ve found God since becoming a hunter, and he is both everything all the religions believe him to be, and none of the above, if that makes any sense (which it probably doesn’t, but it would take a whole extra blog post to explain what I mean).
But like you, “out there” is where I find him. He’s easier to see when you remove the clutter of cities and civilization.
Ben G.
Kristine- Amen! What a moving story.
I to have struggled with God and sometimes I still struggle with the concept. My wife and I go in circles about the subject ever so often.
Every day I get to be out in the woods or on the lake are total bliss for me. Even taking a walk in the park with my wife, son & dog just make me enjoy life that much more. I wish I had more time to be out in the wilderness, but so is life.
Matt
This is one of the best blog posts I’ve read in a long time.
Praise be to Jesus for giving you the desire and ability to write it!
the suburban bushwacker
‘Can I get an Amen?’
Yep
SBW
Terry Scoville
Comment
Amen, I too find solace in nature and do not believe in an entity called God. Just doesn’t work for me. What does work for me is a spirituality which comes from being in wild places. Thank you so much for sharing and writing a beautiful post. This is the real stuff of life.
Emily
Kristine, this was so moving and well written. The amazing thing about God is that I believe he has “set eternity in the hearts of men.” And I think being out in his creation allows us to catch glimpses of this.
I honestly do not find solace in organized religion. But I do find solace in a relationship with a God who was willing to step into eternity – Creator entering his own creation, clothing himself with humanity in order to save it. If that is not love, I don’t know what is.
Man has made religion often into list of “do this” to be saved. However, God in his desire for a relationship with us simply says, “done”
Your friend – Emily
Phillip
Comment
Amen and beautiful thoughts, Kristine.
Call it God or god or whatever else you want to call it. That’s really what it comes to… it’s not about taking the definition from a book of revisionist mythology or from someone who claims you must go through him (or her) to reach “heaven”. It’s about knowing “right” when you feel it, and letting it move you to live by those convictions.
My exposure to Nature has shown me that there is a greater “something”, but I defy anyone to paint me a picture of it, or write its story… much less give it a name, a beard, or breasts. It’s bigger than that, more important and more powerful. You’re not going to contain it in a chapel anymore than you’ll fit it into a cathedral.
The outdoors is all the splendor I need to see, and it doesn’t require me to pray to it or give it my money, or cede responsibility for my life and actions in exchange for some promise of “salvation”, and I have no desire for “everlasting glory”. When I die, I’ll die like the deer and the pine… return to earth and nourish new life. There’s my eternal life.
Nothing is forever. That’s something Nature has taught me that no Bible or Koran will ever confess. And everything that happens doesn’t necessarily carry a deeper meaning, much less indicate some kind of “divine plan.” It’s just cause and effect… a breeze makes a ripple, a ripple makes a wave, the wave swamps my boat, I drown.
Living righteous lives and caring for your fellow man are pretty self-evident, and we shouldn’t need books and psalms to tell us that. If we don’t live right, we don’t live long because we need our pack, or our herd to survive. Maybe it goes a step or two beyond mere survival, but living well is its own reward… and the truth of that can be reflected in the religious scriptures of every faith. That’s the natural truth behind manmade religion.
The other stuff… the buildings and the offerings and the power plays and the surrender of self-determination… that’s us trying to cast nature in our own image, and I can live without that.
I mean no slight to those who believe otherwise. For those who find happiness and meaning in your faith, more power to you. I’m sincerely happy if you’re sincerely happy. May the god of your choice bless you and keep you.
john wooldridge
Comment
Kristine,
Wow what a posting!It is not often that somebody else’s thoughts or writings have such a profound affect on me and make me look deep inside myself. Thank you for such an honest, thoughtful and well written piece. I hope that you don’t mind if I continue to follow your blog.
Best regards,
John
Christopher
Organized religion is (usually) a set of methods intended to help an individual attain enlightenment. Religion helps simplify concepts down to something that people can easily grasp and hold on to. All of the rules of religion, such as praying, tithing, Sabbath rituals, and feeling devotion to a deity, will help strengthen your spiritual “muscles” and in turn strengthen your ability to experience those whispers that you hear/feel amongst nature.
Spirituality is not religion. You do not need religion to grow spiritually, but it can help accelerate your development. Different religions cater to different types of people. If you were to take the time to really study religion (objectively), you would see that they are all basically different paths to the same goal. All of the religions have their own quirks and sidetracks but they will basically get you there if you devote yourself to their teachings.
Your specific mention of going to the outdoors with the big questions can be explained. There is a reason why you feel what you feel out there. Seek out the older parts of nature that have endured a great time, and your sense of “God” will be stronger. In many places it will feel as though it is literally wafting in the air.
Consider studying religion not to become a member but to discover the underlying teaching. For example, creating a feeling of devotion in your heart will cause an increase in spiritual strength in many ways. Learning to quiet your mind and focus with your spirit (e.g., prayer, meditation) will help you gain greater control over your body and consequently help you increase your spiritual strength. For me, working on increasing spiritual strength has proven to be very beneficial and rewarding; religion aside.
There are many writings that can teach you the basic, underlying, almost scientific principles of what you have expressed in this article. One author that explained things simply, without leaning towards religion, was Rudolf Steiner. Search Amazon for his book “How to know higher worlds”.
Hang in there. The fact that you can feel that closeness while in nature means you still have a soft heart and good potential for growth. There is a path of spiritual strength ahead of you if you choose it.
Le Loup
Comment There is a spirit in the woods, but I do not believe in god. The Great Spirit is about as close as I can get to believing in anything of that kind. It is more of a feeling when your in the woods, it seems more substantial than just believing in something that you can’t see and can’t feel.
This spirit does not give life nor take it away, it just is.
I like your blog.
Regards, Le loup.
http://woodsrunnersdiary.blogspot.com
Gabe Davis
I love it when someone slights you, then ends the comment with “I mean no slight” like it takes back the negative remark they just made about you.