I've kept many journals in various forms. Often, when years later I look back, I marvel at the level of foolishness or outright delusion that I was suffering from. I can't help wondering if this one will turn out the same.
Although the purpose of this hand-written notebook may change in time, as of this writing, it has a rather grandiose dedication - illuminating to myself the spiritual path that I must walk.
I was raised in and around a variety of Protestant churches, most notably Lutheran and Baptist. As a young adult suffering from undiagnosed depression, I sought fulfillment as a student of Jehovah's Witnesses: a faithful, Bible-toting fundamentalist; and a seeker in the New Age Movement.
After beginning drug therapy for the depression, during one of my most conservative Christian periods, I began to question notions of Predestination and damnation for the unbeliever. How could a Divine Loving Creator allow a man or woman to suffer eternity of isolation and pain on the basis that they found Christian theology unconvincing, particularly when it was entirely up to Him who would find it convincing in the first place? The concept left me cold.
More to the point, what kind of faith could I put in a Savior who was less forgiving and compassionate than myself?
Still, though the "Christian" dogma had been tarnished in my eyes, I didn't lose the need to feel that I could touch something beyond mundane daily life. I began practicing witchcraft and reading Tarot, though never subscribing to any particular system.
But over time that faded as well. I observed the holidays less and less, perform ritual and spells less frequently, because I wasn't really sure what I believed about them or whether I believed in them at all.
So a couple of years ago, I decided to undergo a complete overhaul. I would strip everything down, admit that I knew nothing, and from the ground up, assemble my beliefs. In the end, my faith might be small, and in small things, but it would be firm, and I would
know that I truly believed it.
From admitting that I knew nothing, it was with great speed that I took my first baby steps. "I think, therefore I am." I believed that I existed. From that I concluded that I had no good reason to doubt the existence of the physical universe, considering the evidence of my senses.
But what about that which was beyond the ability of my senses to perceive? What about God?
A philosophy "primer" I had read offered an argument in favor of the existence of God on the basis of there needing to be a first cause. I was disappointed that the author didn't address the model of an infinite universe. A universe that was infinite in time as well as space would require no "first cause."
I began to examine the implications of a truly infinite universe - a universe that had no limits, neither of its past, nor its future, nor its present location, extending in all ways forever. In such a universe , everything that could possibly exist, no matter how improbable,
would exist at some point. This meant that at least one "god" existed - either as the first cause of a limited universe, (not necessarily a conscious entity) or as a being so vastly beyond human understanding of power and intellect that to us it (they?) could only be thought of as "gods".
And here is where I hit another roadblock. I took a detour. (Indeed it was a bit of backtracking to some of the Christian apologetics I learned a decade ago.) In regards to the universe - whether created or whether eternal, there is such a high degree of order throughout, that I am convinced of a conscious Mind at work in it. (Although my dear friend Diane states that there is sufficient level of chaos to indicate a committee.)
