The Pagan Heart
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February 2005 Issue
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Church
By Axiom
I sat listening to him as he spoke - up there at the pulpit. His mouth moved, words poured forth, and I heard...nothing. I felt as if I lay underwater - the languid, slow motion of the kelp forests filled my body. Every breath seemed distant and my hands too heavy to lift from where they lay in my lap. My head drooped - not through somnolence, but rather as inertia sapped my energy and left me to sink into the depths. A distant garbled booming noise washed over me, pushing me deeper as it rolled on and on - his voice. The people about me all looked transfixed - part faith, part the thick stifling heat of summer that beat down upon the small church. What did they hear, I wondered, desperate to feel what they felt, know what they knew. To belong. For as long as I can remember I have not belonged. I was the child that adults would engage in patronising conversation only to back up after a while, discomfit and distrust glazing their eyes. The child that other children attacked - fear of the stranger, bolstered by their parents' comments, encouraging them to drive me away from the herd. Blood noses, bruises, tears - these were the coin I took from school as often as not. Aware of things "beyond my age", I understood why they attacked, what fears nibbled at their heels, but such knowledge was cold comfort indeed. I sought refuge in books - which only served to increase the distance between me and my peers - and in my family. There I was lucky indeed. Both my parents are not exactly normal. Their families are unusual, filled with brilliant people and oddball attitudes. Just one more, I had a safe haven from which to explore the world. Reading, study, verbal dueling and debating - these were valued attributes to the people I come from. Independent thought always encouraged - along with the expectation that you had the facts to back up your claims. So the realisation that I did not belong in Church did not fill me with fear but rather the excitement of a puzzle, a challenge to be solved and surpassed. If not Church then where? I had no doubt in the existence of "God" - or something - it was the venue of worship that left me less than thrilled. All my life I had "known" the Divine filled my world. I just didn't know where to go to find others like me - who heard "God" not in the pages of the Bible, or the man preaching in the Church, but elsewhere. So that summer day, after leaving Church, I set God a task. Show me a sign, something that will give me guidance as to where I belong. Afterall, in the Bible God states that S/He/It will always answer those who seek. Well, I was seeking, so I wanted my answer. I reread the Bible. Being the Word of God, so to speak, it made sense to me that the first place to seek confirmation from God about my path would be in those pages. And indeed it was. The first thought to cross my mind as I closed the book was what a great story about those people. Story. I embarked on my voyage of self-discovery carrying that thought with me - the Judeo-Christian book is but a story in my eyes. Filled with historical value, but not my mythos. There is little in there that inspires me on a religious level. It does not speak to my heart or my soul. I also carried with me the realisation that God had spoken to me. If silence had answered my question of God, I would not have had my answer. I am not a Christian, and I do not worship the Christian God. But I do believe in s/he/it - as a facet of the Divine that fills us all. I believe the Divine speaks to us in the voice we are most able to hear. For me, that is not the voice of some Pastor at the pulpit, although for many of my friends it is. It is a voice I hear in my heart, in the wind, in the pages of books or the sound of music. I have heard the voice of God many times - most recently in the tones of my two-year old as she spoke about the unborn baby I lost - the baby she should have had no knowledge of...that is according to conventional beliefs about children. But then, I was never a conventional child - like my mother before me - and neither are my daughters. They hear the Divine, and are able to share that with their family and friends - for I have found my community. I do not know what path my children will walk in their own conversations with the Divine, but I rejoice that I get to watch them stride out into the future, heads unbowed, as my mother did me. |
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