I think that my mother has had a unique journey with spirituality. Why do I use the word unique? Well, this word came to mind because of the events that have taken place in her life that could have changed her for worse, brought her closer to or further from god, united her with religion and or taken her belief away, and through it all whether any of the above is true, the one thing that has remained a constant is the belief she has in herself.
After interviewing my mother about religion I learned something I wasn’t expecting to have a light shine on, and that is the fact that the one person who will always be there for you is you. This is a saying I have heard throughout my life, that yourself is the one who holds you when you cry, yourself is the one who fights the sickness when you’re sick, and yourself is the one who sews the broken heart pieces back together, but what stood out to me during this conversation with my mom was when she told me “I belong to the religion of myself.” She said it half jokingly followed up with a laugh, yet this sentence holds so much sincerity for me. When I asked her the basic question of ‘Would you consider yourself to being to a particular religion?” Of course the normal answer would be yes or no or “I grew up this or that and now..” And so when she replied with the religion of herself I was pleasantly surprised with a unique answer. She said
I belong to the religion of myself. Of my immediate family, my daughter, and myself. That is a really big meaning and muscle for my daily energy. I do think because I was born catholic if someone were to ask me my denomination I would say catholic. I consider myself a liberal thinker and I pray to my daughter.
When I asked my mom what religion means to her I was told in an adjective of feeling. She said that “Religion means to me a feeling of comfort.” I find that when religion is described as something it makes you feel rather than a textbook definition of itself, you can grasp what it truly means to be religious in a sense that you might not if you are fronted with what exactly you are supposed to learn from that religion instead of what it makes you feel. My mom went on to say
“If I should need something for peace of mind or if my heart needs extra special care from above, I would call on the Lord.”
It is common knowledge that at times religion can spark controversy and divulge into something that religion was never intended to do or be. When religion sparks something negative inside of us, it goes against what the very basis of religion calls for. Jesus wanted our following of him to be done in love and light and repentance, and for no other reasons. My mom said something very true that “All the wars in the world are pretty much all fought over religion. It's not money or gender identity, it's not we want make our homes into adobe and you want to upgrade to brick. It’s mostly who’s your god?” And when I asked if she views religion in a positive or negative light she replied “I view religion in a positive light when I agree. That doesn’t sound very unconditional, but I don’t view it in a positive light when it is solidly close- minded and not thinking of the human race, and the world, and the health of gender equality. I have mixed feelings. I believe it in a positive light when I am thinking about it, but when I listen to the news it’s very unmoving and un-nerving and rattles me.” I think this answer was raw and more truthful than most would be willing to admit- just another of the trillion reasons I love my mother. The fact that when she personally envisions religion and belief it is positive and only begins to tarnish when she looks at how others use and or portray religion, exemplifies the fact that religion is often weaponized to separate us rather than bring us together as Jesus had intended and she recognizes this. “I think of the negative ramifications of Orthodox keepers, the ones that are solaced in it throughout their every second of their every day day. This be dangerous to our societies and world, everything needs a balance which I why I tend to think Buddhism is quite gorgeous.” To which I transitioned into asking her how much or what she knows about other religions, “Buddhism seems to me like it encompasses the world. It seems warm to me. I don’t think I could say any scriptures or know the language, but I do feel when I think of Buddhism, I feel an all encompassing, nonjudgmental, anybody welcome, come I will feed you, a very nice gorgeous feeling.”
I would say that the entirety of our lives is a journey, and a spiritual one of that. I say this because as we live and grow up, we learn new things about ourselves, about others, and about the world, and it is through this knowledge that gain introspect as to who we are and who we are is the very fundamental question that philosophers have been trying to answer since the beginning. As children we are so curious as to what made that sound, or what this or that will taste like, but as we get older and wiser, with all that new found knowledge I mentioned above, our curiosity only enlarges. Socrates himself said “The more we know, the more we know, that we don’t know.” In relation, I asked my mom if her initial view of religion has changed as she’s grown and she said her “View of religion has deepened because as you get older you become more wise and not less curious. I personally am more curious because I find myself thinking more about when I look in the sky and heaven and I think about it deeper. It means more now and I now think I am blessed instead of lucky.”
My mom was in a deathly tubing accident when I was ten. She hit a tree and fractured her skull. I have always known how I have felt about this incident but I have never asked her what she felt until this interview. I questioned her about whether or not she felt any sort of connection
to religion or god or a spirit when she was balancing on that tipping point of life and death. I really just wanted to know if the severity of an accident calls for a more severe connection to god. “After my accident I felt extremely lucky, religious people say blessed rather than lucky, and now looking in Christianity’s shoes (she works for a Christian family and is immersed in this religion on a daily basis), I feel blessed. I think I was blessed by something or someone that night when I got into the accident. I don’t know exactly why my life was spared. I did not pray or thank god or speak to or hear him speak to me. At that point I just felt lucky and fortunate. Looking back on it as a 56 year old woman I feel slightly different, that there has been something guarding me from severe tragedy.” When she mentioned that she feels there has been “something” guarding her throughout her life, naturally I was curious to know what or who exactly she thinks it is that has been doing the guarding so I asked if she thinks she has some sort of purpose. If something is guarding her what does she think or if she thinks there is a reason it’s guarding her? "I didn't think I was going to live a long life and I arrived at 56 and that’s long. I don’t know why I thought I wasn’t going to live a long life, and I look back at my decades I think perhaps my purpose is to care. Not just a caregiver but I care. I might not be the best of anything- best mom, friend, daughter, neighbor, wife, but I feel in my own self, if I were to write my own eulogy, I think I care. My purpose is to care about the earth, the climate, senior citizens, and children.”
I think that my mom has had more of a “spiritual” journey than she might be aware of. And by saying this I am now reflecting on that, I actually think that we all do. I think she has canoed on her river of life and most of the time the current has been flowing toward her, making her journey a little more challenging, a little more rich, a little more interesting. I think her river,
by whatever power above, was constructed to be the perfect balance of flowing, coming, and going, of calm and ripples. I think these ripples are what have created her into what she needed to be to raise me into who I am supposed to be. I am thankful for the nature of her river, for it has created a tributary that is my life. I hope my spiritual journey and my river continue to flow together as beautifully as hers has.