Religion fascinates me. This interest is recent, however. I used to dread opening my Faith First text book in middle school. I only went to church to be rewarded with brunch afterwards. Lately, though, I've found that learning about faith can be life-transforming. Although I was baptized and raised Catholic, and I still go to Mass every Sunday, I still get stuck on some pretty major parts of Christianity. I find myself saying, "Hold up. You expect me to believe that God sent his human son to Earth? And then he performed all these miracles, and then died, and then Resurrected? And that had something to do with sin? And now you're telling me that those wafers are actually his physical body, just because you said some special chant?" I don't feel comfortable reciting the Nicene Creed - it makes me feel like I'm in some creepy cult.
But there is some value to this thing called faith. Psychologists have found that people who practice a religion are much more likely to describe themselves as happy. I think if I just focus on the most important parts of religion, it can really help me keep things in perspective. Addicts are taught that the only way to overcome addiction is to develop a strong sense of one's "higher being," as in God, Yahweh, Brahma, etc. Gerald G. May wrote an entire book entitled Addiction and Grace, which theorizes that every human has an addiction, because addiction is defined as anything that keeps us from loving God completely. O.K., so what the heck does it mean to love God? Well, Christianity says that the only way to reciprocate God's love is to love those to whom we have physical access - ourselves and everyone around us. Here's the transformational part - when I'm freaking out about something, this gives me an out. If I just convince myself that my problems (addictions) are secondary to "loving God," then they seem much smaller, and therefore much more manageable.
Is it just me, or is that just a slightly more sappy-sounding (a.k.a. Western) way of saying exactly what Krishna is saying in the Gita?
