elkaen

I've been thinking a lot about religion the past few days with Easter being on it's way. I am a religious person, but feel everyone's spiritual journey is personal and how ever they travel along the journey is their choice. I have a hard time thinking about how some people can be athiest. I'm not judging that stance, there are many people with very valid points and reasons for thinking that. I just have a hard time understanding it. I look outside with spring begining to bloom and see so much wonder and know there has to be a higher power of some sort. I think any woman who has gone through pregnancy and child birth would have a hard time not believing that some larger force helped that experience happen. It's crazy to think that from 2 single cells an entire human baby is formed. And all the cells that those two create know what to become. A bone cell knowes it is different than a skin cell, an cell designed for the eye, a blood cell. Just stop and think about it, it's amazing.

i just saw a woman the other day thay I met when my youngest was in the NICU (neo-natal intensive care unit). He baby was born way way early and spent the first few months of his life in an isolated room in the NICU. Only doctors and nurses were allowed in to protect him. Teeny, my baby, had an isolet across from his room. So, we talked with Susan and her husband every day while we were there together. I don't know how this little guy could grow up not thinking that someone/thing had a bigger purpose for him to be able to survive the ordeal he went through. (Susan showed me pictures, he's a big bright beautiful 10 month old).

I guess the other reason I so strongly believe in who I call god, you can call the power whatever you want, is that he/she/it is the only reason I am still here. I wanted to kill myself so bad for years on end. I use to suffer from really severe depression (still do, I'm just medicated now). From jr.high until into college everyday was spent thinking of how and when I would do it. I made plans, wrote letters, tried to figure out the best time, place and method. I had intricate plans and was obssesed with it. I remeber even as a small child 2nd/3rd grade wanting to be taken away and just crying because i didn't want to be where i was. It didn't turn to suicide until I learned what that was. Then it was like a light bulb saying "this is the solution I have been looking for." The thing that stopped me from going through it everytime was thinking that there was a higher purpose to my life. that someone had put me on this earth and I needed to fulfill what I was to do here before I could leave. It wasn't being afraid of the consequenses (I don't believe in hell, but that is a different subject). It was just that I kept thinking that I need to accomplish something because that was why I was here. Honestly i am still looking for what that is. But, I am here and learning and trying to figure it out.

I think spirituality is so important. It is the one stabalizing factor in a persons life even if everything else goes to shit, which has happened to me a few times. It is something to center you and hold onto. Spirituality can be found in the woods, in a place of worship, in books, other people and especially children. You don't have to be a member of a specific religion. But, for me I do. i need a sense of community. But, I need that community to be open to the fact that not everyone thinks the same, that there are different paths for different people and that effort to convert people to your specific codes or ways of believing robs them of their journey and is demeaning and not Christ, Buddha, Mohammad, Krishna, Zoraster, Bahaullah, or Abraham like (place any messanger/teacher of god here).

What will you do, where will you go on your spiritual journey today? Maybe you will go to the icecream shop. I think chocolate peanut butter icecream is devine!