When I was in the fifth grade, I attended a church service with my mother. We went to church every Wednesday and every other Sunday, so such an event wasn’t unusual, however on this particular day I decided to opt out of the children’s program I often attended, and stay in the main service after worship hour. It was a mark of adulthood, as I was now mature enough to choke down the Evangelical service without all the frills and snack time that came with the K-8 program. And at this particular service in mid-January, after the hour of songs that cheered on the high-and-mighty (“Our god is an awesome god, he reigns!” sang the worship leader, followed by some serious electric guitar shreds), we talked about our newly elected president. Not only that, but we talked about how President Barack Obama, our 44th president, was the antichrist.
Yes, the antichrist. There was an old man in a tailored and dry cleaned grey suit, standing before me on a high pedestal in a large auditorium-style service center, telling 11-year-old me that the man who was now running her country was actually the devil reincarnated (or something of that nature, you can Google it if the topic of the antichrist so interests you). And while you might hear that and think, “That must have been terrifying, traumatizing!” My response was less vehement and more reassuring. I was certain, in that moment, that religion was a lie and there never was, and never will be, a god.
This wasn’t a sudden decision, my often critical view of religion began far before that, sitting in Sunday school wondering why nothing ever seemed to add up. If Evangelicals are loving people, why don’t they love and accept everyone? Why fight the Crusades if violence was, by standard definition of the bible, never the answer? These are the sort of questions that muddied my elementary school mind and often made it impossible to sit through 2 hours of service without feeling dizzied by the information I was receiving. But Barack Obama, the antichrist? That took me to a whole other level of misunderstanding. Certainly, the people surrounding me couldn’t have believed it. But that was the worst part; they did. And flash forward to the year 2016, I was equally as disbelieving and dumbfounded as I had been the previous 7 years, before I knew a lick about politics, or social order, or any of the actual issues facing the world that couldn’t be found in an issue of "National Geographic, Kids!"
But something changed, and there’s been a spark in the dismal darkness of my unfaithful heart these past few weeks that’s had me itching to latch onto some sort of definitive belief system. I’ll accredit the miserable politics that have underscored 2017 thus far for part of it, as the thought of the world coming to an end has certainly triggered any and all of my existential questions. But also having religion, or a belief in the greater something up there, presented in a less-abrasive fashion, has had an effect on my potential search for faith. Not having religion served to me on a silver platter of “speaking tongues” and accusing political leaders of literally being Satan (and not in the funny way that my father might do as he files his taxes), has certainly encouraged me to find my own holy grail.
I have a co-worker who, in conjunction with the transition into 2017, set out three New Year’s Resolutions, including some combination of having fun with life while we still have it and it still has potential to be fun, and also to “get it right with the Lord.” Whoever he is, whatever he stands for, there needs to be that sense of “Whatever happened after this, it’s gonna be alright.” Such an ideology was not only reassuring in a way that the Evangelical “Pay your offering or GO TO HELL,” was not, but sent me back into the world around me with a brighter, lighter outcome.
I mean, the weight of the world is really heavy, and it can be hard for a naive, nervous 18-year-old such as myself to spend every day thinking, “I can’t wait to get through my 'Twilight Zone' life only to find that waiting for me after the show closes is an infinite and eternal tunnel of complete darkness!!” So instead I can think, “Come the end of the road, I know that all the times I’ve left the remainder of my change in the tip jar at Dunkin Donuts, even when they give me the low-fat blueberry muffin instead of the regular as if to imply that perhaps my health would appreciate a lower calorie choice, will, in fact, result in a happy ending!” Or, less specifically, the universe will give me a gold star for being a good noodle. There’s nothing wrong with faith or with religion, and all political agendas and biases and religious afterbirths aside, religion can bring people to a greater peace with themselves and the world around them. And while I won’t be seen fighting a personal crusade any time soon or rejecting Halloween because of its hedonistic qualities, I hopefully will see the world a little brighter with just a little bit of faith.