strands of the universe

A quickly close but newish friend and I were hanging out the other night when he asked me if I'm Christian. And I had to answer that I don't know. Because I don't, but I wish I did. Although even when I did go to church every Sunday and was the good little do-be I never called myself Christian. I was Episcopalian. Calling oneself "Christian" tends to elicit thoughts of non-denominational churches: hundreds of people lifting their hands to the sky while swaying and yelling "Praise the Lord," and preaching to random strangers about being "saved." I hate that shit. I know I'm not that.

I don't know what I am because I have a hard time dealing with the fact that I'll never know if I naturally believe in God, or if I can't shake the feeling that God exists because I was raised with God. ("raised with God" sounds like we grew up together, like you'll find photos of the two of us, age 5, arms wrapped around each other's waists with chocolate ice cream smeared on our faces. Except one of us is corporeal and the other is just a short, wispy ghost-like person with a white beard and the sun glinting off of "His" young face.) Although other people who were raised in the church don't seem to have a problem with being agnostic or atheist. Part of me wonders if I'm still being the good kid by believing in God. Even if I were actually an atheist I couldn't tell my moms. My mom is in divinity school and very into it, while her wife is an actual working priest. I mentioned thinking about converting to Judaism once and my mom quickly dismissed it by saying, "Why would you move backwards?" Which is insulting on so many levels.

I didn't really think about church that much until I moved to Chicago a year ago. There's something nostalgic about working at a Catholic school. It smells like home to me. The words are the same, people are mostly similar. They sound like the adults I grew up around, except now I'm one of the adults. It's fucking weird to be one of the adults.

We're redesigning the schools' website right now and I'm in charge of writing the Faith section from scratch. For whatever reason there was very little about this on the site before, and I then learned that most schools don't put up a faith section. They're all very excited to call themselves Catholic, Christian, Jewish, (insert other major religions here that tend to have schools), but no one wants to specify what that means. When I first started I was a bit scared because I thought it'd be too conservative for me, when in reality it's moderate and erring on the liberal side. I think it's good that people know this.

I sat down with all of the religion teachers and talked for two hours to try and get an idea of what I need to write, how they describe it. I left feeling fulfilled and thoughtful, but also confused and frustrated. I don't know how I'm going to frame all of that (and we barely scratched the surface) in a way that outsiders will understand. I guess that's how faith/spirituality/religion work.

I'm not sure what to make of the universe, but I still like it. I think it'd all be much easier if everyone acknowledged that we're all interconnected. I think that's what God really is, these little gold strands of the universe that connect us to one other.

Oh, and I have no clue if my friend is Christian, but I suspect not.