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Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Self-Expose


I have been on an over-long hiatus since starting this blog due to my enrollment into Michigan State University. I decided to return to school and restart my life, following my passion and the path that I believe has been set before me.

The transition has been interesting, stressful, but well worth it. My absence has been due to my academic workload as a double major in Religious Studies and Arabic, as well as now being a single full-time mom. Hopefully, now that I have learned the new routine, I will have more time to give to this blog.

As a re-introduction, I have decided to post a paper I wrote for an awesome Religion class that I took over the summer. It is basically an expose of myself and how myth affects my life. I hope you enjoy it and I welcome and comments and questions. Thank you for reading.

Being Born for Myth
By
Elizabeth Robins
6/16/2011

I believe that I first discovered myth when I began reading, at an early age of three. My mom and dad read to me a lot and I always had fairy tale books around as a child. Of course, at that time I didn’t know what a myth was, but I knew the stories of princesses and noble knights and princes, witches, bad parents, and children enduring hardship to be rewarded with good things in the end. I think that is something I always liked about those stories, the happy ending. It was the possibilities in mythology that made my imagination soar and made me think anything was possible. I never realized how much mythology was going to influence my life, how important it would become.

As I grew up, I realized that these stories were just that, stories. I knew they had morals to learn and taught lessons in sneaky ways, but to me, they became just stories. I still enjoyed them, but I couldn’t relate them to my own life, except for daydream about my own happy endings. I had wandered away from myths and fantasy in my reading as an elementary student, but my Aunt had given me a book written by Piers Anthony called, Man from Mundania, one of the Xanth series. For a long time, I wouldn’t read the book because fantasy just didn’t perk my interest. I had somewhat given up on the idea of happy endings. But, I was out of books one summer day, and being an avid reader, I needed something to read. I picked it up to take to my Grandma’s house with me. I didn’t put it down until I finished. My Nana even had to bring my lunch because I wouldn’t stop reading to eat. The story intrigued me. Here a normal man was drawn into this parallel world of fantastical things. I got a kick out of the puns too.

I was in about to enter the seventh grade and had just gone through one of the worst years in my life at that time. I had even gone through my first suicidal attempts. I was often depressed, from having to deal with more than I could handle as a child. I found an escape in this book. The idea that a normal man could have wonderful adventures woke up my imagination again; it probably even sparked some sense of hope in me. This was probably the first time myth became alive for me. From that time on, fantasy, myths, and legends became my genre of choice. I ached for those happy endings.

Although I think that there is a chance that my desire for escapism causes me to occasionally drown in other people’s dreams, I believe I found something more important in these “dreams”. I noticed that a lot of the various stories I was reading, stories from around the world and written at different eras, seemed to have many of the same running themes, like they were linked somehow. I became curious about that, and at the same time was becoming curious about religion. I began asking myself, “how is it that these stories and religion all seem to be trying to teach the same basic concepts?” They no longer were just other people’s stories or escapism for me; they were now somehow a mystery in which Truth was contained. I wanted to start to unravel that mystery and find Truth.

When I refer to the term, “truth”, I place it in a dichotomy. I think there are two different kinds of truth. One is truth with a little “t”, it is the truths we as individuals know, and those truths, in my eye, are our perceptions of “what is”. Truth with a big “T” is something different. It is something that we as individuals cannot KNOW, but we can sense or believe in. It is where faith comes from, I think. Truth is “what is”. It is absolute, no perception. We as people, as individuals, experience everything differently, and our experiences shape our perceptions.

Because of our differing perceptions, and my own unique way of looking at the world, I began to question religion and see how different religions held different paths to the same thing for people. I recognized that I could not KNOW the Truth of which religion had it right. I could only have faith in what I believed, which at this time was becoming blurred. I believed in God and in goodness and in Truth, but structured religion started to not make a lot of sense to me. As a Christian, there were certain things about my faith and the stories I was told from the Bible that just didn’t make sense to me, but at the same time, some of the stories I was reading on my own, the ones from ancient mythology and other religions were making sense. The problem I saw was that they all tried to teach the same things, basically, but they all also seemed to get things wrong too.

Christianity for me was always more of a way of life than adherence to a particular doctrine. My parents didn’t attend church regularly because they had gotten involved in a Christian cult as a young couple and that ruined organized religion for them. They still accepted Christ as their savior, and taught us about Jesus, but it kind of ended there. Most of my church experience was the Christian holidays and from when I went with my Grandparents. My Grandmother’s church was rather conservative and they didn’t like to have children at mass, so I didn’t get much from going there, except the feeling that I wasn’t wanted. My Nana’s church was the opposite, and I enjoyed going with her.

My Nana’s church was Episcopalian and she had helped to start the church, as she was from England and missed her home church. I liked going because I liked to hear the sermon and the stories from the bible. I could always find some way that they were speaking to me. I often thought of Jesus, as I stared up at the crucifixion statue in front of us on the wall. I often thought of what it must have been like to be him; how he was so strong and courageous. I suppose that he was a hero to me. Someone to look up to, to want to be like, but I couldn’t worship him like the others did. I honored him, but I usually saved my worship for God. That was where I started to get off track with the rest of my family and with other Christians. I questioned the idea of Christ as God incarnate and as the only son of God. I felt we were all God’s children in a way, that without God, we couldn’t exist. I also had a hard time thinking of God as a man. For me, God was this big unexplainable mystery, but I knew God loved me and I did and often do think of God as a bit of a parental figure. When I do something stupid and I meet the consequence, I joke of it being God reaching down to smack me on the back of the head, as if to say, “you idiot, you knew better and you did it anyway, so here you go!”

My priest and I would have wonderful discussions and he seemed very understanding and patient with my questions and challenges; but, I wasn’t allowed in bible study. I tried that a few times in different groups… I usually ended up stirring the pot more than the leader liked. This refusal to question what we were being taught really caused me to question things even more. I started to think of Christianity as more of an idea that people like to follow, and if followed properly, can be very good. The problem I was seeing was that there was a lot of hypocrisy and all these “good” Christians were often very judgmental and had a lot of hatred for others, exactly as we were taught not to be. For me, this is where the myth started to break down.

Religion as a doctrine wasn’t focused on in my childhood per say, but my parents always talked of having faith. Usually it was to tell me some story about how they needed something and just when it seemed like they were lost, God would deliver. That their faith is what kept them going. I was often told that I needed to have more faith. I can say they were right, but it took me a long time to understand what faith was.

I think the lack of focus on religion as a structure in my household allowed me be more open to other ideas. I think it made me a more spiritual person than a religious person, and of course by that I am referring to religion as a system of rule and practices, rather than some of the other definitions available.

I no longer define myself as a Christian, as there are particular parts of the doctrine that are central to being a “Christian” that I was never comfortable with and I no longer accept as a possibility. I do however, accept Christianity as another possible path, but for me, it lost some of its truth. Not being a “Christian” doesn’t mean that I don’t value a Christian life. I still love and honor Jesus and his teachings, but for me, another path feels more like Truth to me. Not only feels, but logically, it makes more sense to me. That is not to say I reject all other faiths, in fact I find a lot of what I see as Truth in many faiths, but in those other faiths, I often find something that just doesn’t make sense.

I found my new path via a conversation online. I met someone in a chat room and immediately jumped into my favorite topic: spirituality. We discussed how we believed in our own spirituality and discussed God. I found myself agreeing with everything he was saying, which I found intriguing because I was never a traditional Christian and would often come across some things to disagree on. In the course of our conversation I asked him, finally, what his faith was. I was surprised when he said he was Muslim. This statement took me aback because Islam was foreign to me.

I have read about many religions and mythologies around the globe, but Islam was something I knew very little about, with the exception of what was given to us via the news media (which I never quite believed). It was interesting to me that I met this individual, because I was indeed already interested in learning more about Islam. I was frustrated that I didn’t know much about this religion that was the second most popular in the world. In fact, the previous Christmas I had even asked for an English translation of the Quran for Christmas. My parents laughed at my request though, saying that it was “probably sacrilegious” to purchase it for me. Needless to say, I didn’t receive it.

After my meeting with this individual online, I decided it was time for me to purchase the Quran and read it for myself. It was time for me to see what was written in this book and not just listen to what others had to tell me about it or the faith. I went to the nearby bookstore and purchased it and began reading the same day. I began reading the Quran as I did any book about religion, as an academic, pen and highlighter in hand. Within the first few pages though, something changed. I was no longer just reading a book. The book was speaking to me, to my heart. I would definitely say I was having a religious or spiritual experience. It definitely felt spiritual.

I found by reading the Quran that Islam is much like Christianity. The differences are few, but major. The same things I questioned as a child and young woman were explained in the Quran in a way that made sense to me. I was finding myself reading what I already believed. For the most part, Islam was very easy for me to accept. In fact, I believe I accepted it by the time I finished reading the Quran the first time. It took me a while before I “officially” accepted Islam by saying shahada. My hesitation was not so much about the faith but about social acceptance. After a time though, I decided that I believed what I believed and social acceptance or lack thereof wasn’t going to change that.

Even with Islam though, I question things. I don’t question much of what I read in the Quran, but I do question the hadith and many of the beliefs and practices that the more conservative Muslims follow (and are sometimes cultural and not religious as they think). For me, if it doesn’t make sense, or if I don’t understand it, then I need to find out why. One thing I like about Islam is the fact that I am told to use the brain God gave me. I am sure that my experience growing up being told not to question things led me to appreciating this aspect a lot.

Although I have accepted a new path, I don’t see my view of myth changing dramatically. I already am open to the lessons that can be learned from them and I no longer look to them for escapism only. I still see hope in them and I hope that I will always find the parcels of Truth within them. I think myth is important for reasons of faith, growing and learning, and also for plain old imagination. I love reading the stories to my kids and I hope they find something great within them as well. My acceptance of Islam is not going to prevent me from wanting to continue to read and learn about other religions and ancient mythology. Perhaps, it even encourages it in me in some ways. Here I was a Christian my whole life until I read the Quran and found a truth that resounded in me more than what I found in the Christian church and at the same time, shared so much with Christianity. It enforces my belief that all these traditions share a thread of Truth and I am interested in learning more and more. I have always believed that myths and legends came from some Truth, whether they are based on actual people and events (and have since been exaggerated or been tampered with) or are stories of worldly truths. I hope I will always retain some of that childhood wonder and inquisitiveness. I know I am more skeptical than I was when I was a young child, but a healthy dose of skepticism is good, I think, to help decipher fact from fiction or possibility from impossibility.

My openness in the face of mythology is one reason I feel that I am suited for the next stage in my life, the stage I now prepare myself for. I wish to work with people of different faiths, different beliefs, different cultures, to see each other not as different, but as how frequently we are the same. I want to work in the interfaith / intercultural dialogue and peace process and being open-minded about other peoples’ faiths and beliefs is an important requirement to be successful in such a field. I begin with myself, my friends, and my family, even my children. Everyone in my family is Christian, including my son (as he says he is Christian and I support him). Many of my friends are of other faiths, but namely they are Christian. I don’t wish to convert anyone to anything but tolerance. I already sift through the challenges of interfaith and intercultural relations and find myself comfortable with those challenges. I believe it is my open-mindedness and knowledge of many religions and mythology that aids this process. I find that I sit at the cusp of the rest of my life, and it is being shaped by mythology.

NOTE: I am particularly interested in studying the mythology of pre-Islamic Arabia and the potential influences on the ahadith.