Personal Free-Write (Untitled)

Having a Minister for a father, I was born into a family of strong faith; faith in the divine as well as faith in humanity. Sundays were spent at church and Sunday school, prayer was said before bed and bedtime stories were often from a children’s bible. All of which were normal, familiar and comfortable. It wasn’t until my late teenage years that I truly began to question the teachings of the church and my beliefs. It wasn’t that I did not believe in the existence of a God, but whether or not there was good reason to. Always the petulant child of four sisters, it was consistent with this to once again go against the norm; but I kept these doubts to myself.

During my bachelor’s degree at St. Mary’s University, I took a number of classes in philosophy: intro to philosophy, basic logic and philosophy of human nature. I was fascinated by the sheer simplicity of the ways in which complex human traits and characteristics were broken down and explained like a mathematical equation; if A is true and B is true, then A plus B will equal C – the reasonable outcome. Everything ordered everything logical. I truly believed that the deep-seeded questions I had about my own life and future would somehow find answers from the works of Aristotle, Socrates, Plato and the like. Taking a somewhat contradictory stance to the theological perspective, the discussions challenged a lot of what I was brought up to believe.

Armed with what I believed to be ground-breaking, philosophical evidence to support my harboring doubts about faith and religion, I finally brought my questions and opinions to my father. Sitting on our deck on a mid-summer afternoon, I laid out what I believed to be a rock-solid argument against the credibility of religion. This was the first time I had ever voiced my skepticism and I don’t think I really knew what response to expect. But what I received should not have been wholly unexpected; my opinions were met with equally well thought-out responses and a long conversation about faith, hope and the interconnection of philosophy and theology. What I had believed to be strongly opposing forces, were in fact historically intertwined. We talked well through the afternoon and into the early evening until it was too cold and there were too many bugs to stand. In the end, no worldly issues were solved and my own doubts still lingered. But somehow by voicing them together, they became less ominous.

One of my most valuable lessons was learned that day; to question and give a voice to my thoughts, I may be wrong but I will learn.