A Religion of One

Photo by Priya Johnson / VOX Staff

By Sage Nenyue / VOX Staff
 
So there we were, sitting at breakfast at school in as close to a circle as you can be at a rectangular table. The topic that morning was spirituality. Evidently my views on faith and religion did not mesh with those of my very Christian peers.
 
“So, how can there be a God with no devil?” they kept asking me. They gave me those amused and knowing smirks that adults give to children when they’re humoring them. One of them took a different tact, trying to appeal to my big-picture thinking by arguing, “But it’s dark and light, yin and yang, good versus evil.”
 
“I just don’t think there is a devil,” I said. “I believe that who you all call God is a big circle of life and everything exists within that.”
 
“Now hold up!” said one of my audience members, waving her hands wildly about in front of her. “What do you mean ‘who you all call God’?” she asked indignantly.
 
“I mean the Creator, the Good One, the Alpha-Omega Spirit that you refer to as God,” I said. “Anyway, I think that this Spirit is a huge circle that surrounds and resides in everything. There is the Spirit, the Cosmos, the Heavens, the Earth, and the Living Organisms from the human to the elephant to the ant. That one Spirit lives and exists inside the other forever and ever.” For a moment there was an awkward silence that hung over us — and for a moment I was scared that the whole cafeteria was listening. Then my audience all started to talk at once about how I forgot the devil and Hell and Jesus in my equation, and how insects and animals are not on the same level as people, and how uninformed I am about everything. They took turns telling me what the Bible said, and how I would be the next candidate to suffer eternal Fire and Brimstone if I died and didn’t repent. Suffice to say that when the bell rang, I flew straight out of the cafeteria like a bat out of Hell (pun intended).
 
It’s pretty obvious that my religious beliefs differ greatly from most of my peers. In fact, I don’t consider myself religious at all. Religion implies some kind of long-term, organized practice that’s shared by many people. Instead, I consider myself spiritual. My spirituality is an intensely personal relationship I have with the forces that shape our existence. If you want to call it a religion, then it is a religion of one.
 
What I Believe
I believe in the living spirit of the Cosmos — that’s my name for it, others may call it something else. I believe that everything on earth, other planets and anything that exists within the universe make up the Cosmos.
 
My system of belief is truly my own because it changes and evolves as I do. It can’t be written down and followed years in the future like religious doctrines. My beliefs come from studying a number of different belief systems. For example, I often turn the other cheek as Christianity says, but sometimes I also think it’s appropriate to take an eye for an eye like Islam says.
 
Much of what I believe I’ve taken from Taoism — an ancient Chinese philosophy turned religion that teaches instead of a personal god there is a supreme force that guides change over the passage of time. Taoism also says that humans should become free of personal desires and become one with this flow of change. Taoism believes in the importance of the balance between good and evil — the yin and the yang — and for that reason I am learning not to overdo or underdo things, but rather to exist in the middle and work to strike a harmony.
 
What I Don’t Believe
When I was a lot younger and living in New York City, I hated my Christian church. The services were long and boring, and preachers said a bunch of nothing. That’s probably where I got my vast imagination and collection of adjectives. At least I could doze off and dream about things like the Power Rangers and what I’d do when I got outside.
 
Later on, when I was about 8 years old, I knew I didn’t believe in the whole Jesus thing. It just seemed like a storybook tale, not something that actually happened. I felt guilty for not believing, and I tried finding ways to get out of going to church. From waking up “sick” to claiming that I’d rather read the Bible at home, none of my subversive tactics worked on my mother.
 
When I turned 10, I told her I didn’t believe Jesus died for my sins, and she just smiled and said “OK” but then made me go to services with her anyhow. She likely thought I’d grow into Christianity by repeated exposure. From that time on, she would frequently thrust me toward the altar to get saved by the preacher. My imagination wouldn’t let such treatment go, and I kept imagining I was the hero of some twisted TV show, where I was the only rational person in the church and all the rest were part of some brainwashed cult.
 
I even made a game of it and went to the pulpit willingly once or twice. Whenever the preacher would palm my forehead with his hand — and actually hurt me doing so — I would resist him pushing me down to the floor. When he could not do that, he would release me and hand me to one of his ministers who would tell me to repeat a prayer. Not meaning a word of it — sometimes I would cross my fingers — I would eventually relent and repeat what was said to me. After that, I was taken with the few others who weren’t following the rules to a back room where they dimmed the lights so their brainwashing techniques would work more effectively. They handed us pamphlets and told us to recite what was written aloud.
 
In this setting, I was away from my mother’s influence and felt emboldened. Even though I was still pretty young, I openly defied the ministers’ instructions as I stared at them not repeating their words. I was the hero of this show who refused to submit.
 
I think it is my Aquarian nature to want to rebel, to be free — including spiritually. And yes, I believe Zodiac signs do have some influence over your personality, though that isn’t to say your personality can’t change or that those daily horoscopes are actually true.
 
Some Breathing Room
Moving to Atlanta was the best thing for my spirituality. My grandmother — whom I adore for not forcing me to follow her system of beliefs — allowed my mind to further open. It was that first year under her guidance that I explored different avenues of beliefs more fully.
 
I began to learn who I was and what I believed. It was a surreal retreat from my forced marches to church, and I was able to grow — kind of like when the nearly-defeated hero flees to his sensei’s house in the mountains for guidance. But I knew the hero would always have to go back and face his destiny. My return to New York to face my mother and her church would be my true ultimate challenge.
 
It was two summers ago, and I was back in the smoggy northern city for an extended stay. Word spread around the neighborhood that I had changed. Before, no one but my mother knew my very real conflict with Christianity. Most thought that, like most kids, I considered church boring. On my return visit, unafraid to show my true beliefs, I spat hot fire about the White Pearly Gates and the Brimstone of Hell, calling them control mechanisms for the masses and complete wastes of my time. My former friends scoffed at me and avoided the subject of conversation whenever I came around.
 
The adults’ reaction, however, caught me by surprise. I was trying to get reactions out of them by wearing my beliefs on my sleeve. I wanted them to be riled up so that I could have even more affirmation that what I was doing was right. While at first they seemed to pity me, they soon began to treat my beliefs with respect. Their tactics confounded me. Either they were giving me a false sense of security or they actually felt my viewpoints were valid. It didn’t matter. I was using them as practice anyway. My real battle would be with my mother’s reverend, ole Gerald Seabrooks himself.
 
He was a man who did not play around when it came to matters of faith — which is why I guessed my mother adored him so. He was a large, stone-faced man with wrinkles in his forehead and a glint for God in his eye. He was the villain in my show. I waged my rebellion throughout the summer, going to church with my mom, but unafraid to share my beliefs when appropriate.
 
But it wasn’t as much as fun as I thought it should be. There were times when I thought I would die from loneliness. There I was, sitting in the weed-filled spiritual wilderness trying to find a means of survival. The skies were dark and the winds carried cutting sands and locusts that gnawed at me — can you tell that I love the Book of Exodus?
 
I decided that it would take an army to defeat the implacable Rev. Seabrooks. I had to turn all my efforts to fortifying myself. It was like taking all the guns in your possession and melding them into a strong metal shield. This kept Seabrooks and his ministers at bay when we battled every Sunday. I left New York to return to Atlanta without a victory or singular heroic deed.
 
But I came back realizing that I didn’t need to wage war to be at peace with my beliefs, and that I didn’t need to force them on others. I didn’t need to lash out at everything Christian to affirm my faith. As a matter of fact, I’ve grown to like Christianity more than ever now that I’m looking from the outside in.
 
While I still defend my beliefs during the occasional breakfast discussions at school, I have no bad thing to say about any organized religion. Also, I’m not revering Taoism as the do-all, end-all path of spirituality either. I’m still learning and exploring all that’s out there, and as I do so, my beliefs are ever-changing but solidifying into my own unique religion.
 
Shabaaka is a junior at Tech High who feels his spiritual beliefs are just as justified as anyone else’s.