At school today, my instructor said something that was profound to me. After explaining the gist of what the whole class would be based on: that ethos/ethics is essentially the meaning of life (what is good/bad or right/wrong)....that mythos/myth is the expression of ethos and that subsequently rites/rituals are the physical union of mythos and ethos. He noted that God is an expression of the meaning of life--that which brings meaning to life and that in some form or another, everyone believes in God. He went on to say that people ask each other, "Do you believe in God?" and then unfairly make judgments on that person based on their response. What we are really asking is, "Do you believe in God the way I believe in God" and are responding, "Yes, I believe in God the way I believe in God" or “No I don’t believe in God the way you believe in God”; but the real message is lost in the inept communication. It is symbols that give meaning to the physical, and we use symbols to express our deepest truths--but everyone's symbols are not the same. In this way, the tattoo on my sister's back of a female angel stretching her hand to the sky is no less sacred to her then a statue of Mary at the side of the church, arms stretched to the sky is to a Catholic. Each are symbols of humanity reaching to the heavens--one personal, one societal.


What this made in my brain was an "aha" moment. When I grew older and changed for a variety of reasons, I walked away from the religion that I was raised. This hurt my family as they feel that I have a) rejected them in some way, and/or b) that I have no faith/belief. But the truth I realized today is that in rejecting my religious upbringing--I am not rejecting faith or belief or truth--I have simply changed in such a way that the symbols of my youth no longer work for me. I need to find the symbols that work for me and not attempt to fit my truth to those symbols because that does a disservice to all--the proverbial fitting a round peg into a square hole (there is nothing wrong with the peg, and there is nothing wrong with a hole, they just don’t go together). I wish that my family could understand that distinction; still, there is a comfort for me in the understanding.