“Life must be lived forward, but can only be understood backwards.” — Soren Kierkegaard
For a good part of my life, I have seen religion as a duty which must be accomplished with dedication if not enjoyment. Since all people are sinners and sinners must seek salvation, it did not occur to me that some people might not see the point in all this religion business. “Oh, I’m not religious,” some friends would say to me, as if it were genetically transmitted or perhaps an acquired taste. They would blithely go about their lives, unencumbered by guilt, enjoying their sins, and occasionally pausing to shake their heads at my dutifulness. “Why do you bother?” they would ask curiously.
For my part, I could not understand how religion could be regarded as an accessory. It was core, at the heart, deep inside, that which guided and prompted all that was good and pure and true. One could no more shuck it off and live a decent, upright life than one could see one’s hand in a room without light. There was one way to salvation and that was through obedience to the rules, as inexplicable as they appeared sometimes. And yet I continued to meet people who claimed no religious allegiance, but seemed to me honest and good, the kind of people who would take you in during a storm or give you a lift miles out of their way. It was disconcerting. Some of them even smoked.
So I tried harder, tried to be dutiful, tried to be aligned without completely losing myself. But myself would… [Read more…] about Understanding Backwards