God is Dead

I was contemplating the existence of God after even the first surgery, when I was lying in bed all the time wallowing.  Between bad daytime TV and the food commercials, I had a lot of time to think about what this all was about.  In my eight year old brain, I was wondering what the hell I did that was so bad as to deserve this.  What did I do that was so bad and so wrong?  Kids at school would talk about reincarnation like “When I come back, in my next life I want to be a millionaire.”  Kids say crap like that all the time because they think life is that simple.  I knew about the idea of reincarnation and I wondered if it existed, what had I done in another life that was so bad that I was now being punished for it?  I just didn’t know where I had gone so wrong. 

I started to think about God.  What God would do this to someone who wasn’t a bad person?  I didn’t think I was that bad.  Sure, I didn’t always listen to my mom and I could be really obstinate with her.  But I didn’t think I was that bad.  My sister was just as bad and she didn’t need surgery and as far as we knew she didn’t have FAP.  Why was God so good to her if she was just as naughty as I with our parents? 

After the surgical complication and especially after talking to that annoying psychologist, who only managed to make me feel rage, I knew more than ever since this whole shit storm started that there just couldn’t be a God.  God was dead to me and God was stupid.  Why would I believe in someone who was so loving and benevolent, just to be forgotten and made to suffer for no reason whatsoever.  I truly believe that everyone either goes through something in their life where they get to the point of questioning God, or they should.  I think it’s normal to contemplate the meaning of religion and validity of it.  It’s a process, regardless of your conclusion, I think is necessary and extremely valuable. 

Today is Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath and weekly day of observance and rest.  I was not raised Jewish.  I was raised Lutheran.  I truly believe that Lurtheranism gave me an invaluable platform to think, question, and contemplate God and religion.  I still feel connected to this sector of Christianity as I feel I owe it much thanks and respect for helping me to get through my disease, yet give me the building blocks to look for more.  I oscillated back and forth believing in God all throughout my childhood after beginning my treatment for FAP.  And the times I was an atheist wasn’t necessarily when times got rough for me personally.  Something bad might have happened in the world and I wondered where God could be.  By the time I was in high school, I unequivocally was an atheist.  I never wavered.  I was bullied, I was invisible, I was ugly, hacked apart, broken, and not whole.  How could God create someone as broken as me and then make me to suffer so? 

I continued on my atheist path throughout college, until I took a comparative religion course in college.  I thought Judaism might actually be kind of smart, and maybe, right.  Even the most famous Rabbis had the audacity to question God.  I liked that and I wanted to know more.  As I grew up, graduated from college, and got a very bad boy out of my life, I decided to learn some more about Judaism.  Through my own study, I decided some days I might believe in God, and later, that I wanted to actually be Jewish, if they could accept me into their clan. 

I was lucky to find Rabbi Gerson from Rodef Shalom and once I moved back to Denver from college, I connected with him and began attending services and formally started the conversion process.  I told him that I was a recovering atheist and that some days, I believed in God and some days I didn’t.  I was surprised when he told me that was ok and that whether they want to admit it or not, there just are days in everyone’s life where people think, even for a second, “there just can’t be a God.”  I realized that God is a lot of things.  God is in the people and God is changing all the time.  But regardless of how I feel about God on a given day, I have my religion, my traditions of Judaism, my holiday observances, and my community to keep me grounded and moving ahead.  Regardless of how bad I might feel some days about God or even when I’m feeling negative about something in the Jewish community, I always have the love and devotion of my religion to keep me safe and warm.

In my world, sometimes God is dead and sometimes God is alive, but regardless, I always feel alive and how I do that is by focusing on the Jewish connections and traditions that reeled me in 15 years ago and in my opinion, saved my life.