I once dreamt that I was in the Twin Towers while they were collapsing.
Okay first off...before I get all morbid, you should know that I have incredibly bizarre, dark and scary, and well just plain old weird dreams. And I usually remember them. Ugh. Annoying. Especially the ones that I have riiight before I wake up.
I don't find myself to be partically morbid, but apparently my dream self is.
So...back to the crazy, awful, horrible dream...
It was one of my most vivid dreams. I was up high. Too high to escape. I ran down several flights of stairs, trying to flee, but knowing my escape would be futile. And then, I got chased all of the way back up the building to the roof.
And I stood there, on the roof, while the building began to fall, crying, and trying to decide what to do. No, not so much what to do, because I knew that I was going to do. I was going to die. I was trying to decide what I believe.
Do I believe in God? Am I Christian, as I was raised? If a pray, will it work? Is there a heaven? Is there a hell? If I don't try to believe and pray, will I go to hell?
And even with the fear of knowing that my death was imminent, I still could not convince myself to pray for an afterlife, just because I was afraid that if I didn't, then I would go to hell.
And then I woke up. Gasping for breath, with tears running down my cheeks.
Seriously folks, it was quite the dream.
And, I told my boo about my dream. But, he did not have a very significant reaction to it. While, he didn't want me to die, obviously, but not really to all of the other stuff.
So, I was stuck to wade through this one on my own. What did it mean? Did I really not believe in God, in anything? I wasn't so disturbed by having the dream of almost perishing in a very tall building, but that even while facing death, I refused to believe in something out of fear.
My faith is an issue, because I am surrounded by a Christian family. One who assumes that I am just figuring things out, I guess. That once I "grow up", I'll start going to church. I'll find the happiness of believing in that belief system. I'll show them that they don't need to worry. That I will pray, and read my bible, and teach my children to do these things too.
The problem is that I don't know if I can.
It's not that I don't believe in well something. I am mystified by the miracle of life everyday. It's a beautiful thing. I believe in the power of life and that it touches all things. I believe in the connectivity of human, nature, and the beyond. I believe in more than just what science explains.
But that is as far as I have been able to go.
I guess I'm a skeptic of religion. It's manmade, and therefore flawed. It's dependent on time and spatial relationship. For instance, if I grew up in a different continent or at a different time since the dawn of man, I may have been instructed and guided to follow and believe in an entirely different religious system.
To me, religion is a system of roads navigating us down the path of life to both explore and explain who/what created us and why, while also giving us a compass to explore those concepts and a rule book as our guide. It is comprised of several paths leading to the same destination, so there can be no wrong path to choose.
But clearly, I'm still debating on what mine shall be.
Stay tuned folks.