Exploring the Spiritual Topography

The people to whom I entrust the words of this blog have known me for a long time. They are dear friends and family members who know me well and have walked with me through the various phases of my spiritual journey. I wrote in the previous post that I welcome their thoughts about what the topography of this journey means. Indeed, they … you … have already given me a lot of food for thought over the years. So, I will take a stab at unraveling the meaning of the religious shifts that have occurred and attempt to shed my own light on how the journey has unfolded.

I think it is undeniable that my formative spiritual and religious development serves not only as the bedrock upon which everything else that has transpired is built but as the reference point, the anchor, the north star that orients my worldview and spirituality. The sincerity, passion and seemingly unshakeable faith of my parents and their parents was pressed into every fabric of my being and psyche from moment of birth. If there is an argument for the unconditional election of saints and the prevenient, irresistible grace God, it resides in the commitment of my progenitors to ensuring that I would become a child of God, saved through Christ’s atonement on the Cross and His resurrection from the dead. I know without a shred of doubt that I petitioned the Almighty to save me and come live inside me. This confidence has been shaken to its core over the course of my life, but it cannot be erased so deeply imprinted is it in my being. The hours of prayer directed to heaven on my behalf are incalculable. My belief in the existence of God and in a reunion with The One after death remain a spiritual bulwark in my life. This is the home that I think of when I hear Fix You–one of my favorite Coldplay songs. I do not get any credit for any of this because it was given to me, provided as axiomatic and served up a priori as a blessing or a curse. And it has seemed to be both at different points in my journey.

Simultaneously true, my faith has always existed in a dialectic. I do not know if I was born with an argumentative nature, but I certainly developed a taste for playing Devil’s Advocate. Learning a truth or rather being told what the truth should be was always a challenge to test the counter truth. Arguments and debates have been my dogged companions for as long as I can remember. And, in no small part, I view the shifts from conservative to liberal and back to conservative expressions of religious belief and practice as stemming from this attraction to inhabiting and exploring polarized spaces. It probably also accounts for the time I spend ranting on the social media platform, X, sharing my unsolicited snark with proponents of the MAGA worldview.

In perhaps the most dramatic expression of this desire to push spiritual boundaries, I exchanged my Christian beliefs for the non-credal practice of Judaism. This was enough to break my mother’s heart, and although I made the attempt to help her understand, I ended up crossing the boundary of where going far meets going too far. I had come to the place where I understood all religions and faiths as leading to the same place, but it turned out to be a debate killer, and I lost any future opportunity to engage in the back and forth that I had come to love during my growing up years.

I know I am a spiritual being, and a person who needs spiritual nurture. But the topography of my journey has left me wondering if there truly is a destination. The spiritual core that survives from my childhood says yes, but I am tired and nursing aches and pains. Am I going nowhere or somewhere? Does all this flipping around, changing course, chasing my spiritual tail, have any meaning? Next, I will propose a framework to help me settle this question.