Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

A confession: Even on the days I believe in God, and they are less frequent the older I get, the belief is shaky at best. It flickers like a candle caught in a draft. It goes against my Baptist raising to doubt. It often unnerves me.

I was taught faith is absolute and unwavering. I was taught prayers are always worthwhile and always answered. I was taught Bible stories and warned about the wages of sin. I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior when I was twelve although I had no idea what it meant and wasn't at all sure I trusted the minister not to drown me. I never questioned the existence of heaven or hell, never once thought the Devil wasn't real or that God didn't love me. My belief was natural, cast and hardened in concrete and I thought everyone shared it. I was in college and taking a course in comparative religions before I learned not only were there alternate theories but there was something called agnosticism (which was just collective ignorance according to family)) and atheism (which only the godless communists practiced, again, according to family). I didn't know any agnostics and I certainly didn't know any godless communists so neither concerned me. My faith remained unshakable.

It more or less stayed with me until I moved to the South and encountered my first wave of evangelical christians and the concept that anything from an ingrown toe nail to a terrorist attack to cancer could be mended by either a chiropractor, a republican president, or a heartfelt and widely spread prayer. I was rapidly discovering that prayer as a public strategy didn't much appeal to me and being a natural contrarian, in the face of religious zealotry, I was inclined to go in the opposite direction. I found myself thinking that while a word to the Lord couldn't hurt,

food and shelter and clothing donations would be more help to flood victims and chemotherapy would be more effective for the cancer ridden than a group hug. Little by little, I abandoned prayer and with it, the righteous and implacable certainty of a deity.

I still keep friends and family in my thoughts. I still believe in the existence of something - I'm not sure what - greater than myself. Some days I backslide and embrace the idea of an afterlife with both hands.

I hope I'm wrong but either way, faith should be more than a reflex.