Yesterday my friend Jason asked on his blog about our spiritual paths - how'd we get where we are?
I can attribute a lot of my personal faith journey to my relationship with my big brother. He's six years older than me, and I had all proper admiration and adoration for him growing up. One year, (age 4?) I asked for "boy toys" for my birthday - I wanted everything my brother had - Star Wars toys for example. (I always had to be the bad guys in our games - always Darth Vader, and he was always Luke Skywalker. Totally unfair.) I listened to the music he listened too, which, at the time, was quality stuff like White Snake, Poison, White Lion - the bigger the hair, the better.
When he went to college, I was very sad to have him so far away, right when I was entering the pit of life that is junior high school. And then when he came back from his first semester declaring himself an (angry) atheist, I was devastated. This was one place I wasn't ready to follow him. I've kept journals since fifth grade, and my journals from that time are filled with worry about the eternal fate of my wayward brother. Today, we are both in different spiritual places, and very close. But when I think about things that shaped my faith, that time was definitely important.
At one point, I actually wrote out in my journal what I believed about several 'key' issues. My brother was a philosophy major, with very little mercy for the age difference in our debating skills, and I knew I needed to prepare to hold my own in conversation with him. I'm very private about my journals, but 14 years later, I think I'm ready to share most of this entry with you all, which is very funny.
Saturday, November 21st, 1992.
"Jim really confuses me. He makes me think and that is good - thinking I mean . . . But he has made me want to define values.
"Believing in God is a choice of my own. Yes, I was brought up that way but I'm 13 and I've made my choice now. Why do I believe in God? Because now and then, at camp, church, JCSuperstar, Christmas, Easter, I feel this overwhelming presence of love, peace, and joy that can only be explained by God. That's all I need to explain myself.
"I believe abortion is wrong in general. I understand if you are raped. I would not like it but would accept it if the girl was so young that labor would cause harm to her or the baby. I have no compassion for teens, prostitutes, or those who sleep around. Abortion is not birth control. If you have sex, pregnancy is a risk you are taking.
"I believe premarital sex is wrong because that's what my religion is . . ."
"I'm not sure how the Bible stands on homosexuality. I, however, think I'm accepting of it. I believe our God is loving of everyone. I believe he made us all different and unique. Sexual preference does not make you less or more a person. What if homosexuals became a majority? Who are we, certainly not perfect people, to judge others. That's not a responsibility I'm worthy of.
"I think the death penalty is wrong. If killing is wrong, who could rightly kill someone else? it isn't anyone's decision to take away life. I do belief in life in strict prisons but no one should be killed, even if they deserve it. But I have to wonder how I would feel if someone killed a family member . . . "
There it is, my own little "Social Principles."
8 comments:
Beth,
Thanks for sharing that. I don't think that I would have been that articulate, or even knew where I stood on those issues, at 13. It is good to have people in our lives that challenge us to think about what we believe and why we beleive them. Your brother was that for you....and my brother is now. Anyway, thanks for sharing your "social principles" They are pretty in line with what we do have! Good United Methodist you are.
Thanks for your courage to share that. I hope no one goes blithering wild to criticize these formative thoughts. They are beautiful precisely because they are those of a 13 year old.
You have also made me wonder what impact I had on my younger sisters as I reacted to my freedom in college much the way your brother did. That had to have shaken you quite a bit, but you persisted in faith and obviously became stronger for it. My youngest sister and I are able to have a closer relationship today and actually talk about spiritual matters. Age and hard knocks can smooth out the meanest big brother! :)
I love that. Good idea for a blog.
I too am a little sister, and can relate to an older brother in the throes of a spiritual crisis. I often struggled with my own call to ministry, because my brother, before taking a firm "Atheistic/agnostic" approach to God, wanted to become a United Methodist Pastor. I resisted my own call for many years, because I was afraid I might repeat what I saw as my brothers "mistakes." If I hadn’t viewed my brother’s struggles with his own faith journey, I don’t think I would have had a perspective to approach my own faith journey. My brother lives out his own call in different ways: getting married, being a great father, and as a fabulous English teacher who imparts his questions, his intellect on young minds daily. (I'm a little biased...) Though our ways of living the questions of faith are different, I can see now how we each landed where we did, and I am thankful for my brother’s example in my own life.
Those are interesting social principles. What about war?
I happened to be at the Methodist building in D.C. the week after Easter. I didn't know you were there too! I was just in D.C. with my family on vacation and stopped by for a tour.
Thanks for your openness and vulnerability. I'm an older brother who prays I've been a good one to my younger bro and sis.
Wow, what an articulate 13 yr old you were. How interesting to see the formative impact your brother had in your life...
I wonder as an older sister if I had a positive influence on my sister... I doubt it, but we have both come a long way since then...
How much of your 13 yr old self remains intact?
How easy as an adult is it to hold to social principles... so much of the world is black and white at 13..
Thank you for this post.
Jonathan - I didn't have many thoughts at the time on war, I guess! Though, a couple years earlier, my journal had an entry loosely like this: "I have soccer practice. We're at war because stupid Sadaam Hussein invaded Kuwait. I like ____ boy I think." So it least it made it in ;)
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