This blog will document my journey from a seeker to a believer, an automaton of orthodoxy to finally a questioning free thinking untethered individual embracing the chaos and uncertainty of life. It has been a painful journey involving cutting of ties with family and friends and a willingness to leap into the unknown.
My childhood was defined by Catholicism and a deferment to the dictates of the Church: a conservative worldview infiltrating my daily thoughts and behaviors. God in the childhood home was a stern and unforgiving father ever ready to judge and condemn.
My mother came from Ireland and was born in the 1920s. Growing up in a traditional society she seemed to have drowned in the expectations and disappointments of a family and society, ever ready disapprove and so left behind children, divorce and a bitter experience with ‘the nuns’ to start a new life in London.
I was born in London in 1966 and grew up unaware of my mum’s past life of divorce and children left behind. My mother’s and father’s marriage was a tale of mendacity, mediocrity and a life unlived. I was determined to travel the world and try to find a meaning that was lacking in my childhood: a desire to find happiness and some justification for my existence.
As with most people with a lack of stable family life I sought certainty. I traveled through Asia and studied Buddhism and then through the Middle East where I encountered Islam practiced in Islamic societies for the first time. I seemed unfailingly drawn to structure and orthodoxy and it wouldn’t take a psychologist to analyze all the possible reasons. The blog will be a narrative of my journey and analysis and commentary of religion in general from the rationalist perspective.
Comments
Post a Comment