I've been considering renouncing my confirmation. Confirmation.. something I did when I was 13 because I was told I should.. just to get it over with.. A confirmation in my beliefs and convictions in front of what I was saying I held as the highest authority in my eyes. I made a vow. I did it without any feeling behind it. That bothers me.. because what do I have in this world other than the vows I make and try to uphold.. never mind ones I know I don't mean. I don't know what I believe.. I believe in belief. I believe that I don't have all the answers.. and I never will.. I don't know it all.. I probably have such a minute grasp of the "big picture", it would be foolish to make any vow where the conviction of an exact faith is concerned. I don't even know what grasp, if any I have on it all..

I want to revoke it.. the vow I made under false pre-tense.. if I change my mind.. I can re-take it.. with the right motivation and with a pure heart. This is such a small petty thing.. everyone keeps telling me to just let it go.. it's something I did when I was a kid.. but damn.. I just can't I mean doing something one considers "wrong" is one thing.. but to recognize it.. and not take the action to make thing right.. as right as possible.. what kind of person would I be.. not one I respected.

"Far away, long ago
Burning dim as an ember
Things my heart used to know
Once upon a December"
- "Once Upon A December"

I've gone to church twice in the past month.. a Unitarian one.. I like the idea of embracing an evolving faith.. and having faith be something one realizes on their own.. and not something to hide behind .. to have it be something one owns.. and abides by because it has meaning.. significance beyond rules that were handed down and followed blindly.

I was really scared to go. A curiosity like this proves some hidden, or not so hidden need to find something to believe in. Even if the belief (belief is a crappy word, but I'm using it in the sense of leaning towards something.. not as something concrete and unchanging) is I can only believe in what is evidential and proven in a physical sense. I tend to be the opposite of an "agnostic".. "I may not believe *, but I won't disbelieve it until proven to be false. Until then, I just don't know or even attempt to pretend to". I guess I was afraid my craving to believe would taint my better judgment and logic. That I would be blind to holes in logic, or I would use this new "belief" as a way to escape the things in my life that plagued me.

I was raised in a home where religion was something very obscure. My mother brought me to a Lutheran church, but also introduced me to a Wiccan priestess.. there was a small cross on my bedroom wall, next to my dreamcatcher.. which is cool.. but then I was sent to a religious school for years.. only because it was the best education in the area. Even though if you asked me when I was 12, and had theological study in my background as far as I can remember.. I would have professed a lack of care and belief in religion. Whether it was out of rebellion, or just had other things like fashion on my mind.. I don't know. It was kind of taken in as propaganda, "say no to drugs", "believe in Christ died for everyone's sins", "homework is important", "everything goes on some big permanent record". I assumed it well intended, but empty.

"Dear God, don't know if you noticed,
but .. your name is on a lot of quotes in this book,
and us crazy humans wrote it, you should take a look,

and all the people that you made in your image still
believing that junk is true.
Well I know it ain't and so do you,
dear God, I can't believe in, I don't believe in..

I won't believe in heaven and hell.
No saints, no sinners, no devil as well.
No pearly gates, no thorny crown.
You're always letting us humans down.
The wars you bring, the babes you drown.
Those lost at sea and never found,
and it's the same the whole world 'round.
The hurt I see helps to compound that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost
is just somebody's unholy hoax,
and if you're up there you'd perceive
that my heart's here upon my sleeve.
"
- XTC, "Dear God"

Having knowledge sometimes sucks. Being able to recognize contradictions, and having the resources to gain in depth knowledge when questioning "a faith" is a spiraling maze.. but when it's questioning one's own faith it's schizophrenic. I have this very hardcore Christian background that pounds in my head .. even when I am realizing that I think the Bible is hypocritical, and that even one of the apostles had to put their hands in the wounds to believe Christ was resurrected. The whole "it's about God, not what man dictates.." well who wrote the Bible.. and well why would "God" give us this ability to reason if we were to be punished for using it.. John Ventura said it best this past New Year's Eve.. about how most people miss the message and idea behind it all .. and how it's not about hard proof and following a weird set of rules one doesn't believe.. "God isn't about parlor tricks.. Water into wine?? I can turn wine into urine, but that doesn't make me your ticket to salvation".. It all feels very silly to me to debate this all in my head.. because I know how much of it was pounded into my head for years.. and that's probably the reason I keep needing to find ways to not default to blind faith in something I feel iffy about. The whole "There has to be something to it, if it keeps popping up in my head all the time"..

I know what's important to me.. I have made rules for myself.. some of which I've broken.. big ones.. and it really sucks breaking ones own rules.. I guess I should call them guidelines.. but yeah I'm human.. I fuck up.. I do things that are wrong blah blah.. I guess I feel this need to find "my truth". Since I have to live with the consequences of my actions.. and I am the only person who has to live with all of my deeds.. I want to make sure I don't have things biting me in the ass left and right.. even if the biting me in the ass is just my own guilt.. guilt of knowing I knew better.. the guilt of acting without consideration.. the guilt of even things I really had no control over.. because part of me feels that I am aware and perceptive enough that I should have gained control to have had the outcome be something more productive in a positive way for all involved. It's not altruism.. I don't believe in purely altruistic things.. I do it because I don't want to be sad or ridden with guilt..