God, the Devil, "UU's," and the Conservation of Energy

Since two weeks of age, my heart, soul, and destiny belonged to the lord. I was born in early December and I was in attendance at our Presbyterian Christmas Eve event two weeks later. I was baptized into the church before I could speak, or even walk for that matter, and absolutely bought into the belief that we live only to service the lord; hook, line and sinker. As I grew older and older, and my family condition of mental illness continued to manifest, I was confident that the lord was going to protect me so I went on dreaming of my storybook future, because I believed in the lord. I didn’t need therapy because I was religious. I didn’t need antidepressants because I had the lord.

So, as my life continued to spiral downward, I started with the bargaining. “Lord, I am really getting to a bad place. If you’ll just straighten out my life, then I promise that I’ll live my life in service of your glorious name. I’ll make the a difference in this world, do good works, and help as many people as I have time to on this planet. Just please let me pass this drug test!”

My dad used M&M’s to teach me math as a child. I didn’t know they tasted delicious until I started pre-school. I started presenting science fair projects in fifth grade and started studying calculus my junior year in high school. Logic drives my life so much so that I can only see the world in black and white; never grey. Mathematics, science, and logic has been the biggest driving force in my life, so how did I get to the point where I’m bargaining with somebody, that I have no proof exists, and giving him responsibility for MY life?

After I topped out at 507 pounds and pretty deep into my “fake it ‘til I make it” phase, I still believed that god had this master plan for me and he was going to reward me for my hard efforts. As soon as I lost enough weight, the lord was going to compensate me for fixing my life by bringing me “my partner” in life and making my life easier. I actually believed that God favored skinny people because they were taking better care of their “temple” and it just seemed like skinnier people had easier lives. I mean they were the ones getting laid at bars with women they just met while I was beery belly up to the bar slamming beers trying to make the pain subside.

After about six months of hard work, my storybook life was coming together. I had an awesome girlfriend, a family, and the weight was just dropping off. The lord had come through for me until we hit a bit of a snag. There was a situation that I thought I could handle, we were out socially, I started drinking, made a jack ass of myself, and then ran up a $150 bar bill because I thought this “storybook life” was just an evil glimpse at a life I was never going to have. I ended up trying to walk from Greenwood to Speedway (suburbs of Indianapolis, approx. 15 miles apart) in a pouring down thunderstorm. I was piss drunk walking down the middle of the road, trying to describe to the cab company where I was, while the rain was falling so heavily that I couldn’t even open my eyes to see where I was going or to watch for oncoming traffic.

After an hour or so, I had finally had enough. In a Capra-esque sort of overly dramatic move I looked up to the heavens and cried out to the lord. “Kill me! Fucking kill me! Stop fucking with me you vindictive son of a bitch and just end this! Strike me down and end this misery! Are you enjoying yourself you fucking sadist?” This rant continued at the top of my lungs in between long sobs and choking fits from shouting in the rain. When I had no more energy to shout, I decided to take a break under a bank drive-thru overhang and smoke a cigarette. In my alcohol-induced haze, I spent a while attempting to light a rain soaked cigarette as something came over me. It isn’t god that dictates my life; that is strictly my responsibility. I’ve invested all of my efforts and energy into someone or something that nobody can prove exists. God doesn’t have to suffer the consequences of my actions; I do. They say that’s where the effort of faith comes in, but it’s my belief that faith is for suckers and for people that live off of others. It was time to question everything. It really doesn’t matter who or what is in control of this universe because I need to concentrate on my own destiny and what I can do to affect it.

So, with this newly discovered self reliance, I found the Unitarian Universalist church. It was so surreal to go to a doctrine-less proceeding, where you were free to practice your own system of beliefs. Instead of the Apostle’s Creed, it was a devotion to religious freedom and the journey to find our own spiritual origins. I even joined a very interesting group called Build Your Own Theology where we explore our individual religious histories and plot our spiritual futures. With this branch of religion, I’m free to explore all of the “nooks and crannies” of life without having anybody tell me what I’m seeing or what I’m supposed to be seeing.

One thing that has frustrated me about these open minded, spiritually flexible church-goers is their strong belief in the idea of community. There seems to be this huge emphasis on the idea that an investment in community with fix all of societies woes and we are beholden to our community more than we’re supposed to be accountable to ourselves. This has left me somewhat dumbfounded because these people that criticize Christians for their blind faith and obedience to this all powerful, all knowing “God,” place their independence, free thought, money, future, hopes, and dreams into this collective they believe can overcome our shortcomings, as a society, to solve all of life problems; without having the individual power to effect the ideas or decisions of the collective. That’s sounds a lot like a religion.

It seems in religions throughout the world, the major principles are arranged as God first, the church second, and the individual third. Take the Roman Catholic Church for example. It starts at the very top with God, the Holy Ghost, as the most important position within the faith. Just below God, is the pontiff, followed by the Catholic Church as an organization. Then the organization is broken down by archbishops, cardinals, priests, elected officials within the local church, and finally the individual. God, the Pope, and the church, as an organization, are the only sacred institutions, with no mention of the individual. If there was even the least bit of concern for the members of the church, then maybe the Catholic Church wouldn’t be opposed to practices such as birth control in third world countries that can’t afford to feed all of “God’s miracles.”

Generally speaking, it is my experience that all protestant organizations, as well as religious hierarchies throughout the world, are organized in this sort of “top down” fashion with considerations for God and the church, before the individual. With regards to the Unitarian experience, it really surprised me at how much it felt like every other church I’ve attended; from the hierarchy of the organization to the schedule of events during the service. The principles and vocabulary are slightly different, but the experience seems the same, minus the guilt at the end of the sermon. So, it really feels like every other church, just without God at the pinnacle. If God is absent at the focal point, then it would seem like the entire organization would flow through the fundamental ideal of the community, or the Unitarian Universalist church. It’s God first, the church second, and the individual third, but without God at the top of the pecking order.

Now don’t interpret this as any sort of dig at the Unitarians. I am so thankful that I’m actually in a position to freely question and explore my spirituality without any sort of bias, pressure, or specific doctrine. It isn’t my intention to undercut the Unitarians or any other sect or religion, but to demonstrate just how close we all are as a people to understanding the answer to our most fundamental question of how we ended up here and what is our purpose in existence? The verbiage, practices, and stories might differ from faith to faith and church to church, but the behavior is consistent throughout mankind.

So what is a spiritually confused, at times mentally and emotionally unstable, obese man to do?

If you have read anything about me, you know that I’ve plateau-ed at my current weight for about 8 months now. My energy level has been terrible and I’ve felt as if my depression and anxiety were getting worse, instead of better, and I was afraid to see how many emotional stabilizers it would require to get me to a good place in my life. I’ve talked to doctors, nutritionists, herbal specialists, acupuncturists, and reflexologists only to consistently get the same result: constant fatigue and no energy response from food. It’s like my metabolism is stunted, but my thyroid is perfectly normal. After a great deal of exploration and examination, my girlfriend and I figured out that I must have some sort of insulin response problem. For 8 months I have absolutely killed myself to get this burden off my shoulders to no avail. As month after month with the same burden on my knees, I would work harder and harder and commit more energy to easing my life. I’m in the cardiac shape of somebody a lot smaller than I, so imagine doing 7 hours of aerobic activity with 150 pounds of weight strapped to your back. I’ve been working so hard only to break even and it is so frustrating!

Why is it that every positive step in life gets harder and harder? I know that nothing comes without work, but shit this is getting ridiculous. How much determination can one person have? How much crap must one person eat, figuratively, to get to a point where it doesn’t hurt to get out of bed in the morning? It’s great that all my efforts have slimmed down my waist line and bulked up my chest, arms, legs, and shoulders but I really just want this weight off my back! When I exercise, I’m just killing myself because I’m pushing all that weight around with a great deal of vigor, but when I stop to rest, I’m still exercising because I’m have to hold my large mass up off the ground. I just want some relief.

So tired, sluggish, exhausted, and absolutely pissed off I put on my exercise clothes and went for a walk. I was planning on a two mile walk to the cell tower and back. As I got out on the road, the wind started to pick up and I became just a big parachute. My legs started to ache from pushing my massive frame through the straight line winds. As I was getting so tired and frustrated at the strength of the wind, I looked up at the sky and started taunting the heavens. “Is that all you’ve got I screamed? All of this energy all around me and you can’t knock my fat ass over! You can’t keep me from getting to that tower because I’m bigger that you, stronger than you, and better than you!” The wind zipped and roared as I kept moving forward, battling the urge to turn around and have the wind push me to the comforts of home. Louder and louder I screamed as I grabbed myself inappropriately as a sign of total disrespect to the world around me. “Is that all you’ve got? Harder damn it!” And with one final step, I reached out and put my hand on that tall metal structure and breathed a sigh of relief. At that very moment, as the pride was swelling over me, the wind subsided and it was totally calm. There, at that victorious moment was this deafening silence as I gazed into the face of God.

I promise I wasn’t on acid or “shrooms” and I didn’t electrocute myself by touching the cell tower or fall and hit my head. I actually saw God, Allah, Buddha, the all powerful lord. I realized that God is everywhere around us. He is the thorn in our ass and the joy in our hearts. He is that cool refreshing feeling in your soul when you kiss somebody you love or when you lose your virginity and he is also the pain in your heart when you lose a loved one or are diagnosed with a terminal disease. He is in the wind, the water, and every ounce of matter in our universe. Physics will refer to this concept as the laws of conservation of energy and the conservation of matter. It states that matter and energy can be neither created nor destroyed, but only change form. It says that energy is all around us. There is energy in every piece of matter around us and that physical and chemical forces can convert that object, and its energy, into another source of mass and energy. For example, there is a great deal of energy at the core of this planet. The heat from the earth’s core works in concert with the mass of the overlapping layers of rock and dirt to create this incredible pressure. The pressure is so intense that, over time, it converts the dirt and rock to coal. The coal is excavated from the group and burned to produce electricity. The electricity is used to create heat or light. You might think I sound stoned, but you have to admit that there is certainly energy in many different forms all around us.

Man has always known that there was some sort of energy greater than their individual or collective powers which evolved into the birth of religion and spirituality. As this idea of expressing the collective energy of this earth as one or a collection of beings spread throughout man, different languages, as well as the influence of power and profit formed spirituality into the religions we have today.

What I realized when I had that epiphany at the cellular tower is that God, Satan, Allah, Buddha, Jesus, the Apostle Paul, Mohammed, and all of the angels in heaven and hell are really just frames of mind within ourselves. These aren’t spiritual beings that decide the outcome of our lives, but they are our personal interpretation of the events in our lives that influence our perspective and our decisions. I’ve always believed that the devout amongst us seemed truly happy. It always seemed like my priest or minister had their bright disposition and outlook on life because they truly knew god, but I was mistaken. It isn’t because they found the all powerful, but because they had actually found peace in their own hearts.

If I want to find peace and happiness I need to keep my “temple” in the best shape it can possibly be. Not because it is god’s will, but because I am ultimately responsible and accountable to myself and only myself. When it comes down to it, the all powerful, my girlfriend, my parents, or even my community don’t have to own the consequences, good or bad, of the decisions that I make. That responsibility lies solely with me. In order to be happy and endeavor to do what I want in this world, I have to be my own personal god. I need to worship at the altar of Andrew J. Ashby in order to finally find peace. Granted, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to walk on water or raise the dead, but who wants that kind of responsibility anyways?