Caught in a Revolving Door

A few updates:

I found my nail polish, and my nails are beautiful again.  The color is called "blackberry" and it is a very intimidating deep red.  Although it looks more maroon in certain lights.

I cut my own hair tonight (with some help evening things in the back) and I am very happy with it.

I haven't lost a pound yet.

Now, on to the real issue of the day....

I received a response to a blog entry I wrote a long time ago from a friend of mine.  I was a bit stunned by the response.  It seemed like she read the words "God" and "Jesus" in the post and immediately made all her assumptions about my belief system.  Never mind that I also mentioned Greek mythology and a couple of different works of art in the post.  It was a philosophical post about the beauty of pain, in which I happened to mention a couple of analogies I heard in a sermon and the story of Jesus' suffering in Gethsemane.  I also quoted Rilke and talked about the Danaids in detail.

I linked a YouTube video that I posted back in September as my response to her blog entry.  The video has been very well received by atheists and not-so-well received by Christians, who hear me try to state the facts about my beliefs and jump my case before watching the rest of the video.

I feel like I am caught in a revolving door with Christians on one side and atheists on the other.  Like I'm riding the fence in some age-old religious battle.  And both sides are going to tell me that I'm being wishy-washy or that I am unsure of my convictions, which couldn't be further from the truth.

This is my conviction, as I stated to my boyfriend earlier tonight:

"Here's the thing with me.  I love my spirituality.  And I love to question my own beliefs.  It is all part of a continuous growing and learning process and I don't want that to stop.  If I decided one day that I was not spiritual, that would close a whole big growth process in me.

"My spirituality is non-negotiable."

And my right to question it and research the truth behind it is also my right.

But what upsets me is that people on both sides who claim to be open-minded or non-judgmental are very quick to "tell me how it is."

What is that!?  It is actually pretty comical if you think about it long enough.  There may be a play in this.

Even weirder is that I was just telling the Sunday School class at church a few weeks ago how I had received a negative response from a Christian to a video in which I was just being honest, while atheists were being very kind.  (Of course, the ladies in the class haven't seen the video in question.)

I'm not saying my friend was being unkind.  She really was being very kind.  But she was also trying to convince me of the things she believes.  Much like a Christian would do to an atheist, really.  Which is a bit ironic!

It's a little weird and uncomfortable, this strange religious place I find myself in, but if anything it reaffirms my convictions about who I am and what I believe.  And I love myself, and I don't plan to stop growing and learning any time soon.  I'm pretty sure that's my entire job description in life, right?