I was raised catholic. Well, sort of. After my parents divorced, my mother via my grandmother, tried to instill catholic 'values' in me. My mother was working too hard to support two young children to put much effort into educating us about religion. We didn't go to church on sundays, however, my mom did enroll us in catholic education classes fairly early. I was baptized. I had my communion. But unlike the other kids in my town, I wasn't sent to church, temple, etc.
Now 32 I still don't know my feelings on religion. I certainly have a strong sense of spirituality. That said, I'm not quite sure who I pray to, who I look to or who I'm speaking to. Around 2000 was the first time that I started to truly explore my religious beliefs. This was the same time that George W. Bush became our president by hijacking naive christians across America. This is unfortunate. At the time, given some setbacks in my life, I was in need of a deeper spirtuality and I was strongly considering diving in and exploring my faith. Where was I going to start? Well, since I was loosely raised catholic, this is where I'd planned on heading.
George W. Bush changed all that. It's now five years later and our president has temporarily (permanently?) destroyed my interest in exploring christianity. Naive on my part? Probably. Nevertheless, when I look at the things that drive our president (e.g. greed, money, war, narcissism, power, etc., etc.), I feel absolutely ill that he uses christianity to reach these ends. And if believers in christianity consider him a leader of their values and faith, then I want absolutely no part of it.
Former president and everyday humanitarian Jimmy Carter has spoken to this. President Carter has always been pretty open about his faith and his beliefs. President Carter also exemplifies the values that *should* be associated with this religion: honesty, humility, love and most importantly relentless concern for others. He is a great man.
As I continue my search for a religion that can provide some fulfillment and further my spirituality, when considering christianity, men like Jimmy Carter will be the impetus behind this search. Mr. Bush and his choir of zealots, well, deep down they know what they represent.
I haven't spent more than an hour in my lifetime exploring art (by art, I mean the kind to the left). Tonight on PBS there was a fascinating feature on Georgia O'Keefe, Jackson Pollock and other great artists of the 20th century. I was ready to QUICKLY flip to another channel but was immediately drawn in by these incredible images of Georgia O'Keefe spending some time in New Mexico. They then went on to show some of her work and I'm suddenly hooked. I've spent the past hour looking up her work as well as others around her time. Absolutely beautiful. To finally acknowledge that these folks have a lot in common with many of my artistic heroes (e.g. Bob Dylan, Jeff Tweedy, Albert Camus, Jack Nicholson, Sean Penn, Haruki Murakami) will likely lead me to explore. The world of art, in all its forms, is just endless.
