I’ve had it with religion lately. Now, don’t get all religiousy on me. I am a man of faith, often tremendous faith. Without it, I can guarantee that I wouldn’t have my happily ever after right now. I would still be a lost boy, cast adrift, looking for something, anything, to keep me afloat in my life.

It has not been an easy journey for me. When I was younger, faith was forced upon me. I guess it is with all young Catholics. We are taught at an early age to fear God and to believe that we will be lucky to make if we make it to Purgatory, let alone heaven.

Inevitably, I reached my crisis of faith, as most born Catholics do. All the arguments about which religion is right, and within that context, the much larger question of which religions are wrong, became tiresome. For me, individual religions are all about who is where on the heavenly org. chart.

Think about it for the moment. We spend a lot of time pissing about whether J.C. is the actual Son of God, or just some Executive V.P. of Prophets. See, even the word prophets sounds like a corporation. Isn’t that how much money you have at the end of the year after expenses?

So you can see my crisis of faith. I really don’t know who is right. No one really does. Yet, increasingly, we piss and moan and point accusatory fingers at others, saying their beliefs are somehow flawed or downright wrong and how we are the righteous and chosen ones.

You tire me, people. I have friends of many faiths. I think that’s kind of cool, and very enlightening. I believe that all doors lead to the same God. We all take different roads to get to those doors. And one day, we will all be very surprised about what is on the other side of that door.

It could be eternal life in heaven, it could be lights out because no one is home. All that’s waiting for you is an empty trick or treat bowl because the trick is on you. There’s no afterlife. There’s not even a Snicker’s bar waiting for you before eternal darkness.

I’ve considered both outcomes over the years. At one point I was categorically agnostic. I never quite got to the atheistic point in my life, largely because I know I’ve been watched over at many points in my life, and at times, I have been clearly saved.

Saved, you say? As in Christian saved? No, not me. Sorry. But there was definitely divine intervention at a time when I should have been dead. Each time sill rings crystal clear in my mind as a constant reminder.

Not only did they serve to save my life – for whatever reason – but they also served to reconfirm my faith that there is something out there that is more powerful than me out there. It is an unshakeable faith, which is drawn from the same spot in my being that has always believed that I could have my happily ever after or that tomorrow will be better than today.

Faith isn’t really all that mysterious. Certainly, it’s not as mysterious as religions like to make it out to be. In its most basic form, it is the complete trust or confidence in someone or something. Wow, that wasn’t too scary, was it?

Now, I don’t care if you place your faith in Mother Nature, God, Buddha, or whatever. That’s your journey, not mine. And I’m not here to proselytize to you that you should believe what I believe. That, quite frankly, is all nonsense and a complete waste of time. Like trying to convince a Republican to vote for Bernie Sanders.

One could ask how I can have faith in something I can’t see. Well, I’ve thought a lot about that over the years. I can thank NASA for much of it. You see, I look around this big universe of ours, as well as this big blue marble we are marooned on, and I can’t help but see divine inspiration or intervention here. It’s just too beautiful, too amazing, to be random in my book.

Plus, after years of study, I’ve never been able to reconcile that physics law that says something can’t come out of nothing. Forget all that nonsense about where man came from and forget the Garden of Eden and Great Flood stories. Go to the most basic moment of creation and ask, where did that first speck, that first quark, lepton and boson or any other speck you care to name, come from? It can’t come from nothing. Somewhere it had to be created.

It’s all pretty simple to me. At least the basic question that causes me to have faith in something greater than I am. Go ahead and split hairs after that. I don’t care. But what I can’t fathom, from my own understanding of faith, is how you can have faith in your love, in your relationship, in your happily ever after, faith in humanity or faith that tomorrow will be better than today, and somehow draw a magic line between these acts of faith and that faith in a higher power, regardless of what that higher power is to you.

Labor away on the heavenly org. chart if you wish. I don’t mind. Just don’t try to convince me that your belief is the right one, and mine is somehow wrong. No one can know for sure. No one will know until it’s too late to come back and post about it on Facebook. There’s only one guarantee: We’ll all be surprised someday.

At least with my particular brand of faith, if there’s someone there to answer the door when I ring the bell, I hope He or She is glad to meet me. And if there’s no one there to answer, I guess I won’t have to worry about it. The lights won’t be on, no one will know the difference and I will just turn to a pile of dust, none the worse for wear in having faith while I’m still here, alive and kicking. I’m good with that.

In the Emerald City, having faith that today is going to be a great day, but tomorrow is going to be even better,

– Robb