Connections

We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.
Anne Frank (1929-1945)

I was in my teens when I started reading “The Diary of Anne Frank”. My filial piety centered, modern Singaporean life cannot be more different from this German born Jewish girl that lived 30-odd years before me. Yet, I find myself laughing and crying along with her journey towards her teens. Her angst were my own, her tentative overtures toward the opposite sex were reminisces of my own awkwardness and her inability to make her own mother understand her were echoes of my own torment. In the reading of that book, I stumbled upon a great truth; that we are all the same.

And perhaps the elusive happiness that we all seek is simply a connection to someone, something outside of ourselves.

We’ve all have had that experience when we are presented with a majestic view, say from the top of a hill. Or when we hear a soaring piece of music that just bring tears to our eyes for no reason. There is that moment like the “eye” of the storm where everything goes still and you are just at the pinnacle of your conciseness, where nothing matters; not your unfinished work or your troubled family life. The moment where you are simply you. Unfailingly, we always take in a long breath and try to hold to that moment because I believe in that moment, we can feel God.

In my search for myself, I have come to desire spirituality. Not the usual guilt-ridden religious dogma that I had been ingesting all these years, but a seeking of the spirit of the God of my heart.

The thing is, I do believe in God, or Spirit, or Consciousness, whatever word we choose to use. I’ve always feel that there is something unexplainable out there, greater than my miserable, self-absorbed life. And there is a yearning in all of us for it, because God made us to want to connect with him.

Having attended church almost all my teen and adult life, I have to admit to an indifference to spirituality. Much of my religious experience involves a lot critique on how much time I spend praying, reading the bible and how I have sinned. Guilt was an ever present emotion in my relationship with God, much like how I am with my mum. There seem to be just no pleasing them. I just felt weary all the time. And I struggle with how I feel because I felt… guilty again for not being “full of the spirit” and not being “joyful in God”. So many catch phrases that meant nothing to me.

This is not to say that my time was utterly wasted while in church, because it was not. Being there kept me on the straight and narrow for quite a while; else I would have self-destruct long ago.

In spite of the many disappointment, I had have glimpses of the God of my heart. I had wonderful experiences during times of quietness and prayer where I feel a real sense of peace and wonderment. And that God is one that is accepting of all my flaws and failings, never asking that I have to live my life a certain way, or to ostracize a certain group of people. That is the God I wanna to get to know.

When we moved to Australia, it was almost a relief to be free from the burden of church attendance. But because my soul remain vacuous, I never stop seeking the “something” that I know is out there.

I choose to fill my void with worship at the altar of the god of commercialism. I simply went shopping. I won’t go into the length and breath of my depravity, suffice to say that I squandered quite a pretty sum. Money that could have been otherwise been put to good use.

In the recent months, through reading a wonderful book, a very simple concept has rekindled my longing for the God of my heart; That God is already within us and all we need to do is reach in and connect with him. It is the how that baffles most of us.

I can’t claim to have found the way. But I do pretty well on my own, with my reading and mediations and prayers. The sense of peace lets me know that I can’t be that far off. I may not be in a conventional church as such, but I do believe I am as close to my God as I can possibly be.

I do think that everyone has their way of reaching God. We have to be open to the possibility that Christian don’t have all the answers and that the “other” religion may not be wrong either. There is no definitive proof one way or the other. We have faith, but so does everyone else. It is a big, round, circular argument that cannot be won.

I don’t know if I’m verging on being sacrilegious, especially to my ex-church mates, but I like us to be a little open minded and consider that there may be other ways of connecting with God, and not just through Jesus.