| Anne Williamson |
Few of us can swallow the religion of our childhood whole and believe it. We change, the world changes, and so we need our faith to change too. Old beliefs and patterns now feel untrue. So, we let go. Some of us rip the bandaid off; sure, the skin is red and irritated, the sticky remnants annoying, but we're happy for a "clean" break. Others of us take our time, maybe because the process is painful or maybe because we never had any intention of letting go completely - some beliefs, rituals, disciplines still feel true to us.
Either way, we were right to let go of what we did. Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel said, "Things, when magnified, are forgeries of happiness." For those of us who let go, this is what those things of the church, synagogue, mosque, secular-but-no-less-ritualized-home, etc. had become: forgeries, idols. This is okay. It's our truth.
It is also truth, though, that the things in and of themselves were never the problem...
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