How acceptance is found from within

During my first year of college, I experienced a philosophical awakening. I wondered how I could practice gratitude more often and how I could develop a deeper sense of who I am. 

As existential questions plagued me each day, I began looking for philosophical texts in the library and writing down quotes that I wanted to carry with me throughout my life. On my soul-searching journey, it seemed inevitable that I would soon pick up the Catholic Bible.

I wouldn’t peg myself as a religious person growing up. Even though my parents wade through shallow waters of Buddhism, I never really praised a deity or practiced a religion until I entered college.

My “philosophical awakening” brought me to the steps of a house church in Roxborough and an on-campus Bible study. The love of God that these groups had was so beautiful and warm. They were open to embracing God’s will by accepting me into their spaces (something that I rarely experienced in the past) and welcoming my reflections and questions about God. The people that surrounded me made me feel loved. 

But I soon began to struggle with the idea of putting my hands up and worshipping a God.

At night, I would read the Bible and walk away with even more questions for God about how to become a better, kinder and gentler human being. I questioned how it was fair that I had to treat others as my neighbor—my brother or sister—when they treated me ungraciously.

In my prayers, I sought out acceptance from God. I thought that if God could accept me for who I am, then others would do the same. However, acceptance from a God who couldn’t hear me, couldn’t see me, and didn’t know me at all was as useless as my prayers to Him. 

This “all-powerful” God actually had no power over granting the acceptance that I needed to seek out on my own.

My intention is not to invalidate God. But I soon realized that seeking out the Bible and talking to God was my way of avoiding the honest conversations I needed to have with myself. One major theme of the Bible is accepting others as they are. However, I found that I couldn’t do that if I didn’t even accept myself for who I am.

For me, I learned that acceptance isn’t found in daily readings of the Bible or praying to God each night. Acceptance is found in the people we meet, the stories we tell and all the challenges we face. 

Maybe God does play a role in these things, but in my mind, practicing a religion is one way of staying in touch with a community that makes us feel loved. And feeling loved is innate to humanity, so I can’t help but wonder why we attribute our love for one another to a deity.

I’ve learned that I can practice being a good human being without needing the Bible or God to hold me accountable. Despite this, I think God will always exist if you need Him to. 

Before college, God didn’t really exist for me. I never read the Bible or openly prayed to God. However, when I entered college, I started believing that God exists, and so He existed.

A belief in God stems from our fears of living this life and from the joys that make living worthwhile. I don’t believe that we can prescribe to one religion because each of our lives are so diverse. We are constantly trying to fit the mold of how people thousands of years ago thought God would want us to be, but why can’t there be a world where God serves each one of us individually?

We have the power to create a God who reflects our identity, our hopes and our fears. Therefore, I wonder how we can use this idea to break free of conservative religions.

While I consider myself an agnostic, I’m open to believing that there is a God who exists. However, the God that I choose to believe in isn’t tied to Jesus Christ. In fact, my God is a non-binary being whose existence isn’t dependent on people believing in them. 

Their existence depends on the fact that we are all alive on this planet, living through this experience together. Our shared humanity is what makes my non-binary God exist.