I joined Lasting Supper to continue my spiritual journey and to find an accepting community within which to do so. Not knowing exactly how to begin, I’ve been reading other’s posts and thinking a lot about what I wanted to say. So in trying to decide how to start I had to go back to the beginning. This is what my first week developed:

When trying to understand exactly how I arrived where I am spiritually, I’ve begun to write an essay reviewing how religion, experiences and people, influenced the direction, depth and scope of my understanding and emotional pull toward or away from the subject. It is difficult to exactly classify where I stand these days, but ambivalent agnostic/relieved atheist fits the bill today. But that may change day to day.

I have spent two mornings writing and I am learning about myself as I go. It is very revealing to review the past as though through a mental-time machine, putting pieces together as I write. Things I had forgotten come to mind and others that were intense I can briefly journal in if they are relevant. It is not a full biography if you will, but it is a backward look into the past and its winding and sometimes full screeching stops, spiritual drops, U-turns and uphill climbs all contributed to where I find myself today.

I am hoping through this navel gazing, to reveal more solidly why I am where I am, which direction I am facing today and which fork I plan to trod going forward. Because where once there was only what I was taught there is now a choice to move where my heart and mind take me. For the first time I am taking full responsibility for who I really am inside and why. I may reveal piece by piece this essay as I write it and learn and share if anyone cares to. I have not been freely able to do this where I really need to, so I am extremely glad and grateful to be able to come here to the Lasting Supper and learn and post what I may find without fear. I am so glad to be here.