A Letter to My Christian Friends

Dear Friends,

I know you have questions, scratch that, I know you have a TON of questions. And I would love to answer all of them to the best of my abilities, but for me to answer you need to listen. I mean really listen, not just to what I'm saying but what I'm trying to share. Let's face it, words have a limit to what they can express and I'm not a master wordsmith myself (although ironically I deal with words on a daily basis at my job and on this site). I want you to know that beneath the layers of belief (or unbelief in my case) I still have a human heart. Our beliefs may shape and mold us into the people we are now but they don't have to define us.We are wildly beautiful, fantastic creatures capable of tremendous love and empathy. That wondrous potential is what drives my love affair for my fellow man despite all of our brokenness and faults. This is why I can not help BUT love my neighbor. (Although in person I am more reserved and less vocal than here on my digital pulpit.) I don't follow prophets, preachers, or philosophers, I follow that which makes me vulnerable, open to the universe so that she and I may grow with AND into one another. It is love which makes us vulnerable and open to each other. As Christians you may be saying "love is exactly what drives us as well", if so then let us share with one another and walk away from the dialogue changed by the love we share.

I am an Atheist in the sense that I do not believe in the traditional monotheistic view of the divine, at least not anymore. But the imagery and symbolism used in religion still touches me on a very deep spiritual level. I'm not out to attack religion, God, and faith, I simply want to experience, learn and share my own humanity. As a rational human being I've come to cherish the stories of my parents' faith without taking them literally. The story of Adam and Eve doesn't have to be literally true for me to see the Truth expressed in the story. Don't get me wrong, I'm not writing the Bible off as merely a fairy tale book. I simply hold the Bible to be equal to other sacred (and non sacred) texts. My spirituality isn't based on what I exclude (i.e. Christian, Muslim, etc. beliefs) it's based on what I CAN include which helps me self-cultivate my love for my fellow man. That's it. Simple, no?

So to my Christian friends, I'd just like to say I'm no longer exclusively Christian because I find it boring, pointless, or backwards, but because I can't imagine containing myself to one set of religious symbols and language. There is so much more to reality that we have yet to discover or imagine that to limit the description of our human experience to a dedicated set of words and images is like painting a portrait with a handful of colors. Everything about mankind is infused with such immense diversity and creativity that we can't help but experience Reality differently. It is in that chorus of unique experiences that we share a common voice, a shared humanity. We forget that shared experience at times, but whenever we do remember I believe that is when we are closest to the divine experiencing the kingdom of God within us and among us.