Finding-Ourselves - inspirational writings, thoughts, poems, and quotes by Greg Campisi

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4/9/07
Finding Your Faith

We can spend hours going from store to store looking for the right clothes... the right dress, the right suit, and the right shoes. We spend weeks looking for the right car carefully and consciously searching for the right model, the right color, the right size and style. We have a list of criteria in our mind we want to meet: something safe, fast, dependable, and affordable. We examine at all different options depending on our needs at the moment. All for our mode of transportation, but we put even more time and effort into our living space. We spend months looking for the right house. It is the place we will call home; the place we live and raise our families within. Sometimes that home is only for the next 5 years, sometimes it’s for the rest of our lives. Regardless, we put in months looking for the right house, the right locations, and the right school district for our children. Then we spend more time and money making the inside our own – fixing it up, adding to it, making it look good, decorating it to our liking and our children's liking. Sometimes we even build the whole thing from scratch. This pattern seams universal. This seems like a normal way to go about choosing things for ourselves. The more money we are spending, the more time and effort it's worth putting into it.

What price have we put on our souls? Why are we not shopping for our own home for our own soul? Just as our parent’s house served us, sheltered us and provided safety for us growing up, so did their religion. However, we don’t live with our parents forever under their roof, under their rules. In fact the very same parents insist we grow up and start our own lives, and own families in our own homes, but yet do not always believe this is true for the home of our faith. Can you put a price on faith? Is it not important enough that we should get to choose our own? Why then do we simply accept the religion handed down to us, and not look for our own when the time comes? Why do we not reach a point in our lives when it becomes our choice to accept a faith we believe is right for us? Why do our parents insist, sometimes even force us to stay in the house of their faith? Some even threaten us if we wish to just step outside and look around.

Parents want their children to have the best education, go to the best schools, and get into the best college. When the time comes to look for a college, to decide on a place where we will take the final steps in preparing ourselves for our careers and our new lives as adults, there is so much preparation that goes into the search. We take tests and we visit colleges and universities. We look for the best one that suits us and our career path. We talk to people that teach there and attend there. We may spend a day there, or even a weekend before we make this important life decision.

Why are we not given a choice when it comes to learning about our soul and about God? Why don’t we get to visit different schools of religion before choosing our final one? Every parent who is proud of their alma mater would be pleased to have their sons and daughters attend the same, but it should not be forced upon them. Any parent should be happy to send their child to the school that best suits that child’s needs, that has the best teachers and curriculum for them. If it is not the same university the parents attended, as long as they receive a good education that is what matters. Shouldn't being educated on the topic of God be just as important, if not more important? Shouldn’t we have a bigger say in where we go to learn faith?

Every parent wants to protect their child, and every child wants to be like their parents. We provide for our children. We teach them. We try our best to give them a better life. We want them to be better people, achieve greater things, and live a better, easier lives. We love them, and want their love in return. But do we insist on keeping their love for our own? Do we insist on them not having a life of their own, or not having a family of their own? Part of being a parent is letting go and allowing children to grow, to find their own home, their own love, and to make their own family. Allow them to discover their own faith, their own spiritual family, and their own love of God. Let them worship with practices that speak to them, and they will find their own way to God.

I realize all parents want the best for their children. They want them to have good friends, attend the right school, get the best job, and find the best man or woman to love and marry. Many parents may discourage, even be angry with children choosing the "wrong" love, taking the "wrong" job, but should they force them to take their job? To marry the same sort of person they did? We are all different, all need different things, and all need to find our own way. Finding our way to God is not something that should be forced upon us. It is not something we should be judged on. If we are all trying to get to God, why does it matter so much how we get there?

For all parents – allow your children to find their own path to, their own home for and their own love of – God. It does not mean your way is wrong, it just means it is not the only way.

Is it more important to follow in our parents' shadows, or to follow our own hearts and make our own decisions? It is time to step out into the sunlight on our own and became caretakers of the most precious thing we own... our soul.