Jesus Envy

This should really be called "persons of faith-envy", but that wasn't as catchy. You know I am ALL about the clever title.

Easter is one of the few holidays that we celebrated in my childhood home. Having no religious affiliation or observances, it was a secular celebration, but an ethnic one. My mother is part Ukrainian and we took this one day and honored it by eating traditional food and doing our best to color eggs in the Ukrainian fasion. To this day my mother sends me Easter cards, one of three or four cards a year I get from her, part of our uneasy agreement on the amount of contact we each can stand from the other.

My husband's family are not church-goers either, but they take the opportunity to spend the day together. We went to brunch yesterday with a group of 8 and had breakfast, lunch and dinner in one sitting, including dessert. There were lots of cherubic children in fanciful dress, and many times during the meal I had to put a smile on top of the stabbing feeling I felt in my chest.

But that's not really what I wanted to write about. I don't even know what to call myself, the closest would be agnostic. (Ag·nos·tic : one who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God or gods, that it is unknown and probably unknowable; yet does not profess true atheist.) I always had a hard time believing that there was anyone or anything watching over me. When you are emotionally, physically, and sexually abused from an early age you learn quickly that you're on your own. I've been through so many trials and tribulations in my life, suffered so many injustices and lived through so much pain, yet I know that I am a good person. I can't make sense of it. I also don't believe that I am having a shitty life this time around so I can be reborn in a better life. I think when you die, that's it. There's no heaven, no hell, no reincarnation. So I try to make the most of the one life I have, despite the roadblocks. That would be a lot easier if I had faith.

I know several people who I would call extremely religious, whose entire lives are centered around the church and other members of it, and many more who have some religious affiliation who find a way to fit it into their busy modern lives. I am envious of all of them today. Its a source of joy for most of them that I have no access to.