I dont recall ever owning any faith. So, how could I loose
it in the first place? I wasn't a believer, when I was a child. I went to
church, because I had to. I grew up in a catholic household, so god was male
for me and old. He had a white beard. I prayed to him like this: „Please make
my parents happy.“ „Please let my father stop drinking.“ But also: „Please let
me have that doll for christmas, you know, the one, that can walk, with
batteries.“
He was somebody, I talked to, but he still was hollow. I
would also talk to trees or to myself. I would talk to my dolls or the walls.
So god was a normal part of my childhood, without me ever exploring any
meaning. He belonged, like the curtains belonged. You did not have to believe
in him.
There was also fear. There were his anger and his rage, my
sinfulness. There was no trust, no joy. You could not be yourself around god,
unless you really wanted to get into trouble.
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Deutschkreutz, Burgenland |
I was not a believer at all. All this was part of the furnitures.
His rage. His anger. They belonged, like the kitchen table. For this kind of
god, you did not need faith.
Nothing about it ever touched me deep. Even though I went to
a catholic all girls school, where the teachers were nuns and a male alcoholic
was the schoolprincipal. Go figure that! We had a mass every, I think,
Wednesday morning, we prayed a lot, we sang to god. Nothing touched me. It was
boring, meaningless, hollow. A hollow universe, in which I found no place to
anchor my soul. It floated above, and sometimes, I did not know, it was there.
The schoolprincipal looked down on girls. Since he was also
my math teacher, and since he believed, we would all get married anyway and
would rather need recipes for cooking, not math, I did not really trust myself
in that area. I mean math. I also despised cooking.
Maybe I lost faith then, in the possibility for me to ever
believe in a god.
I gained a knowledge of my soul, for the very first time, when I read in one of Sartres essays on
freedom, that every human was absolutely free. I was 16. It was the first
message, that ever touched me down to my bones. I gained faith. In the
possibility of being a human being. There was this horizon, endless, to which
you could drive your development, as a human. It was an inner journey. I got
that. I immediately understood, that it would be my journey. Because of Sartre,
I began to study philosophy and finished it with a degree.
It was the beginning of my spiritual journey. There was
something beyond the hollowness of the catholic, of the christian frame, I was
raised in.
There was something, that truly spoke to me. I remember the
next words, that truly touched me after my studies, were by Suzuki Roshi. They
went along the line, that you should not believe anything, ever. Always
question everything, with your own mind being the guide. But not your monkey
mind. The other mind. The one, that is vast like the sky. Nothing could ever
destroy its clarity. You only had to find it inside yourself and take residence
there.
I guess, that is, what I am trying since then. Finding the
sky within myself and taking residence there, while many many many clouds pass by.
But I mean, this sky is so limitless, all the clouds in the universe plus me
fit in there easily.
This text was, in a slightly altered version, originally published by Life in 10 minutes.
(c) Susanne Becker
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