I can attest that God at times uses unorthodox (a subjective word in itself) means to draw me closer to Him. Just this morning, I am feeling snug within my faith, within my perceived (and actual) relationship to a living, transcended Godhead as described in the Judaic and Christian testaments. I’ve been listening to an audiobook by Karen Armstrong called “A Short History of Myth” which timelines the stories and methods people, since the beginning, have used to stretch their arms upwards in a longing for spiritual meaning. She instructs me on how the Judaic story fits into this historical picture. She instructs me that the word “myth” is used to represent a transformative, transcendent belief system that people within certain circumstances use therapeutically or socially to improve their understanding of life.

She tells me about the age of enlightenment period in which empirical rationalism becomes a lasting force and, at times, disavows the subjective stuff of the heart and emotions. How science also attaches itself to weapons of destruction in today’s world. How adulation of icons from Hollywood do not speak to the epic need for spiritual tending which our history tells us is necessary.

I’ve always been interested in how all of this pieces together. How Baal in Old Testament came to be worshiped and how the Israelites worked (and fought) within this mythological framework. Yes, from this listening, it became important for me to accommodate and sift and draw from it the reason for why I believe and hold on to those subjective (and objective) truths of faith in Jesus Christ as a resurrected reality. Although I can’t speak for the other people who were born in other parts of the world, I know that I’m grateful to have this heritage, even though I probe and pick at it for understanding on how it developed in such a pluralistic world of beliefs. I know that the relationship aspect of it is true which makes it living and viable.

The religious consciousness has always fascinated me, and I hope to learn lots more about how and in what way humanity responds to this need.