The question that has kept me searching my whole life is not, “Does G-d exist?” I seem to have been born with the belief that I have a Maker. I have never doubted this Great Mystery we try to name. Whether you want to call this God, or Hashem, Or Allah, or The Shechinah, I believe whatever It is, just is. 

The question that has plagued me throughout my life is: “Who am I to this Universal Spirit?” “Does ‘Whoever Runs this Place’ even know who I am? Much less care about me, guide me, protect me?

I really wanted religion to be the answer to this question.

My search began in Sunday School at First Presbyterian Church in downtown Wilmington when I was a little girl. We would walk the 7 blocks with my mom in our smocked dresses and Mary Jane’s. 

When I was in high school, we moved and started going to a small country Baptist church. My friends all went there, so it was more socializing than searching.  While Reverend Groover shouted about hell and damnation from the pulpit, we whispered the latest gossip in the backrow. Maybe there was not a lot of searching going on there.

In college I tried out all the churches. Methodist, Episcopal, Lutheran, Catholic. I kept wanting to feel something, see something, hear something. I wanted to feel a sense of belonging, but it never happened. Everyone else looked like they had it figured out, what was wrong with me? I still believed God was there, I was just not sure if He was there for me.

When I met my husband in graduate school, he was the first Jewish person I had ever met. He refused to date me unless I could promise I would raise our children as Jews. Wow. That was a first. I just wanted to go to the movies, and he was down the road of having children. Yet, I was drawn to this. Finally! Someone with an answer. Maybe it was THE answer. I decided he was my answer. Without knowing what I was signing up for, I jumped in headfirst.

I was looking for a formula. I wanted to take that Big Mystery and solve it so it wasn’t a mystery anymore. 

Turns out Richard didn’t have any answers, just bigger questions. So we searched together…at first. That took us to Chicago. We put our children into Jewish Day schools, and began to learn alongside them. I converted, we kashered our kitchen, joined a synagogue and began to build a friendship, faith community. As often happens when someone learns just enough to be dangerous, my ego got a little inflated. I might have been a bit smug. I finally had it all figured out! 

So much so, that we figured, if a little bit of religion was good, then more would be better.

So we moved to an orthodox neighborhood and became more religious. We went through a more rigorous Jewish conversion. This time as a family. We began observing an orthodox religious life. Unfortunately, for some people more is not always better. 

That is a wild tale for another time, but suffice it to say, we hit a big fat dead end, and it was the beginning of our entire world falling apart. We had followed religion as far as we could, thinking it was our answer and found ourselves lost and adrift. It is a painful lesson that no matter where you go… there you are. My husband dealt with it his way, and I dealt with it mine. 

One lovely example of this happened on Shabbat. Actually most of the lessons I painfully learned happened on Shabbat or one of the Jewish holidays. We biked with the kids to Michigan Lake near our house to play at the beach. As they were running around doing cartwheels and burying each other up to their necks, Richard told me he had slept with a woman at work. 

I actually laughed when he told me. Looking back, I don’t know why. It just came out, surprising even me.  The next surprise was a feeling of envy. I thought, “Who has time to have an affair?” With 4 children, keeping a Jewish home, and trying to go back to work part-time, I was lucky to have time to use the bathroom by myself. Richard and I often fought for the tiny scraps of free time in our busy life.

Somebody had a few more scraps than I realized! We talked about it a little bit. My body seemed to disconnect from my head. I asked questions as if from a distance. I did not throw things or yell or scream or even cry. Instead, as the day wore on and we biked back, I began to shut down into silent shock. By the time we made it home from the beach, I got into bed and didn’t get out… for 3 days. This scared everyone. I could not speak, or cry, or move, or eat, or even feel anything. I was completely numb. 

Finally on the 3rd day I arose, and put on my running clothes. I decided I was in danger of dissolving into the mattress and disappearing into the dark fog I could feel lurking and looming. I went out into the woods to make myself run until something happened. I was going to run until I could feel something, anything. I was going to run until I cried, or laughed, or screamed or passed out. If I was going to disappear into anything it was going to be my beloved woods.

So I started running. At first nothing happened. I kept running. I ran and ran and while I ran, I realized there was no one I could turn to. Not my family, not a friend, not my husband, no one. I was too filled with shame. The depth of my loneliness rose up in my chest and finally broke me. To suffer is human, to suffer alone is unbearable. The very person I should be able to go to with my pain, was the very person inflicting the pain. I began to cry. It gets a little tricky to run and cry at the same time. The tricky part is breathing. There is a lot of snot. But I kept crying and running and snotting and trying to breathe. I believed I was the loneliest person in the entire world. 

And then it happened. 

I can’t say it was a voice speaking to me or anything. It was just a sense of knowing. One minute I felt forsaken and the next minute a phrase in my head: 

“You are not alone. You have never been alone.” 

I felt it more than I heard it. A deep calm and peace washed over me. My tears stopped. I stood there in the middle of the woods, looking all around me at the beautiful green forest around me. I was in a state of awe. I was not alone. I have never been alone. 

I went into the woods, lost and alone. God found me there and showed me the way back to myself. I was going to be ok. I got into my car and drove home.

The path since then has been a move away from religion (and my marriage) and towards the small still voice inside me. Father Richard Rohr, a franciscan priest, calls it “Falling Upward”. We must fall down to ascend. Every time I begin to doubt my way, someone shows up, or some coincidence happens and I see the signpost leading back to the path of love and away from the path of anger. It feels like a giant invisible hand gently leading me away from bitterness and judgement. My vision clears and I am able to choose the path of forgiveness and acceptance again. Funny how forgiving yourself is the hardest part. The work for me is learning to trust and have faith when the going gets tough. This Universal Intelligent Force of Love has more than earned my trust, but I continue to fall down and be human.