Throughout my life, I have come to understand what “God” means to me in a variety of different ways and a variety of different times. I would go so far as to say no year went by when my perception of God remained the same from the year before. I think this is a fairly common thing because I believe that a great many people have experiences throughout their life that change their perspective, whether it be because God feels particularly close, particularly distant, or anywhere in between.
In recent years, however, I have been intentionally pursuing opportunities that cause me to challenge my belief in God. I feel, to some extent, that my ideas along this path will be stronger if they can stand up to the challenge of disbelief, the challenge of being challenged.
Since I joined NFTY and began my first term as Religious and Cultural Vice President, I found that I wanted to be able to form some form of connection with God, because I felt an obligation to be able to have a personal understanding if I was going to be any form of spiritual leader.
Along my three terms, I have changed my views, changed my understanding, and changed my perception of God multiple times. But one of the things that I learned was to “hide my belief” in different places. When I say hide my belief, I mean that I would find things that inspired me, that drove me to have a better understanding on myself and my perception of God, and to save those for another time when I may be less firm in my faith.
The strongest of these items is the book “Have a Little Faith,” by Mitch Albom. This book is one that, whenever I feel distant from God and from my understanding of personal faith, I crack out my copy, spend a two-day period fully engrossed, and come out the other end feeling spiritually rejuvenated. Every time I read the book, I take something different out of it. But, at the same time, I believe that this book is a way in which I stay anchored, grounded, and reverent of my faith.
The behind-the-scenes reason for this blog post is that the documentary “God in the Box” is being shown tonight at Indiana University. I will be in attendance. This will be the second time I will be viewing it. The first time, I was at my home away from home, the URJ Kutz Camp. The camp staff brought in Nathan Lang, the director and creator of the film, to show it and discuss it. Over the course of the film, my perception of God was thrown totally to the wind, and I was forced to come to terms with how my beliefs fit in with the information I was getting. Does my belief in God stand true because of what I am hearing? What do I do if I want to change my view on God? How do I fit into my Jewish community if my views change?
As a person who is looking to give my entire life to religious practice and leadership, God is an important part of my future. So having some form of understanding of my personal spirituality is pretty important. I know Rabbis who are pretty set in their unwavering belief in God. I know some who do not necessarily even believe in God. Yet, even disbelief is a choice to believe in something.
In viewing this film tonight, I know that I am taking where I am as a believer and going to come out differently. And, frankly, I’m pretty excited about it. I can’t wait to see how my belief is adapted to fit my new understanding. Even though I have seen the film before, I am a different version of myself from the one that I was when I saw it the first time, and I’m sure there will be a whole new version of myself on the other side.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Heretic and Innovator
I haven’t blogged in several weeks, which is most likely because of the number of transitions going on in my life. With my involvement with NFTY changing and eventually dispersing, I have had to come up with new ideas for what my Jewish and secular leadership is going to look like in the coming years.
Part of this involved reading and writing an incredible amount. The topics dealt with a little bit of spirituality, a little bit of philosophy, and a little bit of leadership self-help material. Overall, I began writing my own ideas down, and creating a new sense of what it means to lead, what it means to follow, and what it means to make a difference in the world.
In my Jewish History class, I came to an interesting realization: most of the people we were studying created their greatest works or contributions to society in the last half of their lives. Whatever the reason for our studying them, it had something to do with what they did at the end, rather than at the beginning. I think this was startling because I would most definitely prefer to be in the first half of my life, and by a wide margin. That being said, I refuse to believe that everything I do from this point until I’m a “mature adult with life experience” will but useless.
I am calling for more action and seriousness put toward people of younger ages. Better yet, I’m calling for the elimination of age from discussions regarding leadership. It shouldn’t really matter how old someone is in terms of their ability to lead, inspire, or think. Whether it be direct campaigns for social justice, works of literary brilliance or anything else for that matter, age should not be anything short of a statistic.
Another element of my gleanings has to do with the boxes we create to limit our creativity. This is, in short, the only way that we are able to process our thinking, because without some form of order, we would have very little ability to focus. That being said, we are cramping our own style. The ones that we call heretics shouldn’t be seen as crazy. When the heretic becomes the innovator, we know that we are creating an environment that is open and willing to change with the times.
Changing the culture of an environment is the only way to change how things are done. Without some form of shift, there is no way that we can actually change the end result, only the way that we get there. Being willing to change the culture of your surroundings, though, requires not only the vision to make it happen, but also the intentionality associated with making a decision. You can’t change a cultural mindset by accident. You have to do it with a purpose, which necessitates leadership, bravery, and innovation.
I don’t know what my life is going to look like a year from now, but I refuse to let my surroundings continue to be imperfect if I have the means to do something about it. I am willing to sound like a heretic for the time being, if that means that with it will come a cultural shift and, one day, the acceptance of change as not a scary negative, but rather a necessary positive.
Part of this involved reading and writing an incredible amount. The topics dealt with a little bit of spirituality, a little bit of philosophy, and a little bit of leadership self-help material. Overall, I began writing my own ideas down, and creating a new sense of what it means to lead, what it means to follow, and what it means to make a difference in the world.
In my Jewish History class, I came to an interesting realization: most of the people we were studying created their greatest works or contributions to society in the last half of their lives. Whatever the reason for our studying them, it had something to do with what they did at the end, rather than at the beginning. I think this was startling because I would most definitely prefer to be in the first half of my life, and by a wide margin. That being said, I refuse to believe that everything I do from this point until I’m a “mature adult with life experience” will but useless.
I am calling for more action and seriousness put toward people of younger ages. Better yet, I’m calling for the elimination of age from discussions regarding leadership. It shouldn’t really matter how old someone is in terms of their ability to lead, inspire, or think. Whether it be direct campaigns for social justice, works of literary brilliance or anything else for that matter, age should not be anything short of a statistic.
Another element of my gleanings has to do with the boxes we create to limit our creativity. This is, in short, the only way that we are able to process our thinking, because without some form of order, we would have very little ability to focus. That being said, we are cramping our own style. The ones that we call heretics shouldn’t be seen as crazy. When the heretic becomes the innovator, we know that we are creating an environment that is open and willing to change with the times.
Changing the culture of an environment is the only way to change how things are done. Without some form of shift, there is no way that we can actually change the end result, only the way that we get there. Being willing to change the culture of your surroundings, though, requires not only the vision to make it happen, but also the intentionality associated with making a decision. You can’t change a cultural mindset by accident. You have to do it with a purpose, which necessitates leadership, bravery, and innovation.
I don’t know what my life is going to look like a year from now, but I refuse to let my surroundings continue to be imperfect if I have the means to do something about it. I am willing to sound like a heretic for the time being, if that means that with it will come a cultural shift and, one day, the acceptance of change as not a scary negative, but rather a necessary positive.
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