Religion is a deeply personal pursuit. No duh. But, in all seriousness, turn to someone right now and ask them what religion they are and why. The tone of the moment immediately shifts. People get uncomfortable and guarded when the subject of religion and their own personal beliefs comes up. I asked a Christian friend of mine recently why he believed his religion was correct, and he replied, “that’s the answer I can’t give logically. I believe what I believe because I choose to.” And that’s the crux of the whole thing, isn’t it? Religion isn’t about logic. It’s about trust and emotion. Both of which can be extremely fickle and fleeting. They are also very hard to explain, and must simply be felt.

That is where I find myself: in a place of supreme feeling. I feel my way around religions like a person searching for the light switch in a dark room. I realize now that I wasn’t simply interested in ancient Egypt as a child, but rather in the Gods, Goddesses, and the belief system in general. Then I learned about the Roman and Greek pantheon of deities, and those stories filled my heart with the heat of curiosity. Hell, when I rejected Christianity at age eleven I tried to invent my own religion. What did I feel to be true? Of all the stories and paths I had been exposed to up to that point, was there anything that seemed correct? In the end, my own personal little faith ended up being fairly Pagan; though I wouldn’t realize that until I was fourteen and introduced to Wicca by a female friend who had been a practicing witch off and on for a while and was keen to start a coven. But where am I going with this again? Right. Faith is a feeling. Sometimes it is a feeling you are given by a loved one, and other times it is one that you stumble upon.

In preparation of this little self guided project of mine, which I am trying to explain to you in probably far too many words, I started rereading Life of Pi by Yann Martel. “But Abbey,” you say. “Why would you read a work of fiction when you want to think about religion?” I answer with another question: Wouldn’t an atheist call the Bible, Quran, Vedas, or any other such religious text a work of fiction? Absolutely they would! So, in my effort to focus my thoughts so I wouldn’t ramble (too much), I looked to the character of Pi and his many religions. (Do we remember what Pi’s three religions were? This will be on the quiz.) He is a practicing Hindu, Catholic, and Muslim. He says, “We are all born like Catholics, aren’t we—in limbo, without religion, until some figure introduces us to God” (Martel p.47)? This is the part of the book where Pi tells us how he picked up his three faiths. His Aunt gave him Hinduism, a kind priest in a small church gave him Catholicism, and a humble baker gave him Islam. He explains how his “heart commands” him to be a believer of Hinduism (Martel p.48). It was the flawed and broken humanity of Jesus Christ that pulled him to Catholicism. And I would wager that it was the quiet simplicity of Islam that made Pi a Muslim. All this is to say that Pi felt these faiths to be true. When he is questioned by a pandit, a priest, an imam, and his parents about his faiths, prodded to decide on only one, he replies, “Bapu Gandhi said, ‘All religions are true.’ I just want to love God” (Martel p.69).

I find myself kin to Pi in that I do a bit of feeling myself. I consider myself an eclectic Pagan. My patron deities are Greek, I find joy in Celtic traditions, and I fold Zen Buddhism into the places I still feel restless. I always allow space for my heart to be stirred by some truth I have yet to know. The Zen Buddhism bit came to me in an Eastern philosophy class for example. And so this meandering leads us to the point. This year I decided that not only do I want to be a better Pagan, I want to gain a deeper, more meaningful understanding of the religions of the world. How am I planning to do that? Being a better Pagan is the easy part. I am keeping better track of the phases of the moon and I wrote down holidays on a calendar so I’m not surprised by them as I typically am. But learning about the religions of the world?

Let me describe my plan as concisely as possible. I aim to immerse myself in various religions, one at a time, as I celebrate a holiday or event. I believe holidays are a fantastic way to get acquainted with a religion. They are little snapshots where you can see the influences of certain regions the faith has travelled to, and where you can find core tenets nestled under ribbons or mingling with overflowing bowls of scrumptious delicacies. Jews, for instance, eat foods fried in oil during Chanukah as a way to live and connect to the miracle of oil that the holiday is fixed upon. Now, I could, and will, read religious texts and books by practitioners on the how and why of being a particular faith. But faith is a feeling, remember? And the only way to truly feel a thing is to experience it. So, with earnest curiosity and sincere respect, I will be living and breathing these religions to the best of my ability. To put it another way, I will explore religion by way of the scientific method; question, research, hypothesis, experiment, observation/analysis, and conclusion. There are several questions I have. What exactly have people believed through time, and how have they done so? Why do people believe what they do? For research I will read the religious texts and various other books or articles as well as, hopefully, speaking to current practitioners of the faith. I will define my hypothesis as what I aim to get out of the experience of that faith; mostly I seek to dispel any preconceived notions I may have. For the experiment aspect I will be observing the particular holiday as accurately and piously as possible. The observation and analysis portion will be in the form of these posts that you will have the joy or displeasure of being subjected to from time to time. As for the conclusion? I, honest to God, haven’t figured out what that will look like yet.

Why this? Why now? This spiritual journey, as I’ve been referring to it privately as, is something I’ve thought of doing for a few years now. I had seen something mentioning the holy month of Ramadan, and I realized I didn’t know specifically what it was or why it was celebrated so I decided to look it up. I learned that not only was it a way to devote oneself to God, but that it allowed Muslims to place themselves in the shoes of those who are less fortunate. Namely, through fasting, Muslims can directly experience what it is like for people who have not. This practical way of understanding something sounded so beautiful to me. I instantly felt the desire to participate. I began thinking that some day I would prepare myself, and fast along with the Muslims of the world. Then I thought of all the other religions and how if I took part in their holidays, felt what their believers felt, even for a little while, I would understand those faiths far better than if I were to just read about them in a book. And so that was the genesis of this little undertaking of mine. But why this year? Around November of 2019 I felt a surge of momentum to make 2020 the year I take my health and wellness seriously. Naturally, my spiritual wellness is a large part of that. And so, as of this year, I will be starting with the Abrahamic religions; Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. Firstly, I will be observing Lent which begins on February 26th. I will be doing so as a Catholic.