Get off your ass

A good piece advice for those climbing high mountains is to get off your ass or mule when you reach the top; you have no further use for it unless and until you want to go down again. I wonder why followers of religions don't apply the same principle. When we find our God - or whatever Spirit or Power we are looking for - we can put aside what brought us into a relationship with our God. Do we have any more need for the religion that got us there?


Apparently, the answer is yes. Because I have encountered very few people with deep religious conviction who don't try to persuade me that theirs is the one true way. Now I find it hard to conceive of a God of any kind who is going to make entering into a relationship with Him/Her/It so difficult that there is just one way. Particularly as some of these exclusive routes lead to the same  place. Some of the most vitriolic and violent confrontations of my generation have been between Catholic and Protestant groups - the depth of hatred that still lingers is staggering, when you consider they both claim Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. And the confrontations between Jew and Moslem is harder to understand when you remember they both worship the same God but with different names (and yes, the underlying cause isn't the religious differences themselves).


And I am discomforted by the arrogance of those who would attempt to convert me to their way of doing things (ie believe and worship) when I have a perfectly serviceable belief of my own.


As an aside, I am equally discomforted by those who maintain a tight grasp over entry into their group. I gave a talk to a group from a local  Anglican during which I mentioned that I had rejected the Christian God I had been brought up to fear; but that then I had grown back into faith and now called myself a Christian. Among the questions I took afterwards not one was related to the substance of my talk. These people wanted to talk about my calling myself a Christian. One woman in particular persisted with a series of questions about my faith until she finally asked whether I believed Jesus was our risen Lord and Saviour. When I answered no, she almost punched the air and said "There you are. I knew you couldn't be a proper Christian." For me Christian means a follower of Jesus's teachings; for her something else entirely.


This clinging to religion can also lead to a remarkable circular argument about oneself. At one time I led a diversity group in one London YMCA which got me involved in presenting findings of an association-wide survey at a National conference. The gist of the findings was that most YMCAs were blinkered when it came to diversity in recruitment - most new staff in middle and senior positions were recruited from people who had worked at other YMCAs in the past. The people "like us" in management positions tended to recruit "people like us." This caused a furore among senior managers who refused to accept that the findings could possibly be true; the kicker is in the argument most often used: WE cannot possibly as badly as that because we're Christians!


I feel that at the bottom of all this is my position which argues against certainty. I am happy and contented with my spiritual path and tend to find a home with those who aren't quite as committed to this religious certainty. I find the relaxed and non-directional ways of liberal Quakers to suit me best - although the irony of their name,  "Friends of the Truth," is not lost on me.


As a postscript, I discovered when looking for a source that "get off your donkey" is widely used by Christian churches today. This is a call to action rather than a call to be more relaxed about who really is God's favourite.