Part Two: Lost without Wilfred

I’m twenty three and I feel the urge to go into the ministry and preach the love of God to a congregation. To spread the white light of God’s love to the people of the world and take away their pain as he did for our group that single day when I was fourteen.

However, how can I do this whe I am completely absent of any belief in God, or any devine being for that matter? I’m an athiest, who practices paganism. I believe that all matter contains energy that shares itself with the rest of the world. I believe that I have the power to feel other’s pain and suffering. I feel I can send healing energy to those people. I can make them feel exceptionaly happy.

But why this urge to leave my life as an athiest to preach the love of a God that I don’t believe in? How can I stand in front of a congregation and tell them to love a God that doesn’t exist? Why do I need to share my testimony.

As a pagan, I look back on that day when I was fourteen and explain it as the sharing of energy. We all felt an immense unity and the whole was so powerful that we created a surge of energy that none of us were equipped to understand. We turned to the only source available to us. We believed it was a Christian God, proving his existence.

But we felt pure love, and it is this message I want to preach. The purity of souls and the ability for this state to bring peace and joy. Jesus preached this message. He told us to love everyone and to treat everyone with respect. In that circle, we loved and respected each other, and that created our power. If we follow his teachings, perhaps we all could experience this.

How can I teach this message when I have rejected Jesus and his followers? I remember a slow decline in religious belief when my church rejected me for being gay (Note: I was going to a different church at this time). My belief in God, and his white light dispersed. I slowly became an athiest.

I remember discovering paganism, and the beauty of its message. It was more in line with the teachings of Jesus than Christianity itself. It tought good living and good acting. It brought me the joy of companionship and kin. In its rituals, I could vaguely feel the white light.

It was never the same though, and I’m not sure it ever will be. I’m not sure I will ever experience anything of that power ever again in my life. If I do, I’m not sure I would recognize it as the same. I strive for it though, and beg for it. I want to feel the safeness that I was wrapped up in that day. I want to feel the power of Wilfred towering over me with love. I want God.

More than once in the past few years, I’ve felt the urge to go back to Christianity, but never followed through, knowing how empty it made me feel compared to my paganism/athiesm. I crave its rituals and rules. I miss its guidelines for living. Its concrete plans. I desire its universal apeal. I want my crutch back.

Lately, I’ve wanted to put on the cloth and lead the congregation. Something I haven’t thought about since I was sixteen. I want to stand in front of people and tell them that all you need is love. And to be good to people. All you need is the message of Jesus, and you can feel the power of God. I wouldn’t tell them of my lack of belief in God, or better put, my very different view of him. I would never reveal that the only vein that connects myself to a God that I crave, is a moment when I was fourteen that I felt his power.