“I still believe in God. And here’s the thing, if I tried to tell you what that meant, I would be wrong. The only thing that I know for sure is that whatever I know is wrong. And it does not behoove me to spend a moment’s time thinking about it.
“We are alive and that’s an astonishing gift. And it seems very possible to me that being alive is God and that the trick is whether or not we know it. The trick is whether or not we can keep our focus and remember that we are, for all of the suffering, the recipient of the most beautiful gift for a limited period of time, which is our life.
. . .
“I am still a Catholic and there is an enormous amount about Catholicism that I don’t believe and am appalled by. I am still an American and there is an enormous amount about being an American that I don’t believe in and that I am appalled by. I am a Tennessean. There is an enormous amount about being a Tennessean that I don’t believe in and I am appalled by. But I am those things. And there are – about all of those things – parts that I love and I’m proud of.
“When I was a sophomore at Sarah Lawrence, I had a humanism teacher. We had a class called “Humanism.” And it was a point in my life where I thought, “I loathe Catholicism. I want nothing to do with this. This is just an anathema to everything of who I am and who I believe in, what I believe in.”
“And I went out to dinner at the Raceway Diner, I remember, in Yonkers with my humanism teacher. And I told him my problems. And he said, “If you’re going looking for something as big as God, just go where you’re comfortable. Go with what you know. It doesn’t make any difference. You’re not going to pick a better religion. You’re not going to pick a better set of words. It’s not about the words. It’s not about the religion. Don’t waste your time picking out your luggage. Just go on the trip.”
“What matters is that we do our best with the life that we have, that we show up, that we love each other, and that we try to be as aware as is humanly possible of the life and the gift that we’re given, and to help other people wherever we can.”
Full interview: https://www.npr.org/2024/11/08/nx-s1-5181359/ann-patchett-bel-canto-author-religion-childhood-wild-card
I love this. I think most of you will hate it. Not dogmatic enough for most believers, not anti-theistic enough for most non-believers, too woo for one particular non-believer.
Is life poetry, or science, or both?
Does language convey precise meaning, or only point with various degrees of ambiguity?
Is religion the baggage or the trip?
Do you know that whatever you know is wrong?