The Illustrated Encyclopedia of an Imaginary Universe

Today is Yom Kippur. The fast started last night at sundown and goes until tonight at sundown. It has not been an easy fast for me. Usually, fasts go really well for me but today, for some reason, my body has decided to rebel: I’ve been nauseous most of the day and, even when not, I’ve lacked energy and good spirits. It’s been tough but it’ll soon be over.

We did not go to shul this year. There are a variety of reasons for this. Instead, I created a small service for just us: selections from our machzor.

I still daily struggle with my belief in G-d but, oddly enough, I feel more strongly connected to the idea than normal. Not necessarily to the idea of the puppet master image pilfered from the Romans and Greeks but still something: a sense of the universe itself? Clearly, it’s still unclear; perhaps too unclear for me to yet write at any length about it, or at least with any sort of clarity. Clearly. For now, I wonder, to whom or to where are these prayers going? Is it funerary with the prayers for the dead actually being prayers for the mourners? Am I addressing the molecules and the spaces between them and the smaller particles still? The universe as a whole? Or is it just for those within earshot and for myself, too? A lengthy and poetic handshake with the unknown, maybe.

Acknowledge, please.

Okay, maybe later.

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Too many people believe that religious people are religious because something has automatically clicked for them; that it, by default, simply feels ‘right’. For me, though, it couldn’t be further from the truth: the concept of G-d does not feel right. Well, at least the commonly-accepted version. I don’t believe in a Hestonesque figure floating in the clouds who seems to have the emotional capacity and control of a teenager. Something tells me that the creator of the universe shouldn’t be so susceptible to temper tantrums.

The process of being religious itself is to me part of my seeking G-d. I don’t practice religion because it feels right but because it is challenging. There is, obviously, enough that I like to keep me going; I wouldn’t continue if I hated the whole thing. I may be ridiculous but I’m not ridiculous. I like the struggle, the community, and the order. I enjoy the arbitrariness and the abstractness. And I try not to be atheist or nihilist about it. One of the greatest dangers of prolonged and deep Buddhist practice is that it can be easy for some to fall into nihilistic philosophies and, although I had thought I had side-stepped it, perhaps I haven’t.

I am uncertain nearly every step yet I continue.