Finding God in Gomorrah - How I Discovered God - A Journey Through Books.

Dear Henry,

Previously, I mentioned the nun who directed me toward the Catholic church, but I never touched on why I felt the need to seek God in the first place. It's a much longer story.

I've already disclosed that my parents, Team BK, led atypical lives that placed me in a sphere outside of the area's religion and, really, outside of decent, moral, and conventional behavior. As a result, I struggled to find my way, especially during my teenage and young adult years. 

People say that the Big G will never give you a life without giving you the tools to get through it, and while it took me a while to realize it, I have some fantastic gifts. I have an innate sense of direction and generally know which way is north, even indoors. I can also "see" light, a talent I use in photography, and finally, I love reading. I found my way through books.

 *Side note: I owe an outstanding debt to my dad, my mother's second husband, not my biological father, for my ability to take advantage of these gifts. He taught me to read using the signs and car insignias we passed while driving. He cultivated my love of road trips, photography, and hiking. Dad was also the person who taught me to read a map.*

These are the books that guided me.

A Wrinkle In Time - Madeline L'Engle

"Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself."

The storyline, in which Meg Murray and her crew of children set out across the galaxy using science and the help of three witches to win a war against darkness, appealed to me. I related to Meg, who was supposed to be smart but never fit in with her teachers or other students and struggled to see her own worth. I also found the first of what I had always considered my guiding quotes, and that was when Ms. Whatsit said, "Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself." It reminded me of something my dad (see former explanation of the difference between my dad and my father) said to me. "If you obey the little rules, you can do whatever you want." 

Of course, finding out what those rules were proved to be challenging. Team BK followed its own rules, and those rules and behaviors didn't transition to the real world. It is because I was never able to navigate life in my early years that I became so obsessed with knowing the rules and expectations in every situation. As a result, I've been on a lifelong mission to discover all of life's "rules." 

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith

"Suffering is also good; it makes a person rich in character."

This is the story of Francie Nolan, a girl who grew up in abject poverty in Brooklyn before WWI. Francie Nolan's grandmother told her mother on the night of her birth to read her a page from the Bible and a page from Shakespeare, and Katie Nolan, Francie's mother, took her words to heart. From this book, I learned the rules of class and how it requires much more than money. I learned the importance of education, reading uplifting books, Shakespeare, and how prayers work. I didn't pick up the Bible, though. 

My experiences with religion as a child and young adult were quite negative, and the books of Genesis and Exodus are challenging. Through the lens of experiences thus far, it was easy to see the God of Abraham as a condemning, smiting, overbearing being, and, quite frankly, I didn't need that type of negativity in my life. However, I felt like I needed to believe in "something." I felt for sure that there was "something." After receiving inspiration from Marion Zimmer Bradley's "Mists of Avalon," I decided that if there was a god, it couldn't possibly be the grumpy old thing I was raised to believe in; it was most probably a woman. 

A Road Less Traveled - M. Scott Peck

"Evil then, for the moment, is the force, residing either inside or outside of human beings, that seeks to kill life or liveliness. And goodness is its opposite. Goodness is that which promotes life and liveliness."

I picked up this book because I loved the romance of "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost, and the title appealed to that romance. The book contained some hard truths about the meaning and purpose of life, and it was the first book that showed me how far away from a "good life" my life was. (*Side Note* I'm still a little grumpy about the example Team BK set and who they had raised me to be.) May the Big G forgive them*) This book also taught me that volition is far more important than intention. It was also from this book that I learned what evil is and that laziness is the spring from which evil flows.

Of course, these books were small nudges in changing the direction of my life. I would be given a much bigger jolt. "The accident." There is nothing like coming back from the dead to change your perspective. Plus, devastating events tend to pare people (especially those who are selfish and negative) out of your life. Fish and I lost a lot of connections. 

I did find more time to read, though.

Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand 

"Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy -- a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction, not the joy of escaping from your mind, but of using your mind's fullest power, not the joy of faking reality, but of achieving values that are real, not the joy of a drunkard, but of a producer."

This dystopian story is about Dagny Taggart, her business acumen, and her search for the elusive John Galt. It addresses the joys of creation and the stifling effect of being forced to give up what you create to those who don't work for them. 

The book is a beast to get through, and much can be said regarding Ayn's personal philosophy. Still, it was a valuable read. 

It was here, buried within the lengthy soliloquies, that I discovered the beauty and purpose of work and creation and the desire to own my own person and have my own worth. It is also through this book that I found the best definition of happiness. 

As A Man Thinketh - James Allen

"Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results; bad thoughts and actions can never produce good results...We understand this law in the natural world, and work with it; but few understand it in the mental and moral world - although its operation there is just as simple and undeviating-and they, therefore do not cooperate with it."

This short little booklet (a mere 68 pages!) is a gem. It's a quick little self-help read that has been around for over 100 years. 

From this book, I learned that not only do you need to think good thoughts, but you also need to surround yourself with good people with values similar to yours. 

Unfortunately, the book doesn't mention that it is an incredibly lonely process, finding people with values similar to yours, particularly when you are in the quagmire, Fish and my parents left us, and you need to walk away from almost everything and everyone you have ever known.

Slouching Toward Bethlehem - Joan Didion

"Character - the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life - is the source from which self-respect springs."

This collection of Joan Didion's essays, written during the 1960s, contains what I think is her finest essay, "On Self-Respect."

I wish I had garnered the wisdom in these pages much earlier in my life. After reading this book, I began to question the definitions I had been taught, particularly for words like love and forgiveness. Through her essays, I learned what character was, how inappropriate acting on your "feelings" was, and most importantly, the true definition of self-respect. 

It is incredible how much your definition of "worth it" changes when you begin to respect the cost to yourself.

Meditations - Marcus Aurelius

"Death overshadows you. While you're alive and able, be good."

"Meditations" is a collection of notes that the Stoic emperor wrote, primarily to remind himself of the importance of virtuous behavior and the necessity of self-control. It's an enlightening read about the finer points of personal responsibility.

"While Slouching Toward Bethlehem" taught me the rules of self-respect, "Meditations" taught me the rules of values, honor, and the need to guard the sanctity of our soul, no matter how tired we are or how inconvenient it may be. 

Like Didion, Marcus Aurelius emphasized the importance of understanding the true definition or value of things before allowing them into one's life. And finally, as someone who has already confronted their own death, I am pretty comfortable with the "memento mori" found within Stoic philosophy.

A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking

"The usual approach of science, of constructing a mathematical model, cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?"

During Christmas, there is an M&M commercial where Santa Claus and two M&M men meet by the Christmas tree, and after exclamations of "He does exist!" "They do exist!" Santa and one of the M&M men faint with shock.

This book was my M&M moment. 

While I always believed in "something," I had no idea what that something was other than it wasn't the something I had been taught. With this book, I recognized that the big G was the *why* behind the universe. It was a paradigm shift of epic proportions. Because it also meant that the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology are as much God's laws as the big ten in the Bible, and with that knowledge, sin and its punishment no longer seemed like the acts of a vindictive god but rather the results of cause and effect, and suddenly, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was no longer the act of vengeance and destruction but rather the acts of cities who, in addition to being inhospitable, also violated God's law of Thou Shall Not Build Thy Cities Next To A Volcano (Genesis 19:24) 

Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes

"I am afraid. Not of life, or death, or nothingness, but of wasting it as if I had never been."

Have you ever thought about your funeral? While I will be the first to agree with Don DeLillo that fantasizing about your funeral is the worst form of self-pity, a quick run through what you imagine your funeral will look like, including the anticipated guest list, can be instructive. 

Fish and I had, by necessity, distanced ourselves from many people, and our small tribe only contained the boys and us. I had received some pretty incredible miracles (read about the accident and pregnancy here) and had no one to share those stories with. Charlie's fear of wasting his life, as if it had never existed, struck (and still strikes) a deep chord with me, and I realized that we needed to find our own people.

The Robe - Lloyd C. Douglas

"No man should be asked to think highly of a master who has robbed him of his liberty."

Despite discovering the God of Abraham several books ago and realizing that we needed a tribe, I still never considered joining a religion until I read this book. Given my background and circumstances, entering the Jewish faith alone would have been weird to the point of being impossible. I also felt that, even if I did manage to make it through the conversion process, I would still always be an outsider, "a convert." There didn't seem to be a point in joining a religion if I would always be outside the tribe. 

I hadn't considered Christianity before this book. The church of my youth did not believe in the Trinitarian God, and my perception of who Jesus is was quite different than the Jesus presented in this book. I liked the portrayal of Jesus in this book and deduced that Catholicism was merely a step away from Judaism. I finally remembered the promise I made to myself after encountering a wonderful nun who genuinely embodied the Christian values portrayed in this book. I decided to become Catholic. Maybe. 

God Is Not Great - Christopher Hitchens

"And it seems possible, moving to the psychological arena, that people can be better off believing in something than in nothing, however untrue that something may be."

This is my favorite part of the story.  

Although I had by now learned the self-discipline necessary for a religious lifestyle, recognized the deep need for a tribe, realized "He does exist!" and that I must follow Jesus, I still didn't want to attend church. Based upon my experience, people who attend church are weird and judgmental, and I didn't want to be part of that crowd. 

In Christopher Hitchens' book, there are plenty of examples of religious people behaving badly and technically outside their faiths. It's excellent, snarky fun. He also brings up some great science, including a critical "law" of human behavior. Humans are better off psychologically if they believe in and worship a God. This information squared with all of my research on trauma survival, that damaged people would destroy themselves without both a strong social structure and a strong ideology. 

It was then that I decided it no longer mattered if the "blue pill" wasn't the real world. It was a world I wanted to live in and a world that would bring me peace.

And after a disastrous phone call with my mother, my next step took place on Ash Wednesday when I started the official steps into the Catholic church.

xoxo a.d. elliott

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a.d. elliott is a wanderer, writer, and photographer currently living in Salem, Virginia. 

In addition to the travel writings at www.takethebackroads.com, you can also read her book reviews at www.riteoffancy.com and US military biographies at www.everydaypatriot.com

Her online photography gallery can be found at shop.takethebackroads.com

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