a picture steals your soul. A picture keeps a memory that can be shared with as many people as can view it, giving the memory away to the viewers. Memories may not be metaphysical, but they can certainly be spiritual, or filled with profound feeling and meaning. Moments of gut-wrenching sadness, moments of laughter through pain, moments of noticing that the rest of the world is continuing on around you, those create spiritual memories. Those are moments you carry with you, and they teach you things about yourself and the world. Maybe my crime is not allowing myself to participate in the community? Faith and death both come with great, large communities. Some of the people who gathered at my grandfather’s funeral are people who didn’t even know my name, or my relation to the deceased. I, and my family, felt supported by these people in our loss, and alienated by them. For some of them, this was not their loss, but the community’s loss. They came because they’d known Grandpa years ago as a city police officer or a neighbor with a friendly dog. A church group would have done much the same. The congregation would have supported me in my loss, but it would become a community loss. Their grief would not be the same as our immediate family. I don’t feel like I need a community to help me through my grief, or to help my family through their grief. We will handle it our own way. I’ve kept religion in my own way for a long time anyway. I spend quiet, solitary time alone almost every day walking and listening to music and my own thoughts. Sometimes I perform rituals, such as writing all of my feelings down in a diary, so I can deal with them quietly. Sometimes I fashion things out of clay and paint them with my favorite paints as offerings to friends. Sometimes I take long shamanic journeys as characters I’ve imagined and bring their stories back to be saved to files on my computer with sprawling details also captures on paper. Maybe I am not without religion? Mine is simply different than everybody elses. Mine is the religion of enjoying my time and what I’m doing with it. It requires no gods.
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WALDORF LITERARY REVIEW
