All my life, I have been trying to learn about God. I attended private Christian schools from age 6-14. I've been on two Christian missionary trips (one to France, one to Guatemala), I've been to Christian youth conferences. I am famalliar with the rituals and prayers of Catholic mass and I know the Bible very well (I would say better than most, though not as well as some). But even though I have focused so much of my attention through out my life on God, I really don't know much about God and even though my faith as a child/teenager was strong, as I grow older, my questions grow and I feel my faith towards religion in general weaning.
So one day I was watching a documentary on the Buddha and found myself fascinated by what I was learning. I had had some knowledge of Buddhism, but being that America considers itself to be a Christian religion, my knowledge of just about any faith other than my own is pretty limited. So I grabbed my lap top and started surfing the web for any information on any religion I could find. Buddhism sounded beautiful, Hindu sounded fun (they seem to celebrate everything!), Wiccan sounded very mother earth-like and Scientology sounded just different. What is to say that any religion other than my own is wrong? I know it seems to be the mantra of just about every other religion (in fact, my husband is off fighting a war because of Muslim extremeists who seems to have a "convert or die," type of attitude, but the Muslims I know personally aren't like that all). And how can I say that I know God when I only know one perspective to him/her?
So 2011 will be the year I find God. I will devote myself to a religion for either 1 or 2 months and by doing so will completely immerse myself in that religion. I will take a personality test as a Scientolofist. I will fast during Ramadan, I will abstain from beef as a Hindu and so forth. I will even allow myself a month as an Atheist, simply to see what it is like to be an Atheist in this country. I will also read the Holy books of that religion to further my understanding (Dianetics, The Bible, Koran, Torah, Vedas, etc). I hope by doing this to learn about God, to learn about other religions in this world (and the people who have devoted themselves to it) and learn a thing or two about myself.
I will officially start on January 1st 2011 (being that I can crawl out from my New Year's Hangover) and follow this schedule (which has been planned to coincide with certain holidays/festivals of that religion):
January- Scientology
February/March-Hindu
April/May- Buddhist
June- Wiccan
July/August-Muslim
September/October- Jewish
November-Athiest
December- Christian
Now for some background on me (in case you didn't know). My name is Krystle. I am 24 years old and currently am living in Washington D.C. with my son, Loki while my husband is overseas in Afghnistan (he diffuses bombs....yes he is bad ass). He will be home around June (?) and at that point Loki and I will move out west back to where Kiel is officially stationed. I am a soon to be (grades are pending) graduate with a B.A. in English and in January, I start a 4 month internship with the Democratic National Committee. I normally identify myself as a Christian but there are quite a few aspects of Christianity that I don't agree with and find unfounded in the Bible. And my mother has always stressed learning about different ways of life and other people's perspectives, as well as being tolerant of those perspectives.
I will post weekly updates to let you know how everything is going. Right now I am trying to get through Dianetics in prepartion for January and my being a Scientologist. It is not an easy read, but I will get through it!
