What do I believe?

In The Pod, I've covered not all, but many of the world's religions. People have become curious as to what I believe if I've brought all these religions together in one story.

When I was growing up, going to church was usually an event that would be voted upon unless mom put her foot down. Usually the vote was to stay home and mom put her foot down on Easter.  This is not to say that my parents are not religious, it's to say that their children, my sister, brother and I were part of the decision. Religion was a choice.

In college I befriended two young muslim men and one of them became my best friend. We were so close that if we didn't see each other for a few days, he'd call me and we might talk for hours. Yet we lived in the same town. He convinced me to go visit Pakistan before 9/11 and I loved it. I loved how friendly everyone was and how beautiful the country was. I was in college at the time and so was my best friend and 9/11 happened. My simple college life with a best friend from Pakistan suddenly got complicated. Just a year after he and I graduated, he was told to go home by the United States government. Here I was in the country where Martin Luther King Jr told us all that we were equal, that our Declaration of Independence said we were all equal, yet my best friend was being kicked out because of his religion and the risk that it posed. I was dumbfounded and I wanted an answer.

 I traveled to Pakistan in 2004. It was my second trip over there and what I found out was shocking. They were far more friendly with me than my first trip. Here they were supposed to hate us, but on the ground over there I felt loved.

Backtrack to my high school days, my family started going to church more often. I became a student of the Bible as I was becoming a Methodist through a series of classes for new youth members. I believed the Bible contained everything you needed to know and that the Methodists had all the answers, but then I met a Catholic that challenged my knowledge. I argued all my points and all my points were answered. It became clear to me that I needed to be more universally correct about Christianity and the Bible and Catholicism had my answers. I felt that Catholics followed the Bible the most closely. So in college I converted. Catholic means "universal" and I felt it at that time.

Fast forward to my time in Pakistan back in 2004. Muslims surrounded me and they were all beautiful to me and I just couldn't universally condemn them, so I had to find a more universal answer. This friend of mine, Nadir, introduced me to Sufism. He said it didn't matter what I believed coming into it, I would be able to find my place just like anyone from any other belief system would. That sounded more universal than Catholic to me. I wouldn't have to condemn anyone with this system of belief. They didn't take money, they didn't want you to recite a belief, they didn't care about establishing a building for worship. Life was the church, life was the belief, life was everything and nothing.

After finishing my book, The Pod, that was heavily weighted with basic Sufi ideals, a person asked me, "What do you believe?" I told him, "I believe in one God, and the World is God's profit." I'm not sure how that can offend anyone. It leaves room for anyone or any being on this Earth or Universe. Even if you only believe in science, God and science can be interchangeable if you do not lock your mind.