The Ego Has Landed

I’m an atheist (thanks for asking).  To me this just means that I don’t believe in an external authority, a higher power.  What I  believe in the most is the power of the human spirit  – that within us lie all the answers to our and the world’s problems.  I believe we have a mind, a body and a spirit which some people like to call a soul.

I christened all three children because I decided that by not doing so would be a stigma for them in later life.  I saw it as a fail-safe option and it was possibly a cowardly one, but back in those days as a young Mum my convictions were not as they are today.  Unsurprisingly they have, at least the elder two have, Lexi’s still grappling with the existance of Father Christmas, also embraced atheism.  It makes it awkward sometimes at school having to explain (why are some religious people so disrespectful of other’s (non) beliefs?) which makes them cross and even more determined.

I grew up in the confines of the Catholic church with parents who were themselves abandoning the faith.   The school church was just over the road, visible from our house which was just as well as it became my and my sister Sally-Anne’s second home.  With choir practice, confession and communion it was a well trodden path from our front door.

Confession was the scariest.  Alone in the church, having navigated the heavy glass doors with the ghost of halloween howl as the wind rushed through them, inventing sins for a shadowy, heavy breathing figure behind the lattice work – I’m getting chills as no way would this be allowed today – certainly worked in putting the fear of God in my seven year old self.

“I broke my mother’s green vase“  I would stammer for want of knowing what to say.  ”I swore at my sister” (I didn’t) were regular made-up sins. (Just how much sinning can a seven year old child do?)  In fact I was double sinning as telling porkies to a priest in a Confession Box is a sin in itself.  I was a seven year old gaining Witch status.  It was the usual two Hail Marys and one Our Father punishment silently mouthed at great speed in the freezing, howling church before rushing home to the comfort of John Purves and Blue Peter.

I have vague memories of proudly standing next to my Dad in church on Sundays, him wearing his best coat and looking all serious but Mum, more often than not, would stay home with Terry Wogan getting her own solace from the preparations of a British Sunday Lunch.    At Harvest Festival there was always a last minute rummage in the cupboard producing a tin of pickled beetroot or a packet of dried stuffing to place amongst the shiny red apples and other glorious autumnal bounty produced by my classmates on the table in Assembly Hall.

I don’t miss the doctrine or the dogma but I do miss the pomp and ceremony, the services to mark the passing of the seasons, the sound of voices singing in unison and the sense of belonging in the community that surrounds the church.

Recently I have felt the need to anchor us down as a family, to go a little deeper into developing our spiritual education and developing my own inner life.  I have begun by listening to Eckhart Tolle’s lecture on his book The New Earth  downloaded as a podcast.  

So last week Oliver, a captive audience getting his Wednesday late lift into school, sat through Tolle’s lecture on the EGO versus the Conscious Mind not saying a word.  He was strangely quiet on the subject, pondering, I hopefully presumed, until this week when back in the car I start fiddling with my ipod for Lecture no.2.

“Oh no Muuuuuuuum,” he said turning a one syllable word into three.

“Not that stuff about eagles.”

I guess Oliver is on a different spiritual path.

Photo by Sophie-G. Ritter