Is a Religion Reset Right for You?
It is no secret that many people become more religious or spiritual as they get older. The reasons are many. An increased sense of mortality is probably the biggest driving factor, but many other factors may come into play. Many people double down on their “given” religion—the one they were raised with. And more power to them if they find comfort and meaning on that path.
But that is not the case for everyone. In my case, I abandoned religious beliefs for most of my life, although some vague form of it was always in the background. I have now been called to a different version of religion since I started my health journey. I describe some of that process in my book, A Life Yet to Live. The wonder of my health and where it came from was just too full of awe to not ponder its source. The same goes for the universe and life itself and their evolution and expansion from whatever source actually brought them into being.
This sense of wonder and awe have, over the years, led me to create my own personal religion with my own personal version of God, one that makes sense to me and coheres with how I understand the world of life and the larger universe. By coming at this subject in the way I have, from the inside out, I can make good use of the metaphoric lessons of all the world’s religions, as well as the teachings and lessons from philosophy and science, and incorporate them into my own being and my own sense of what religion means to me.
I am raising this idea here because this ongoing thought process has been a great ally in my pursuit of health and longevity, as well as helping me gain a deeper understanding of my own life. I hope these thoughts offer some helpful insights for your journey as well.
Most of us get our religious teachings in our childhood, either directly from our parents or from the clergy who taught and preached the faiths that our parents practiced. It is what philosopher and psychologist William James calls a “religion that has been made for him by others, communicated to him by tradition, determined to fixed forms by imitation, and retained by habit.” In my case, my religious teachings came from Hebrew school starting at around 8 years old, along with the obligatory synagogue attendance and other rituals of High Holy Day services of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The words of the Old Testament seemed very foreign to me, in English as well as Hebrew. But I applied myself for five years, like all good Jewish boys in my Newark neighborhood, and had my Bar Mitzvah at 13 years old, an event with as many social implications as religious. At some point in my late teens, I became an atheist and lived that way for most of my life, although the wonder of existence and creation was never very far away from me.
Cut To Now
Cut to my new “life yet to live” since the awakening I had on a train journey nearly 20 years ago. This was my “aha moment” when I realized I had to start taking better care of myself in order to be around for my daughters, who were quite young at the time. My first feeling in that moment was an intense fear of mortality, a fear of getting older in declining health and dying, and fearing for my daughters who might not have a father as they grew up, just like when I was a boy. That intense feeling of fear was followed by realizing what I had to do, which led to my health journey of almost 20 years now. This journey has taught me to understand and appreciate the ridiculously complicated and majestically beautiful processes that go on in my body every second to support my health. I believe that our bodies, through cosmic and natural evolution, come from the same source as the rest of universe, and are as or more complex as any galaxy—a wonder of wonders that we mostly take for granted every day.
Lately, thoughts on this fundamental source of the wonder of our lives and how we got here have been coupled with memories of my life and how I got here. I wonder, “What ridiculously complicated and providential combination of circumstances and DNA, or nature and nurture, have caused me to end up in this present moment and be the person I am? As author Joseph Campbell was fond of saying, “You are exactly where you were meant to be,” meaning that even though we have had some agency over our lives, forces bigger than us have been guiding us to become who we are. I have come to call this force, internal and external, the great guide. (I am fond of another Campbell quote in this vein: “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.”)
Becoming more spiritual or religious in later life is a natural part of accepting, and embracing, our increased sense of mortality as we get older. Without offending anyone who believes otherwise, and if you are so inclined, I encourage you to make your spiritual journey on your own terms, from the inside out. Speaking from my own experience, I have found that forging your own path or deepening your existing one can be a great way to appreciate all the things that are bigger than us that contribute to our lives (including some things we may take for granted, such as our health) and to help us truly appreciate the lives we are leading.
