Few of us admit or even comprehend belonging to a particular culture. Individual cultures have a very broad set of boundaries and are kept alive solely upon the spirit and social acceptance within those around us. Belonging to a culture gives an individual a sense of belonging as well as an idea in how to live life.
A firmly established culture offers its members a sense of stability and foresight in the way things have happened, should happen, and will happen. If none of us belonged to any form of culture, humanity would simply be a huge melting pot of disorder and chaos, without a drive or destination. Therefore, I am not writing this blog to discriminate against the nature of cultures, rather to express the importance of observing the surrounding culture to which we individually belong.
Having grown up in a Christian culture, I have to admit that my foresight into reality was quite dim. This culture, while split into a diverse set of denominations, had a very strict outlook upon how my life should and should not be lived and attempted to convince me that there were only two kinds of cultures, those who believed in God and those who did not. Those who believed in God would have an everlasting life, and those who did not believe in God would parish. This outlook supported a subconscious belief that Christianity was the right way, while any counterculture was going the wrong way. Being an individual who always wanted to do the right thing, I naturally desired to follow the guidelines supporting my Christian belief system and had no reason to consider a way of life that was looked down upon by my peers. I belonged to the Christian culture and I believed it was the only way.
After experiencing the struggles and sufferings of life, witnessing less struggle and despair amongst my fellow Christian followers, I began asking myself different questions as to the legitimacy of this particular religious culture. I was discovering that while having faith in the unknown was more than enough for many within the Christian culture, there were many of us who wanted more answers and confirmation of this “unknown” with whom we placed our entire reason for existence. I slowly began to learn I was not content simply calling myself a Christian while also trying to convert individuals to my culture. When others would question the Christian culture to which I belonged, my spiritual muscle would simply stiffen and relentlessly defended its nature with circular reasoning, “God is who He says He is because He said He was.” It took me years to finally crack open the boundaries of the Christian culture to which I belonged and began my spiritual search alone.
Trying different avenues while struggling with crippling depression and anxiety, I made a huge step outside of my culture by trying marijuana to ease my psychological ailments. Quickly realizing that a substance ruthlessly attacked by my previous culture offered promising relief without side effects was the stepping stone to my search for the actual truth of my existence. I realized that if the Christian culture remained willfully ignorant about something as small as a medicinal herb, how many more truths had I been blinded to? Having been consistently discriminated against by the Christian culture for my smoking and drinking habits, I slowly began conforming to a more hippie-like culture where I was more readily accepted.
Living within a hippie culture treated me well for some time. I was finally given the opportunity to break free from my original dogmatic opinions and discover reasons for why I did or did not believe in the ideas from my past culture. Hippie culture gave me the freedom to develop new beliefs while remaining accepted by my peers. It allowed me to fully embrace and explore spiritualism from both drug induced experiences as well as non-religious activities. I would say the most spiritually powerful element within life I had learned from living within hippie culture was unconditional love. I learned that love for others could not be genuinely induced from drugs or religion, but had to come solely from the heart. It was at this time I learned that the Bible from my past Christian culture was not actually a book of rules, rather it was a delicately written document of guidelines to help us obtain and maintain this powerful spiritual force of love. I began to fall in love with the element of love and despise religions that took up their name higher than love itself. I realized that if I had stayed within the Christian culture, I would have died remaining subservient to an ideology instead of discovering the spiritual power of love.
Unfortunately, during this time of truth seeking, I developed a keen interest in drinking and drug use, particularly in conjunction with spiritual hobbies such as writing music and dance. While drugs belonging to the hallucinogenic and psychedelic category were highly beneficial in exploring unbiased spiritual ideas, alcohol and laughing gas offered effects of instant gratification without any psychological toil or paranoia. I slowly began developing a lifestyle of addiction towards euphoria and earned a stereotype as an addict.
As my addiction steadily grew worse, my relationships began to sour and those within the hippie culture soon began to push me away, in much the same way that Christians did when I began using marijuana. Slowly learning that I would not be accepted within the hippie culture, I learned that the only way to continue being loved and accepted would be to fake my identity and lie about my worsening habits. I knew I belonged to a stereotype of addiction as soon as I began hiding liquor bottles and gas cartridges around the house and in my car. Due to the desire to be accepted, I slowly began developing relationships with others who mutually had issues with addiction.
Now, having obtained a grip on these addictions after many trips to the ER and rehabilitations as well as finding the meaning to my own existence, I was left trying to decide where I belonged in the world. The only thing of importance to me was finding a group of individuals within the world who placed unconditional love above all things. Having attempted to rejoin the Christian culture, I have found that my past alcoholism and life experiences has placed me within a stereotyped section of Christianity. While I am accepted by individuals within the group, my stereotype requires special treatment and care… which is not true acceptance. Individuals within the Christian culture who developed a stereotype are not treated as brothers and sisters in Christ as much as they are treated like a project as someone who needs improvement. This invites bitterness in those of us who want to rejoin the Christian culture and tempts us to throw the religion away completely.
But there is power in numbers and a new found truth within Christian culture will not be easily swayed. Here is what I have decided. To be Christlike is to obtain unconditional love for others. Love is not something that can be said or done, it simply “is”, but Christian culture does it’s best to define a spiritual lifestyle with words, rules, and identity. This has confused many of us in the search of obtaining unconditional love for others and we have found ourselves simply going through the motions and regurgitating religious information amidst questionable situations. But from what I have learned, I have decided not to simply “conform” to the words I was taught within Christian culture, rather I have chosen to conform to anything and everything that speaks unconditional love to all, regardless of culture. So instead of belonging to a particular subculture among millions of cultures within the world, I like to believe I belong to the culture of humanity, or a "love culture". This “culture” does not discriminate against race, sex, religion, or even past decisions, but is open and accepting towards all people and beliefs. If God truly exists, I believe this is the deepest root of purity He wanted us to tap into. We do not have to be accepted within a Christian culture or any culture for that matter to find where we truly belong. Can you imagine what the world would be like if we all belonged together focused on loving all people unconditionally? It would certainly beat a global Christian culture with stereotypical conditions.
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