I became Catholic because of a book by the Dalai Lama. In it, he told the story of a man who was spiritually lost—who had traveled to Dharamshala, India in search of the truth. When at last he secured an audience with the Dalai Lama, he asked for guidance. Go home and practice the religion you were raised in, the holy man said, for all religions share the same destination, and it is only in choosing a path, that one can more peacefully reach it.  

So I became Catholic—again. As a teenager, I had become Catholic because of a Black priest from the Congo named Father Gaston. He wore leopard-print robes and presided over a beautiful church. At my first confession, he told me I could wear a prom dress that “went down to there,” because “if it makes you feel beautiful, then God would want you to wear it.” Beauty then, became the raison d’etre that drew me into that most ancient of faiths.

As an adult, however, the beauty faded. I moved, the churches became less beautiful, the priests less merciful, and after a difficult period in my life, I turned away from the religion of my youth and found solace in yoga, a gentle Buddhism, and the Dalai Lama, whose words once again led me back to my faith. That same year I enrolled in the International Marian Research Institute at the University of Dayton to begin my graduate studies in Mariology—the study of the Virgin Mary.

I think, at the time I hoped to recapture the beauty that originally drew me to the religion, and to discover in my chosen path the same truth that man once sought in the mountains of Dharamshala. Now, as I complete my graduate studies five years later, I have discovered only one truth: that it cannot be found. In the words of the Greek philosopher Socrates: “The one thing I know, is that I know nothing.”

I do not know if there is a God, if Jesus was God. I do not know if my soul will continue after my body has turned to ash, or if it will dwell in some unknown afterlife. After all of my study, after placing my fingers on some of the oldest documents of faith, I cannot find proof of these events, nor do I have any reason to believe they are true.

But what I have discovered is that my faith no longer requires that truth to exist. Instead, it thrives on the mystery.

My restless faith

Though religion helped settle my mind by setting a structure for my faith, in the end, I am not the sort of person that thrives on structure. I am drawn to it because I often find myself teetering on a tightrope looking for something to hold onto, but in practice, once I have it, I rebel against it—determined to walk the line on my own.

I imagine it’s like joining the military. I have often looked up to those who pursue a military career for their ability to have such a clearly defined mission, and to spend their entire lives devoted to it. But though I admire that ability from afar, I know I could never adhere to it. I would question every command, mulling it over in my mind in an attempt to determine whether or not it was the correct course of action. I would never have the peace of believing that everything I was instructed to do was good.

I envied the religious for similar reasons. They appeared to know so clearly what they believed, and they were never made restless by the unsurity that it might not be true. I wanted to be religious, I even tried to be. How I longed to have such a clearly defined ethos. But the more I studied the tenets of my faith, the more I could not see in them any truth. Instead, I found only the great unknown.

Philosophy asks questions. Religion gives answers.

Like Jacob, the biblical man who once spent an evening wrestling with God, I too struggled against my religion and came away limping. Though I adored the Church for her beauty and tradition, I abhorred her for her complexity and rigidity, and I could not forgive her for holding tightly to doctrine that seemed deploringly out of date. Though I can still see the beauty of her past, her lineage, I can also see the decay of her present, her reality. 

To me, Catholicism is very much like her Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris: beautiful in its creation, yet crumbling with age and now catching on fire.

What I believe

I think most people do not think this much. I think most people do not need to decide for themselves whether Mary was really a virgin, or whether she experienced pain during childbirth. I think they simply attend mass and find peace there, and so they continue doing so. 

I too felt at peace when kneeling in a cathedral, breathing in the incense that twirls toward the ceiling in spirals of frankincense and myrrh. I too meditated on the divine presence there, often wishing I could lay down in my pew and fall asleep in that embrace forever. I too took the bread and wine into my body and was filled with happiness. But I have found that same peace in yoga, in meditation. In the beauty of life.

And when we recite the creed, when we beat our chests, repeating that we have greatly sinned, through our thoughts, through our words, through what we have done and what we have failed to do, “through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault,” I hear the echoes of Constantine, of a ruler who finally found a way to quell the uprisings of his constituents, as did those who came after him.

When I began my graduate studies five years ago, I think I hoped to prove my religion was true. Or at least that there was some deep theological reasoning why it might be. Instead, I have found in the Old Testament a history of a people, and I have found in the New Testament, a story of those people rising up against their oppressors. And I have found in the thousands of years since, a story of those oppressors using these stories to their own benefit.

That is why, at the end of my graduate studies, I decided to write my own creed. A list of the things I do believe, the things I do not believe, and the things I do not know if I believe. Here it is:

Things I believe

• I believe life is a mystery.
• I believe we should pursue peace and happiness for ourselves.
• I believe in humanism, and striving for the greatest good of humanity.

Things I do not know

• I do not know if there is a higher power.
• I do not know if my soul will continue after I die, but I know my body will go into the earth and become part of it and that life will continue to grow and thrive upon it. 
• I do not know if there is an afterlife, but I know that life on earth will continue perfecting and that our kindness and compassion will contribute toward later generations.

Things I do not believe

• I do not believe that one religion is truer than others.
• I do not that religion should impose morality on its members or in any way define what is “good” or “bad”—this has created a culture of hate around the world.

The mystery

Though that may sound like a losing of my religion, in fact, I have gained my faith.

My faith no longer depends on truth to exist. Instead, it thrives on the mystery.

I did not grow up in a religious household, but I always knew there was mystery. The struggle always came when I attempted to define it. As an adult, I would read about the apparitions at Fatima, and though I could read about them with an open mind and presume a miracle, I could also read about them with a skeptical mind and see a girl who did not write about her experiences until she became a nun and spent years under spiritual direction. 

Which mind is the correct mind? I do not know. I have experienced enough miracles in my life to know they exist. And yet I cannot do away with logic entirely. The mysterious mind and the rational mind coexist with me. I both feel, and I think. And that means I can have faith, but I cannot have blind faith, and that has been the greatest obstacle of my religion.

On my last day of school, I attended a wine tasting to celebrate with family. While we were waiting in line, we began speaking with the couple behind us. When I told her about my studies, she mentioned that she attended Catholic school her entire life, but that she become Jewish as an adult and that she found great peace in her chosen religion.

When I asked why she decided to become Jewish, she said she was tired of Catholicism claiming to have all the answers—that with Judaism everything was more of a mystery. She went on to say that during her first meeting with the rabbi at her synagogue he mentioned that he believed in an afterlife, but then one of the other rabbis disagreed with him. She was shocked. “We can do that?” she thought. From then on, she dedicated her life to Judaism, exploring the mystery of faith in a way she hadn’t been able to as a Catholic.

It was as though she read my mind, speaking out loud exactly how I felt. During the course of my studies my religion has all but fallen away, but I have found beneath it something far more beautiful. Like a forgotten path after the leaves have been raked away, there it lays before me, facing the direction toward which all religions wend, and yet free to explore every whim along the way.

I understand what the Dalai Lama meant when he wrote those words so many years ago. But I have found greater peace following my own creed than I ever found following someone else’s. And I have found greater freedom in the mystery than I ever found in purporting to know the truth.