Faith
I write a lot about faith in my articles, but I rarely talk about religion.  It's not that there isn't any  interest there, but to tell you the truth, most of my religious experiences have not been positive ones and while I'm sure that the intention of goodness was there, it was often covered up by negative feelings, hidden discrimination and down right pointless sociality.  I know someone found optimism in that, but I wasn't that someone.
When I was growing up, I discovered my parents had two different faiths.  My dad was Catholic, but I didn't really know anything about that.  It would have helped if his family talked about anything, but even something so proud as one's faith didn't come up in the sparse conversation.  My father did try to give my brother and I a little understanding by taking us to a midnight mass one Christmas Eve, but I'm afraid I didn't quite get the meaning.  What I did get was a workout.  Up, down, up, sit, kneel, sit, turn left, turn right, pray (for a bit) then sit.  After that experience, I was confident Jane Fonda must have been Catholic, either that or I was going to market this new weight-loss, guilt-inducing program.
Instead of being immersed in my father's religion, I was offered over to my mother's.  When my parents married, my father joined in my mother's faith, the United Church.  I was baptized there and much I understand of religion comes from being the son of a Sunday school teacher.  I liked the crafts, but I never quite understood the importance of the Bible.  I really just saw it as a book and while I believed in the whole "not killing, not stealing" lessons, I couldn't figure out why one didn't know these already.  I didn't really need a book to tell me these things, I learned these from Mom and Dad.
Of course, most of that logic came from high school, well after I abandoned church for other pleasurable morning experiences: sleeping in, and my parents traded in sermons and bibles for harness horses and gambling, both not exactly well perceived as religious, but nonetheless a present tradition.  I did not escape the clutches of faith and religion as I became immersed in another denomination: Mennonite.  Entering high school, I began to see that about one third of my school belonged to the faith and it would become troublesome for next four years.  By this point in my life, I had established certain beliefs (no drinking, no smoking, no sex, even though I didn't know with whom) and many of these religious folk believed that I was similar to them with two minor problems: I didn't believe in any religion or God and the Bible really was just a book.  Soon, we just butted heads on issues of all religious nature (I once walked into a group of them and said, "I don't believe in God, what do you think about that?"), the final straw being my vote against them for a safe grad (alcohol with supervision) instead of a chemical free grad (no alcohol.  My defence angered them more as I explained that "first I don't feel the need to tell people if they can drink or not, that is their choice and not mine.  Secondly, I wouldn't let a book tell me if I could drink or not, I think I should be able that decision on my own."
It wasn't until the end of my grade twelve year that religion affected my being gay.  I wasn't out at all and didn't understand that part of me yet (I knew I was different that everyone else, I just was arrogant enough to think I was smarter) and I really didn't have that understanding of what gay meant to different people, but after a meeting with a group of Mennonite (damn them again!) On a trip to Europe, I think I fell back into the closet I never left to begin with.  It was on the last evening of my trip in Heidelberg, Germany.  I was tired of the routine trips to the bar at night with the others and instead, I decided to meet these guys these guys.  They never went out (due to their religion and their parent chaperones), so I thought I should get to know them.  Well after a very awkward evening of Bible study where I was given dirty looks by one of their mothers when I couldn't locate the book of John, I was able to have a conversation with the guys.  We were fine, watching the news and talking when a story came on about gays in the city, whereupon I spouted the stupidest thing in their eyes: "There's nothing wrong with gay love, it's just a different type of love."  After about ten minutes of being quoted from the Bible without it being opened, I quickly changed the subject and it never entered my vocabulary until my first year of university in Regina almost two years later.
In between my dreadful night in Germany and coming out, more religious moments happened and none of them were nice.  My mother asked me if I wanted to confirm in the United Church, but I had no interest in a church I hadn't entered into, with the exception for a few funerals, since I was ten.  I did, however, join the Trinity Church choir at the request of my brother's friend for more voices while I was living in Brandon, but I really just did it because I liked singing.  I remember one Sunday morning, after each hymn we sang, I would pull out my astronomy notes to study as the sermons bored and often offended me most times.
My two last experiences in Brandon occurred with a friend's church.  WARNING: When a friend invites you to his church, saying that all they do is sing, just say no.  The first time I entered the church, I was pushed to the centre of a pew whereupon I could not escape while I was tortured with questionable songs, crying, hands reaching into the air and falling down in mercy in front of the minister.  Sure they sang they entire time, but all I was singing was, "I'm scared right now".  When I was invited a second time, I bowed out, telling my friend that a group of us would pick him up later.  Another friend and myself entered when it was done, walking down to the front of the church to find this girl lying on the ground, giggling with her eyes closed.  After a few seconds of laughter, ironically just from her, she started to speak, telling someone that "He was tickling me."  My response: "I know that some people receive the call from God, but I'm pretty sure He wouldn't be feeling her up."
When I moved to Regina, I thought I could escape religion's clutches, but it got worse as I was subjected to another experience: 7:55 Alive.  By this point, the over zealous singing, the strain of holding up hands up for an hour and deciphering the multiple meanings in lyrics was becoming common and a hobby all in one and I often helped with a friend when he worked audio visual for them.  When I came out as being gay a few years later, however, I suddenly didn't see the humour anymore.  While I was working in the residence as a resident assistant, helping students, I would feel the shun from Catholic and Islamic students, even being complained against once because I didn't follow under their religious beliefs, while the real matter was him breaking a rule in the building.
This brings me back to where I am today, pretty much wondering where my faith resides.  I still go to my brothers's church choir on Christmas Eve when I can and if someone asks me to a church function, I would go, but with the stipulation that my beliefs are allowed as well.  You would think that after these adventures that I would give up on faith, but the idea of belief is much bigger than these experiences and in fact, faith is the one ideal I hold to the strongest.  You see, for every moment where religion was used against me or was meant to hurt me, I held to the idea that even the most connected person to a God was still learning and that I was learning too.
Mostly I learned that faith is not something found in any book, but something found in experiences that happen to us everyday and usually in the experiences when someone else lost faith.  Faith was restored to a veterinarian when my dog, which he said would only last a few more days after a stroke, lived for two more years, walked almost completely as well as he did before and remained a faithful part of our family.  Faith was restored when, despite a man's Islamic beliefs, my coming out as gay proved that a man's worth is the sum of all his parts and being gay does not mean someone is wrong.  Faith was restored when in money problems, a friend was able to ask me for a favour and not be refused the shelter of my home.
My faith is within me and although I haven't entered a physical church regularly for seven years, I have been loyal to my faith which is that while a lot of bad things happen in the world and a lot of questionable people do come into our lives, there will always be a place where I believe in people's good intentions and to do the right and fair thing.  From time to time, I am let down and disappointed, but just as often, another person does some act, big or small, like offer a gift of peanut butter when they have nothing, take a chance on asking someone out despite fears of rejection or having good friends listen to you when you're down and your faith is a little low.  Sometimes the big ones come along like job opportunities and lottery winnings, but I don't always look for the big miracles in the world, but these small little works of magic that happen everyday seem to make everything seem that much better in the universe, that maybe my faith in humanity is finally paying off.  My faith may not be documented on the stone tablets for the ages to see, but I know it's just as solid.