This post is inspired by a reply to a tweet about our need to rely on our faith in God at this time. The reply was simple, one man's opinion you could say. It was: "I don't need a god."
As a former Roman Catholic, I can understand the sentiment completely. I just whipped up some hot sauce and the heat is perfect, for me. If hot sauce were religious influence, my upbringing was mild. I had to go to Mass on Saturday night or Sunday morning until about fifteen after which, my attendance was sketchy at best. However, my best friend's family were much more Catholic than my parents and so they'd be medium hot sauce. Gran-Mama did the rosary every day. Heavy heavy on the dogma. Suffocating dogma. Beside my elementary school was the Church and the Convent where many of us took piano lessons from one of the nuns. Hot sauce. Strict, sober, sterile hot sauce. The piano teacher wasn't very strict but let's just say, there weren't many jokes being told!
Too much hot sauce can push a person to ketchup or cheese sauce instead. Some have such negative experiences that they take their wings or vegan bites plain, bare, dry from the oven. That's this guy. The guy that doesn't need sauce at all.
From this perspective, believing we can all agree on the vast concept of the One Infinite Creator is naive to say the least. It's like expecting a meal to taste the same though the ingredients were all measured differently. Many younguns raised in hot sauce families secretly revolt. Grade nine is usually when it happens. Whereas in my mild sauce family, I was allowed a nip of Dad's beer or a sip of Peach Schnapps from the vacay to Niagara, my friend wasn't allowed any alcohol. At least not at home in the presence of her family. So she made up for it in grade nine.
From my own experience I see though that the burn of being influenced to eat too much hot sauce or too hot a sauce, can be healed in time. Whether by complete avoidance or by way of being given the time and right to choose how hot you want your sauce or if you even want sauce at all. But even the person who orders their wings or vegan bites dry, can dip a wing in a sauce from time to time. For myself, I had to see all of the sauces before I could truly decide. As my friend Adam once said, all sauces have validity in some way. With a compassionate ranch or blue cheese dressing, even the hottest of sauces can be tempered for the palate.
The difference is solidly knowing that no one is going to squirt their hot sauce onto your plate without you asking them to. If it happens, we now calmly ask them not to and replace our plate with a clean one.
In the end, the sauce you choose is as personal as wanting no sauce at all. Taste buds may be forced to accept the heat; but they can never be forced to enjoy it, feel it in their core like they can't live without it, know it's the only reason they exist. That can only happen when and if you're ready for it. As I age, I find myself dipping in almost every sauce from time to time and enjoying it too. I'm now more sure of Creator than I've ever been. I'm also aware that each and every one of us are Co-Creators with that One.
As I mentioned above, I just whipped up some hot sauce. I developed the recipe based on my personal heat level and current cravings. And therein is the lesson and the thing I had to write through. We're all here to develop our own hot sauces~or relationships with God. The only requirement is that it includes heat. But remember the absence of heat is still heat and as Co-Creator with the One Infinite Creator, your free will decides.
Happy creating!