Breathing hope

Subject: Breathing hope.

How my life would have been different if I had swallowed my catechism or become a Buddhist, taken up Mohamed or drifted into the realm of Joseph Smith. On such things life turns and who is to know or decry the penance for living when it is wrought by belief.
The Sunday walk with my Mother  to our village church in Esholt, Evensong or it morning equivalent, the songs I can still remember, the sermon, the pomp and circumstance of the vicar in his robes, the friendly women and the secure community to which, through their faith they belonged.
One element in this childhood pageant which was missing was my Dad. He was missing in dispatches. Not for him this worthy ritual, he was not to become a hypocrite to his reasoned atheism even for the sake of family unity. I remember eventually following his practice after being encouraged along to the Catholic Church for family prayers where I thought it provident to support my wife in her duty to introduce the children to the mysteries of God but could only hear the drone of a closed mind the Irish preacher who's grasp on life was limited by his profession.

Eventually I found excuses not to go as I sat in my pew and mulled over the words and the ritual. There was no light emitted, no Divine revelation nor to my mind even much sense, other than the humanism "that we should love one another".
Religion is a defining act in our lives. We might live without religion by much the same rules regarding our interaction with others but our reasoning is different. It could be argued that the atheist is more altruistic in his actions toward others since there is no reward in heaven or in rebirth, the atheist simply follows the tenants of good behaviour because he/she has an understanding of himself in relation to others and not to some obscure revelation. His revelation is formed by his noticing how rewarding it is to give of oneself by being friendly and helpful and inevitably receive the same empathy back.
It's not difficult, it doesn't need complex sermons or gilded buildings, all you have to do is look around and see human beings like yourself and know that within most of them breaths the same breath of hope.