Every of us has a religion, or two 😉, it’s just that we call them by different names. The things we sanctify, the places we shine our focus upon, are our religions. It could be a God with power over heaven and earth, a way of being, or what we believe to be the right way to show up. It could also be an idea of autonomy, of individual responsibility, of winning at the game of capitalism. The west is keen on that one, at least the idea of it. In fact, it’s the most popular religion by a long shot. Sometimes we even mix and match. Humans are nothing, if not creative.

By this definition, Atheism is a religion too, as are all the other isms. If you bow down at its altar, giving it power over your life, it’s a religion. That’s not exactly what most want to hear. We’ve separated out the word and given it a distinct place in the world of words, but it’s still just a word.

Interestingly, we don’t pick our religion. It picks us and not always genetically, although the family we are born into holds the potential of immense influence.

Black sheep of the family stray off the path they were born into. It is not easy to go against the flow. It’s like a salmon swimming upstream. If the big fish could effortlessly swim with the flow and get where it simply knows it needs to go, it would. 

For the black sheep life is a perfect storm, blowing us off course, onto entirely unknown territory. It seems like we’re choosing to step off the well-worm trail. It even feels like it, but when we look closely we can see that it is choiceless.

In a world where being part of the flock is rewarded, the sheep that doesn’t fit in is thrown to the wolves.

Would you actually choose that?

Spirituality is a religion too, even though most adherents recoil at the idea. The world of spirituality is the place many black sheep go to make sense of the world, of the storm that blew us so far off course, that in many cases we lost our entire family.

Sometimes we recreate the flock, joining in new community, adopting new norms. Sometimes, we don’t. Unable to find the threads of connection we become one of the lone sheep, a hermit ramming our heads against the rocks of memory — the shadows within — and our hearts against the pull to commune. We can’t help but feel the physical absence since we are hard wired for community.

Whether we recreate the family we lost, or dive into an exploration of aloneness, we most always replace one belief system with another. It seems too dangerous to step off the cliff and fall into the mysterious depths beyond beliefs.

We need a religion, a way to navigate the trails of life … or we think we do, which is nothing but a mini-me religion. Every belief we hold is its own altar, its own shield around the heart, its own veil concealing what life actually is.

All religion stands between us and the realization of what we are. Every realization seen through the lens of self is but another religion. There are infinite ways to make sense of the world, to enjoy the world, to suffer its winding paths and drop-offs,. They are infinite trails to tread with new ones being created with each new breath. We can’t explore them all. We cannot vanquish all the wolves.

There is no end to the creativity of humanity. We are creation itself. It is not right or wrong. It is a magnetic flow determining the placement of our focus in the moment, the religion we are following, that we are engaged with. Death is when most lose their religion, that moment when all hope of another breath departs.

There is no need to wait. It is possible to step out of the pull, the magnetic draw, by noticing, observing, by watching the sheep — yourself included. Just notice.