{20} Creating (an) order

When I was a girl, probably around ten years old, I wanted to start a religious order. No, I did not want to become a nun — I wasn’t Christian, anyway. In fact I wasn’t anything, given that I was raised in an agnostic household.

Admittedly my grasp of religion was pretty tenuous, and I was just coming to realize that for some people, Christmas was more than just a winter festival (as Mother had explained to me years before). I suppose I found religion to be a bit exotic, something strange and mysterious, and definitely beyond my understanding.

But I loved the idea of religious orders, of nuns and monks and communes and, yes of course, the Jedi. (Shut up, I was a fan okay???) None of which really matched my high standards, let me tell you that; naturally the only solution was for me to start my own.

Since I did not understand religion I missed the part about such orders being faith-based religious organizations, but I hardly let that niggling detail stop me. I came up with rituals and a name for the order and a purpose, which of course was to bring peace to the galaxy. I remember that bead necklaces and incense were important. Since we lived in New Mexico at the time, juniper berries were also important. I think I was re-inventing paganism, now that I think about it…

And all of this is adorably precocious and dorky, in retrospect, but I think maybe it says a lot about humanity that we do these kinds of things, and why. I wanted a community of like-minded people around me, but I also wanted peace and quiet, and moreso I wanted to feel a part of a greater purpose.

At this point in my life I know that every group of people is subject to individual frailties like pride and anger and greed, no matter how altruistic. Yet, deep inside, there remains the longing to share space in both a physical and emotional way with other people.

I know that people feel their religious and spiritual core are about as basic as it is possible to get in the psyche, but I disagree. I think we build those structures on top of even more elemental needs such as community, family, a desire to feel worthy, and social structures that make sense.

In my childhood, where I was “protected” from, well, most everything ever via homeschool and being an only child in a household wracked by mental illness and alcoholism, my version of that was to create my own quasi-religious order.

Obviously not the best solution? But I was working with what I had…beads, incense, juniper berries, and hope.