How to keep your Faith

An interesting part about living in the United States is that the separation of church and state makes it easy for people to practice their religious beliefs. I probably shouldn't use the word "easy," what I mean is that the foundation of America was built on the idea of religious freedom. Quakers seeking religious freedom from Catholic rule in Great Britain. However, because we have this separation of church and state, the topic of religion becomes slightly taboo to talk about. We have a government where our officials may follow a set of religious beliefs, but that religion is not how laws and regulations are made. (I'm sure some politicians have found a way to work around this, but that is beyond my comprehension of genius.)

Unless you attend a religious school, the most religious part of life at school for most students is the moment of silence during the morning announcements. A lot of times, I've noticed, when talking about your faith it can come off as someone trying to convert you to their way of thinking and the line between a recognized religious practice and a cult is very thin. It's important to remember that extremist groups exist all over the world and these groups can derive from any religious background, i.e Islamic terrorism and Westboro Baptist Church. In school I remember a big topic of conversation among my peers was whether or not the United States should be considered a melting pot. In my opinion this conversation, like so many others, divided people for almost no reason. I think we can all agree that the United States is home to Christianity, Catholicism, Islamic beliefs, Judaism, Hinduism, Atheists, and so much more. Just go to your local supermarket or the next town over, you're going to see and hear things you probably don't see or hear at home.

I think there are people out there who are afraid of anything that isn't like them and there are people who embrace learning from and experiencing cultures and religions other than their own. The Crusades and conversion camps of Native American's in our history books prove that growing a religious following is crucial to building whatever society that group wants for itself. It's easier to look back at history and see how we naturally divided ourselves to be surrounded by like-minded individuals or in some cases to avoid persecution. When you're creating history, it's a totally different story. I don't think New Yorkers in the1800s held a meeting to say, "Alright, the Irish get this area, the Italians can have this area, the Irish Catholics go here," and so on and so forth. I think we divide ourselves without really trying, we just naturally gravitate towards what we believe in and others who have similar beliefs.

Anecdotes like the story of Romeo and Juliet portraying two families that torn by hatred for the others, only to be brought together by the deaths of their children, is a timeless classic. Marriages between ruling monarchs of different nations often followed the same religion, Catholicism pretty much dominated the Eastern Hemisphere in the 16th and 17th centuries. With that in mind, there probably wasn't as much inter-religious marriages happening. So how do we even talk about this kind of stuff? Does it really matter if two people follow different religions, if the core of each of those religions is at least somewhat similar? If you don't even follow religion is the decision based on mutual views on morals and values?

If you attend a public school in the United States, especially in a city or suburban area, with a lot of plane traffic, you'll experience from a young age cultural, racial and religious differences. Mind you 10 year olds don't really talk about their faiths most likely but children are surrounded by a variety of different and similar beliefs to their own. We don't think about what it means to date someone in middle school or high school that may not even share the same views as us, their just nice to look at right? My question is, how do people of different religious beliefs and faiths come together and have a relationship? How do you keep your faith in times of religious persecution? Do you give up your own faith to align with your spouse? From my experience it must be dependent on the people in the relationship. My parents were the same faith and still ended up separating and eventually divorcing. In my own relationships I have dated men of different faiths than myself and those relationships have yet to work out long term.

According to an article on globalnews.ca, people make their relationships work through mutual understanding, respect, and communication. I envy those people who have made it to where their religious and cultural differences unite them instead of tearing them apart. So much of history dictates that we should be with like minded people, I've actually had someone tell me that we should be together solely based on our skin, if that were the case I think we would have worked out, but alas here I am alone. For myself, I lost my faith when I was 18 and it wasn't just because I was a Christian dating a Muslim. I chose to stop going to church, to stop reading my bible, to learn about the person I was hopefully one day going to marry. It wasn't until 2 or 3 years ago that I even tried stepping foot into a church, for anything other than a family members funeral, and started reading a daily devotional again. I wasn't able to make it work which is why I am so curious about how others can and do and are seemingly genuine in their happiness.

I apologize if this is too sensitive of a subject to address, this article was/is meant to just pose the question, how, with all of our difference do people make their friendships and relationships with their spouses work.