Safe Haven

I have studied a few religions in previous courses that I have taken while at college, and find the study of religion fascinating.  Having been raised as a Christian, that was the religion I was most familiar with until my family stopped attending church when I was around the age of ten.  Since then, I have forgotten almost everything I learned about the religion and am actually extremely wary of it.  My family moved away from the church when my mother lost her faith, and when she lost her faith, I lost mine as well; I sometimes find that I have to keep from rolling my eyes whenever my grandmother tries to tell me that I should believe in Jesus, in the Power of God, and the miracles he makes possible.  Usually I don’t listen.

As I was walking home from an interview on the Upper East Side, I noticed a store that I had never seen before, called The Christian Science Room.  This immediately intrigued me because I don’t always think of Christianity and Science together, so I took a few minutes to look in the window.  Inside were two religious works, and Corinthians 6.17 was clearly marked: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”  I looked at the publications of The Christian Science Sentinel displayed below, reading headlines that proclaimed: “Abdominal Growth Healed” and “Back pain disappears” when I completely lost interest in the store.  
It really wasn't until later that I realized where I knew Corinthians from.  I had forgotten every religious teaching from my childhood but we had talked about Corinthians last semester in my Theology class.  It was one of the letters Paul had written to the Corinthian Church.
We spent a lot of time talking about Paul and his history.  Before his conversion, he actually persecuted the followers of Jesus, until one day on his way to Damascus, Jesus appeared to him in a great light that left him blinded for three days.  When his sight was regained, Paul was converted, and became one of the religions biggest advocates.
Knowing this gave the marked passage new meaning to me.  Of course someone such as Paul would write that any man who finds Christ is new: he would have been proof of that.
To be honest, I had always had mixed feelings about Paul.  In a philosophy class at my previous college, we read The Historical Jesus by John Crossan, and in that book Crossan claims that what Jesus preached was actually much different than today's Christianity.  My professor taught us that Jesus' story was basically overtaken by Paul and his later followers.  He had never claimed to be the son of God, and was a total egalitarian.  It was Paul and others who, later on, changed his message and turned the religion into something patriarchal.
But regardless of my feelings, I liked this message and I liked that the store highlighted that passage.  It is a theme we have seen consistently throughout this course, that religion and finding God truly changes a person.  Dorothy Day, John and Gabriel are just a few examples of people (and characters) whose lives were changed by conversion.  We read their personal stories and it is undeniable to me that people can change, and religion can be the cause.  I feel like William James in the sense that, even though I haven't experienced that mysticism yet, I still believe it is possible.