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from Natural Life Magazine,
November/December 2009 Imagine a garden. Flowers are blooming plentifully. Ripe, plump tomatoes are waiting to be harvested, next to rows of squash, cucumbers, onions, beans and lettuce. Birds are chirping their cheerful summer songs and bees are buzzing tirelessly from blossom to blossom. In the midst of this peaceful scene sits a woman, her body firmly rooted to the ground. She is sitting in a lotus position, her feet bare, her hands resting, ever so gently, on her legs. She meditates. She gives thanks to the universe for providing her with an abundance of vegetables and fruit – enough food to feed her family all summer and throughout the fall. It is a deeply spiritual moment, a moment of peace and relaxing solitude. This woman has reached the end of a long journey, a journey that had her question everything and everyone. It sent her soaring and dropped her into darkness. After endless nights of crying herself to sleep, this woman has made peace with a sometimes troubling fact: She is an atheist, a part of the most hated minority in America. And she is okay with it. This woman is me. I’m an atheist – a secular humanist – and this is my story. Growing up in a small town in Southern Germany, I had religion all around me (although Germany is a decidedly secular country). I lived in a house right next to a cemetery and witnessed countless funerals. I would sit quietly in my secret hiding place and watch the coffin, decorated with mounds of flowers, carried to a deep hole where family members and friends gathered. All were dressed in black, holding handkerchiefs, carrying little bouquets of flowers. Then I would listen to the pastor’s monotonous speech and prayers before they lowered the coffin into the darkness. I still watched after all the people had left and only a couple of men were left endlessly shoveling dirt into the hole until it was filled completely, then decorated the heap of dirt with wreaths and bouquets of flowers. I was in kindergarten when I “attended” my very first funeral from my hiding place in the bushes. I frequently ventured out to the cemetery to read the inscriptions on the tombstones and I was always sad for the very tiny graves where young children lay buried. Amazingly I did not wonder about what would happen to all these people after they died. To me, death was just that, the end of life. Then I entered first grade. In Germany, this meant religious education for all children, except the Turks, who were Muslims and got to play for an hour instead. And so I was introduced to the subject of religion. My atheist parents had felt no need to influence me in any way, knowing that soon I would come home with questions about God, Jesus and the Bible. I vividly remember my very first religious education class, during which our teacher, a Protestant minister, asked us what we believed in. My simple response was of course, “Nothing.” . . . To read the rest of this article, subscribe to Natural Life's online edition. Ute Mitchell lives with her husband and two children in a Portland, Oregon suburb, where she learns, writes, gardens and is known in her homeschooling community as the friendly atheist. Follow her journey on her blog. |
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