I didn't give up on God / Higher Power so much as I gave up on organized religion. I'm a preacher's kid, so grew up seeing a lot of church politics / hypocrisy and "good" people not being around for me when I was little and hurting and my father was drunk. When I left home at 18, one of the things I swore was that I'd never set foot in a church again. The universe, proving it has a sense of humour, or irony at least, now sees me spending a minimum of 3 hours a week in various church basements around town.

I remember my Mom, before she got sick, and me spending time alone at our cottage and whenever we heard the wind in the trees, she'd say that that was God talking. Somehow despite years driving any idea of God into the ground, that thought stayed with me. I now pretty much describe my concept of a higher power as the force of nature. It's impersonal in the sense that it doesn't intervene in individual lives to make bad or good things happen to anybody - people do that. But it is a source of comfort to me, and reminds me that there is something bigger than me out there that I don't understand. I see it in the beauty of flowers and rainbows, and hear it in the wind in the trees.

--splitimage