On my way to NYC, I've stopped for a family visit in DC. It has been a real adventure. My niece had her Bar Mitzvah, which entailed me attending a synagogue service for the first time in 15 years or so. The whole thing was like one long pep rally for God. Every sentence seemed to mention how great and powerful God was over and over as to self-hypnotize the reader. It was absurd and almost comical. God, god, god! And not a word about the good people who were in that room. I thought, if such an entity actually existed, it must be one insecure son of bitch to need all that propping up.
It struck me how tradition ties people to the past in such a constricting way. Being raised Jewish, I could see how absorbed people get by stories, rituals and traditions of the past. Trying to connect back to some moment of revelation that nobody can really remember. I saw how religious texts preoccupy the mind and distract people from really feeling their bodies. At one point, I had tears well up in my eyes because I felt such gratitude for having escaped that trap. It feels so wonderful to be free of tradition and religion, to be experiencing revelation now, the revelation of my full, physical aliveness.