Not how I was raised
My faith didn’t come from how I was raised. My parents never went to church. My father talked about needing to go, but it never happened.
When I was little, my dad decided my mother should take me to catechism. She dropped me off alone at an ornate Catholic church, all high ceilings and stained glass, where I didn’t know a soul. The second week, it just didn’t make sense to me: I was being sent somewhere my parents wouldn’t go. So I got up, walked out, and walked for hours to get home. It felt hypocritical, and nobody brought it up again.
Being saved
Years later, a friend who shared my love of martial arts and music took me to his church. On my second visit, something pulled me to my feet. I went to the front, asked for forgiveness, and was saved. It was tearful, emotional, and it felt exactly right.
Two lives
I stopped going to that church after a few months. Up close, I saw people living two lives: the clothes, the face, even a car they used only on Sundays, and different people once they got home. I stepped away from the people, not the faith. The Bible says that where two or more gather to pray, that’s church. The building doesn’t matter.
Parris Island
The Marine Corps brought me back. At Parris Island I started going to Sunday service, at first, honestly, to get out of duties. Then I felt that same pull again. I went every week, scheduled my own baptism, and was baptized a Baptist, quietly, not for show. I did it to cement my faith.
Meaning every word
People tell stories about faith carrying them through hard times. That isn’t quite my story. I’ve mentioned hard times in my prayers, but I can’t point to one moment where praying got me past something. For me, faith is a relationship with God.
When I say grace, I say it softly to myself, so I can hear the words, and I make sure I genuinely mean every one of them. If I’m at a restaurant and my mind wanders, I stop, take a breath, and start over. Sometimes it takes me five minutes to get through grace, and I may be the only one at the table with my head bowed. My conversations with God have to be real.
That’s where I part ways with most structured religion, though I don’t know them all. So many teach people to recite specific words and phrases that nobody understands, or that people understand but don’t feel. They aren’t their own words. When you’re giving thanks, or talking with God, the words have to be ones you genuinely mean.
I also don’t believe the good things in my life are my doing. There are too many stories where things fell into place in ways I can’t explain any other way: when something is meant to happen, it will. The hard parts I got through on the mind, the abilities, and the opportunities I was given. I don’t take them for granted, and I don’t believe I created them.
People who believe differently
I’m not sure what “people who don’t believe” really means. Do they not believe in the same God, or in any God at all? I think there’s a good chance that most of the religions on this planet are praying to the same God under different names; they just don’t know it. So many of the old stories from different religions tell the same story. And think how many languages the scriptures have been translated into, how many churches have shaped them, how many kings paid to have a Bible or a church made the way they wanted. Follow it all back, and there’s a good chance the roots come from the same place.
So I would never ostracize anyone or treat them differently because their religion is different from mine, or because they’re agnostic. We’re all entitled to our beliefs. The only time I pull away from someone is when the way they live is so far from my morals that it would harm my world or make me part of something wrong. And I won’t go near anything I know is working against God.
I’ll never preach to anyone or push them down a path. I might plant a seed now and then, a praying emoji or a story from my life. Over the years, plenty of people have asked me how I got where I am, and when they do, I share these beliefs and these stories. My hope is that it motivates them to build that relationship themselves. Not to join a particular church or denomination. Just the relationship.
Where my morals came from
I didn’t shut down 321 Email because of my faith. I shut it down because of my father.
He was a truck driver, a quiet man who kept to himself, played guitar, and worked. People came to him for music, for advice, and for money. He never lectured me about right and wrong; I just watched him. One day he came home from work bare-chested. He’d met someone who was cold, and he gave them the clothes he was wearing. He didn’t brag about it. He just came home.
When I was very small, a boy I was building a fort with in the woods decided to poke a lit candle through the blanket wall. It burned down the fort and part of the woods, and the fire department came. I ran home and woke my father, scared I’d be blamed. He wasn’t angry. He asked me if I was guilty, and when I didn’t know what the word meant, he explained it. Then he told me we were going back out there to tell them what happened. I might get in trouble, he said, but we needed to do the right thing.
That’s how he lived: however hard or painful something was, you do the right thing, so you can look back and know you did. I’ve lived that way too, and it’s why I have a hard time sticking with anything that feels wrong.
It’s cost me. I’ve made millions of dollars for companies, and I could have been a far more successful businessman. But living that life means being more selfish than I can possibly be.
And my mother, a stay-at-home mom, spent those years before school working with me directly. I still believe that’s where my intelligence comes from.
What it means to me
I don’t go to church regularly, and I don’t push my beliefs on anyone. I believe there’s a part of every person that, if you listen to it, will call you to where you need to be.
Faith isn’t about the clothes you wear, what the church looks like, or what car you drive. It’s about whether you have that personal connection, and whether, at the end, you can look back on your life with confidence: I lived the best life I could, helped others, stayed humble, and didn’t take advantage of anyone.
For me, faith is an affirmation that I’m doing the right thing. My morals just happen to line up with what the Bible teaches.