My Search for and Belief in God

I loved attending Grinnell. I grew up in a predominantly Catholic neighborhood on the south side of Chicago. I attended 12 years of Catholic school and even thought about becoming a Catholic priest prior to attending Grinnell. 

However, the Grinnell experience dramatically changed my beliefs about God. As I learned to think critically, I began to question whether God even existed. Ultimately, I abandoned my faith. Nevertheless, my study of science helped me see that scientific principles involve orderliness — which implies a universal intelligence. 

Having lost my faith, I also lost my frame of reference for life. I began searching for Truth (with a capital “T”). I believe that my Grinnell education, in its own way, motivated me to begin this philosophic journey. At one point a well-meaning friend of mine told me that nobody could figure out the purpose of life, and to have another beer. I rejected this easy approach.

My initial quest for Truth lasted about 10 years. It led me to study the world’s philosophies and religions. I initially concluded that all of these teachings were flawed. However, before abandoning my quest for Truth, I thought I’d re-evaluate the religion of my youth. Yet I didn’t want to blindly use religion as a psychic crutch, or because I couldn’t figure things out for myself.

One night I decided to test my hypothesis that God exists by praying to Him. Shortly after praying, two missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) contacted me. They offered to teach me about their church. I thought their appearance may have simply been a coincidence. But as I began to study LDS doctrine, I had a personal, sacred, and life-changing experience. In short, my heart changed in an instant. I wanted to love others more fully and to abandon my natural tendency for selfishness. Thus began a second philosophic path for me.

LDS doctrine teaches that human beings, as children of God, enter mortality in a fallen state to learn truth through the exercise of free will. By making choices, each of us can develop godlike attributes — or not.

LDS doctrine also helped me answer another question: If God exists and His plan for humanity is spiritual progression, why does He allow such barbaric suffering to occur? My hypothesis is that the gift of free will allows humanity to make choices and to progress in one’s thinking (or not). 

In my case, I lost my mother when I was 13. I became a junior dad to my four siblings. That experience was excruciatingly painful. It led me to abuse alcohol while at Grinnell to anesthetize my pain. However, when I later became an attorney, I was a public defender — serving many clients who had abused controlled substances and/or alcohol, as a guardian ad litem to children who had suffered abuse and neglect, and as a divorce attorney for people who couldn’t sustain a successful marriage. I’ve been able to counsel many people who have also suffered. I believe that if I hadn’t suffered, I would not have been able to reach out and help assuage my clients’ pain; I believe my suffering, in a strange way, prepared me for my life’s work. I might have pursued a career that would have been more lucrative financially — but one that would have been far less rewarding and service-oriented. 

Since renewing my faith in God several years ago, I’ve continued to pray and to serve others in many different ways. I’ve had additional spiritual experiences and have learned additional spiritual truths. These experiences have reinforced my belief that there is a purpose to life and that there is a divine intelligence which has designed life for humanity’s spiritual growth. The ultimate thing to learn in this life is to love one another as brothers and sisters, regardless of one’s culture, sexual orientation, politics, or individual characteristics.