“I bear witness, O my God, that Thou hast created me to know Thee and to worship Thee.”

This is stupid…

“I testify, at this moment, to my powerlessness and to Thy might, to my poverty and to Thy wealth.”

Really stupid…

“There is none other God but Thee, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting.”

I can’t believe I’m saying this.  Crap, which way is East?

Such were my thoughts during my first prayer in the Year of Faith.  This simple, short prayer includes a lot of things that grate up against the principles left over from the real me, the person who I am when I’m not trying to be a Taoist, or a Satanist or a Baha’i.  The first two religions of the year fit me really well, at no point did they cross my line of self-rule.  There was no point at which I felt that the way I usually live my life was threatened, I was still the one in control of all the rules, I was still the ultimate arbiter of my life.  My autonomy is important to me and this is the first time during the year that I feel that I am being threatened by what I want to experience.

Suddenly I am poor, suddenly I am made humble, and suddenly I have been created by and for this God guy who I don’t even know.  This is going to take some time.

Before the obligatory prayers I must perform oblations- washing my hands and face, and I must also face towards the East while I recite the prayer, towards the Shrine of the Baha’u'llah in Israel.  These things help set the prayer apart from the rest of everyday life.  It makes me more aware of my body and where I am in the world in relation to the rest of the members of the Baha’i faith.  It’s a short prayer, and much like my first attempt at oral sex, it felt strange tumbling around off my tongue.  But it did feel, well, religious.  It felt like a first step.

Monotheism is going to be a hell of a hurdle for me, being an atheist.  But as a lover of religion it’s something I need to face, and this definitely won’t be my first attempt to do so.