Let me tell you about something that’s difficult for me to do:

Looking up.

Seriously. I know I’m going to sound stupid and overly poetic in this column, but I swear on truth beyond truth it’s what I honestly believe.

There’s such a big sky up there. 

An entire universe. 

Observable, but not tangible. Real, but ethereal.

We, as Americans, as men and women, as inhabitants of earth — even as a species — are so utterly small. So completely insignificant.

It’s something I think about often. The stars, the moon, the sky … what sway they have over us mere mortals. They move planets, control the weather, hold sway over the cycles and hours of our lives, and might even play residence to a deity or two.

Sometimes, I think I have a difficult time explaining my spiritual beliefs. I’m usually sarcastic and cynical. That’s how I see the world, that’s how I talk, that’s how I am.

But I do recognize that this can become a real problem when dealing with the sensitive issue of faith.

And now, as if to satiate the dark spirit of humor that dwells within me, I feel I have to say that I think the god that created us can handle a little humor. It gave us the ability to laugh, didn’t it?

Hang on now, did Sophie Prell just acknowledge her belief in a divine being? Indeed I did.

I’ve never said I don’t believe. I’ve never said that.

In every issue I’ve discussed, in every debate I’ve ever had, I have said a great many things, but I have never said I don’t believe. I’ve said I don’t believe in God with a capital G, and I don’t believe in the Holy Bible, but that — despite what some fundamentalists will tell you — is not the same as not believing.

I’ve also made some criticisms of this nation’s seemingly preferred belief structure which is, of course, Christianity. And when I make criticisms, I make them big.

I’ve sweepingly labeled Christians “creepy” in a previous column addressing hubris and pride. It’s a belief which I still stand by, in a sense. To me, the belief in an immortal being born from a 14-year-old virgin who shares his life force through the consummation of his blood in order to cure a sort of permanent genetic mutation is … unsettling.

The bowing of heads to an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent — yet invisible — superbeing, referred to as a Lord, as if in some feudal sense of perpetual servitude is … disturbing.

Yet I see that “creepy” was not the best word to use. And while I do not apologize for my views, I apologize for my poor choice of words.

Now, as disturbed and unsettled as I may be by most forms of Christianity, there is something to be learned from them.

They don’t look up to the sky in the same way I do, at least not the Christians I know, who hold a view of our world as God’s world. The ones strong in their faith are this way. The ones unshaken by today’s media and consumerism obsessed culture. And these people?

I admire them.

They don’t look up and wonder. They don’t think, “What could be out there?” They look up and see their answer, right in front of them. It’s their belief. Their faith. Their God. It’s evident, right there.

That is something to be treasured and respected. The strength of their will to believe. Their courage to follow their chosen path. Their absolute conviction.

Do I agree with Christianity? No. But we can disagree with each other — and even have a little fun or stumble in our wording — without coming to loathe one another, don’t you think? Regardless of what we see or don’t see in it, we live under the same sky, don’t we?

When I look up, I’m searching for something to hold onto. Something that will still my heart and quiet my soul.

I try to be the best person I can be. That is all I can do.

I know in my heart that I pursue a good path. I feel with every fiber of my being that I am not wicked, evil or sinful, but that I am filled with Light. Filled with the same hope and vitality that our Creator surely felt as it sent us down our path, like a parent waving goodbye to their child as they head to preschool for the first time.

So no, I don’t believe in God with a capital G, I don’t believe in sin, and I’m not even sure what to think of this Jesus fellow. This path that I’m on? It’s not one I would recommend to anyone. Because when I look up at the sky?

I feel small, searching those stars for a purpose I can really believe in. I haven’t found it yet, I’m just doing the best I can with my available resources.

All I see in those stars is myself: An extremely limited, naive and pathetically optimistic girl without any definitive answers. I can’t even answer my own questions.

And that’s really difficult.

— Sophie Prell is a junior in pre-journalism and mass communication from Alta.