Religion

And it's pretty typical.

I grew up with beauty and nature - beauty and nature all around me and ugly and petty and addicted human behavior all around me.

I knew that there was a disconnect. If adults just stopped what they were doing and played in the woods instead of drinking and fighting and watching television and having intrigues and trying to be smarter than each other everyone would be much better off.

So first I was open to the possibility of the mysterious. The ineffable. That's the first part of the show. The intro.
You know that there is a benevolent force in the world because the world is beautiful. If there were no more than simply the miracle of creation that would be enough. That the universe is abundant.

On a nothing different, particularly beautiful day I went into the woods and met a particularly beautiful ancient redwood.
I felt the life force vibrating from the tree as though it were speaking to me. Without words.
I put my arms around the tree and felt at one with the tree, with the earth with the past and the future.

Other people experience the interconnectedness of everything in different ways. At different times. Some people experience it as their constant state of being.

I don't feel that way in church. Halfway through I get impatient and want to talk about what we can actually do in the world to be more Christlike and then do it together as a group.
Sitting together and proclaiming superiority over those not present may be "religion" but for me it's too far removed from God. Not my thing.

It's easy to think of interconnectedness when you are a child in a beautiful wood. It's more of a trick when you're an adult getting hassled by the cops or struggling to pay the bills, but once you've felt it, you kind of always know the way back.