Christ is risen indeed

There are no less than 15 "Happy Easter" and "Hallelujah! Christ is risen!" greetings on my Facebook homepage today.

Today also marks the first time in my life I have not celebrated Easter in any way. For the last two years I have nominally celebrated it by going to church and having a big Easter meal with family or friends. And before that? Easter was one of my favorite holidays, ushering in spring, bringing with it a sense of renewal, life, resurrection (duh). Today? Nothing. Nada. I have not done a single thing to mark the occasion.

Granted, this is partly because I am sick with some bronchial crapitis that has had me laid out for almost a week. If I weren't sick, I suppose the question is: would I have done something?

A big part of me thinks yes. It's always been a great excuse to spend a day with people you love. I would probably have skipped churchiness but would have joined in to any big banquets I might have been invited to (ahem, not that I was...) or might have organized myself.

But maybe I wouldn't have skipped churchiness: recently I have been contemplating dropping in on a local Friends meeting. Friends of mine go there and have really enjoyed its non-preachy, non-doctrinal liberalism (apparently there are Jews, Buddhists, and atheists who attend and nobody's trying to push anything on anybody). I think I do miss some kind of spiritualism in my life. I don't want God back, in particular, but I would like to find a way to nurture and attend to the values that always felt valuable and important. In recent years I've become a lot more open to meditative practices, thanks in part to yoga, so I'm thinking that spending an hour in a Quaker meeting might be a way to feed that little part of me that still wants nurturing in some way.

Oh well - time will tell.

Neither Here Nor There, But...

I encourage you to watch a documentary called Arusi Persian Wedding, airing these days on PBS's Independent Lens show. Check listings to see if it's playing again in your area. It follows the visit of an Iranian-American man and his American wife to Iran to meet/visit his family.

I know one of the writers/producers, and it reminds me of my own trips to Iran, now 9 and 10 years ago. (!) The scenes from Esfahan strike such a nostalgic chord with me - I've been to every place they have filmed there.

In a subtle way, my own visits to Iran played a role in my de-conversion, if only in the exposure to a people largely unfamiliar with Christian tenets. Subconsciously, it became harder to hew to a conservative theology after spending time with warm, hospitable people considered heathens (at best) and terrorists (at worst) by certain Christian groups.

Things that make you go hmmm.

Through the wonders of Facebook, last night I found my 2004 ex-boyfriend's now-wife. He got married about two years after we broke up and they've since had a child. By all appearances (on FB and her linked blog) they seem very happy.

I was madly in love with this guy, and crushed when he broke up with me for no discernable reason. The failure of that relationship was a major triggering event in my de-conversion, because I spent months afterward praying for reconciliation, and 100% convinced (for a number of reasons) that God was leading me to pray for reconciliation. When it didn't happen, I couldn't help but question the entire prayer experience. Et voila, my de-conversion kicked into high gear.

So what would have happened had we not broken up? Would my faith have remained intact? If so, I sure wonder why God would just sit back, not answer my prayers, and watch my faith implode.

But maybe if we hadn't broken up, some other disappointing event would have led to my de-conversion. In that case, it was surely better for my ex (and for me) that we didn't wind up together; in fact, it was almost...providential that we broke up. Except, wait, I don't think I believe in that stuff anymore.

It's an odd thing to ponder.

Maybe I'm Wrong: Part Two

I had two conversations over the holidays that made me really, really wistful for that good old time religion.

The first was with an old friend that I had lost track of about six years ago. About eight years ago we lived in the same city and were in the same large circle of people involved with a local church’s young adult group. At the time, we were both contemplating Catholicism. Like me, he had an evangelical type of upbringing but was finding the theology to be lacking in some ways. So we would sometimes trade notes and talk about various Catholic-Protestant topics.

When we caught up again last month, I learned that he had indeed converted to Catholicism. I asked him why, and he paused for a moment, looked off toward the ceiling thoughtfully, then said, “Beauty and truth. I could say more, but that’s pretty much it. Beauty and truth.” We proceeded to have a longer conversation about it, which left me ultimately envying the sense of certainty he had. Of safety, almost. He said he ultimately decided that he didn’t want to keep fighting Rome and while he wasn’t on board with everything, he had ultimately decided to put aside his pride and choose to trust the authority of the church. And he seemed confident, sure, and at peace.

The second conversation was with my high school friend who has remained quite evangelical and conservative over the years. Somehow, our friendship has survived my de-conversion even if we have had some difficult conversations along the way. This year over Christmas we spent an afternoon together, and in her typical way, she cut straight to the heart of things. We started talking about my breakup (which I am still really struggling to get past, to be quite honest about it) and wound our way around to what it was that really caused my crisis of faith. She then described her own crisis of faith, which happened a couple of years ago when her husband was plucked out of his National Guard unit and sent to Iraq. It was a scary time for them given the danger he was in, and she fought with God for a very long time about why he would allow this to happen. She grew up in a broken home and her entire life’s dream was to have an intact, loving family. She had it - happily married with two young kids - but then God seemed to take her husband away, possibly permanently.

She said at that moment of crisis, she faced a fork in the road: either God wasn’t at all who she had thought him to be, and perhaps he didn’t exist at all; or God wasn’t at all who she had thought him to be, and she needed to be open to a new, deeper understanding of who God is. She said as she faced down those two decision paths, she couldn’t fathom her life making sense without God in it. Her life would have no meaning whatsoever, and ultimately, she couldn’t face that life. So she decided that she just didn’t understand God’s purposes well enough and that this was a window to draw even closer to Him. [Conveniently, her story has a happy ending because her hubby is back safe and sound and is retired from the military now. I wonder what would have happened to her faith if he had been killed in action.]

My friend started asking me what meaning life holds for me now. And I couldn’t answer her. I had to be honest: it’s a huge loss in my life that I no longer have this narrative, this story, this Great Commission style purpose that directs and orders everything. I’m struggling to cobble something together that feels as coherent, as moving, as inspiring, as that once was to me.

Yet it’s not like I can simply back up the train and hop back on. If it makes me feel good, but isn't true, what's the point? I almost feel like a cursed person for asking so many questions and not being content with simple answers. It’s led me to this place that might well be impossible to recover any kind of faith from. At this point, I truly doubt the existence of any divine presence. And I’m not even sure it’s faith that I want back, so much as a sense of purpose in life – something bigger than myself that I can grab hold of with gusto – and a community within which to live out that purpose.

Maybe I'm Wrong!

Recently, I’ve had flashes of “I wonder if I’m just wrong. Prideful. Just angry at God that my life hasn’t gone how I wanted it to.” Maybe all my blogging is just that of an exceptionally angry person who is rebelling against God in an elaborate and drawn out way.

Two things have triggered this kind of thinking.

One is the general sense of aimlessness I’ve had over the last year or two. Life used to make so much sense – my (divine) purpose in life was clear, and it was the touchstone by which I measured everything I said and did. Obviously there were some big down sides to that (it didn’t necessarily bear a close relationship to truth, and there was a lot of guilt/fear involved)… but there were some up-sides that I miss. Namely, I am a much more selfish person these days. Maybe some of that is simple backlash after not having paid much attention to my own needs and wants for so long. All the same, I don’t have the same sense of altruism (for lack of a better word) or “others-focus” that I once had. That feels like a huge loss and I’m not sure how to recapture it without also taking back on board the unhelpful theological baggage I’ve been trying to get rid of. I don’t have much of a concept of God at all anymore – not just a Christian god. ANY god. Or a benevolent, loving one, anyway. Yet how do you cultivate deep care for your fellow man without some overarching bigger “story” about what life is all about? Maybe I’d be better off trying to cobble some kind of faith back together. Or maybe I’ve been really wrong about all of this de-conversion stuff, and this is my conscience (or “the holy spirit” as some might say) telling me so? I don’t know. I just know I feel restless and not-yet-settled in my theological thoughts and views.

I’ll write about the second one in the coming days… I am still trying to sort it out and put it into words.

Forgive.

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was YOU. (Lewis B. Smedes)

I think I am living the above. It may be why I feel so bleak about things – I am carrying around these heavy chains of pain and upset that keep dragging my thoughts and feelings backward, ruminating on the months-ago breakup – it hums as background noise when it's not occupying my conscious thoughts. I’m a prisoner to this relationship gone bad.

I need to forgive him… and it is damn hard to contemplate it when he isn’t remorseful, isn’t asking for forgiveness, isn’t sorry. But I also need to forgive myself, for making the decision to date him in the first place. There were red flags waving from the first day we met - I knew better than to get involved. But I did anyway – scorching hot chemistry – and, ultimately, got scorched. I pride myself on my ability to make good decisions. And I utterly failed to in this case. For nearly six months now, my head has been stuck looping around these parallel stories – of the pain he caused me, and of the pain I inflicted on myself.

So. I could use some inspiration, some wisdom, some quotes, some stories, some advice, about forgiveness. Anyone?

Happenings and Updates

My sisters and I ran a half-marathon last weekend… which turned out to be both a bonding event and a fundraising one. (We raised almost $6000 for cancer research!)

To cheer us on, my parents came to town too. Now I am still seeing a counselor, something I started doing after the breakup, and in which I am untangling my family history and patterns. My dad came to one of my sessions in May.

And last week, my mom came.

It was a shocking, intense, upsetting, and relieving experience all at once. The highlights:

My mom unknowingly confirmed my counselor’s theory that she had leaned on me religiously and treated me differently than my older sisters, like a spiritual twin/sister/support instead of a daughter. Mom said I was her “prayer baby” and that she did come to rely on me in some ways instead of Dad… that I provided her with spiritual intimacy that is totally missing between the two of them. She said she always believed I was destined for something special, that because of my faith she knew God had forgiven her for marrying my dad (a non-christian). She said she had ‘given up’ on my sisters as far as their faith went (basically channeling all her energy and hopes on me) and that it was hard on her when I left for college.

So it’s no wonder I felt so much pressure not to go astray when I was growing up. None of these messages was explicit when I was a kid, but at some level I think I knew I was my mom’s ‘salvation’ and that to step outside the Christian lines would be to disappoint her tremendously, at an almost existential level. I think that’s why it has taken me until my late twenties and thirties to openly question my faith – I’ve been terrified of letting her down. For her part, I don't think she realized the burden she was placing on me. But she did. It's like I've been carrying my mom's cross for the last 30+ years.

At one point in the session I said that I couldn’t talk to her about religion anymore. That it was an impossible conversation because she wasn’t the least bit open to, or curious about, how I’ve gotten to where I am. I didn’t choose to lose my faith and I never imagined I would be on this side of the “us-them” faith divide, but now that I was I knew everything she was thinking, all the answers she was stockpiling, and all the explanations she would use to comfort herself as to what had happened to me. And none of them would fit or actually be true.

At that point she admitted that she was afraid to hear what happened or what I now believe, and that’s why she doesn’t ask. She also said that she thought I was too smart for my own good, and that I took after my dad in that respect. (To which I wanted to pull my hair out – the anti-intellectualism of evangelicalism makes me c r a z y. If God didn’t want me to think, he shouldn’t have created me with the capacity to do so. I can no more stop my brain from asking questions than I can instruct my heart to stop beating.)

BUT. I should add that she was tearful at various times, and she very much tried to assure me that she and Dad love me and she didn’t mean to hurt me along the way. For my part, I hate that the path my life has taken is upsetting to her, and that she worries for my eternal salvation. I hate to be the cause of that angst. But the toothpaste is out of the tube now and I can't go back. Nor should I, just to make her life more comfortable. In all events, I am not sure I want to have a longer sit-down conversation with her where I pour out all the reasons I came to doubt Christianity. I don’t actually want to cause a crisis of faith for her. She would probably wind up feeling she had to choose between me and (her evangelical) God and the stress of that might be too much to bear.

So I am not sure what will happen next between me and my mom. It was a terribly uncomfortable conversation and we have not had the guts to revisit any of it since. She has tried to reach out more (with phone calls and expressing being proud of me for the race), especially after I explained feeling invisible in my family--being the person who goes along and rarely asks for attention or for others to follow my agenda--and how I thought that was linked to my patterns in picking men who don’t seem to see me either.

But I'm really not sure what the next steps are on the path to healing some of my crummy family patterns. I suppose time will tell.

***
On a somewhat different note, I am still experiencing quite a lack of hope/optimism/idealism in life. I think the confluence of losing my faith moorings and then being betrayed by my ex-boyfriend has caused a certain cynicism to settle in. I wish I felt that rush of optimism that other de-converts describe – the loosening of bindings, of chains, of obligation, and a subsequent discovery of just how beautiful and meaningful life and people are without needing a religious back story to make it so.

Instead, I feel bleak. Not depressed… but bleak. My walls are up. Sky high these days. I used to trust others easily, almost blindly, always believing the best of them and believing that God could/would/did act to bring about Good. Now I mostly feel like people act crappy toward each other all the time, you can't predict who or when or how, nobody and nothing can change that reality, and there’s certainly no big sky daddy who’s going to bring about divine change or healing.

I’d prefer not to stay in this mental space. I don’t want to have these stupid walls or be so cynical about things, but I’m not sure how to deconstruct them and reclaim my optimism about life and people. Any ideas?