Fear and Freedom

Today my son said something beautiful.
  "Mom, what if the universe is just a painting. What if it is just a painting that God made up. What if God created it and it's just a story?"

It reminds me of another conversation I recently had with another adult. This adult told me that his response to creation and evolution was to wonder if we are all just a fantastic story. If this life is a story world like Tolkien created. I love that my formative years were spent with this adult, my father.

There is so much fear about the unknown in lots of Christianity. It's something that saddens me deeply. I have never really been afraid of the unknown despite my religious background. I am so thankful for this. I am sure this lack of fear comes from my love of story, art and science. Though I haven't been afraid, I haven't felt freedom either. I am just now starting to enjoy freedom.

I have a good friend who frequently finds herself in arguments with Christians. She likes to tell me about it and we laugh a bit and shake our heads. She is always confused by these arguments, she doesn't understand the intolerance and even ugliness towards different ideas. I say the same thing to her every time,
   "You have to have patience and compassion. You are talking to people who have been taught since a young age that listening to or even entertaining different ideas will start them down a path of faith compromise."

This was brought home to me recently in a conversation I had about evolution. It would be bad form to share who I had this conversation with and why so I will just share the little thing I felt so sad by:
  "We don't want our child to learn about evolution in school. We want to prepare her to be able to stand up for herself in college. We are encouraging her to go to a christian college but she may choose to go to a secular school. We want to equip her with the tools she needs to stay strong in her faith."

It's heart breaking really. You won't believe how many times I have heard sentiments like this. Here is something I find encouraging:

 “We live by revelation, as Christians, as artists, which means we must be careful never to get set into rigid molds. The minute we begin to think we know all the answers, we forget the questions, and we become smug like the Pharisee who listed all his considerable virtues, and thanked God that he was not like other men.

Unamuno might be describing the artist as well as the Christian as he writes, "Those who believe they believe in God, but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself.”

-Madeline L'engle

The Utter East

"Where sky and water meet,
Where the waves grow sweet,
Doubt not, Reepicheep,
To find all you seek,
There is the utter East."

I can't believe I am about to do another blog post. I just did one last night. I am pretty sure I have several reasons for doing so and I am going to share them in numbered points because my friend Nash keeps sending me texts with numbered points. I find it very amusing.

1. I am hopelessly ignoring another writing project that I am supposed to be doing. I am not doing it because it is terrifying me. I decided in the bath tub(where I do all my great thinking) that writing is writing and the best way to write is to just write. 

2. A teenager told me last week that blogs are out of style. This makes me instantly want to blog everyday. I do kind of hope it's true, mostly because I am tired of being directed to the blogs of my peers. It seems to me that most of them are about child birth, crafting things, gluten intolerance, gluten intolerance during child birth, crafting with your after birth, etc. It's all very exhausting. I am sure they probably feel the same way about this blog. So cheers to my peers and their blogs! (I still hate them..)

3. Chris Rock tweeted last week that Facebook is for people who can't write blogs and blogs are for people who can't write books. That sounds like me. 

I call this blog Paddling East because I hope, like Reepicheep, to find all I seek in the utter East. I am trying to paddle along in my little boat. (When I think of this I picture myself in a walnut shell for some reason.) I cherish Reepicheep. He represents the hope I am certain of, the hope that even a small and noble mouse can enter Aslan's country, a hope that the smallest are really the most honored. When I enter in to the blackest of times I find myself thinking, "Doubt not Reepicheep, To find all you seek, There is the utter East."

Truth

I haven't written about faith in a long time. Mostly this is because I am very sensitive. I only want my words to help people see, to shed the blinders. It isn't my intention to cause pain and struggle. Although, if I am really honest with myself, I have to admit that the shedding of my blinders has been a very painful experience. And when I say painful I don't mean just hurtful, I mean the whole pain experience. I think I am ready to write about it again.

I stopped going to church. I stopped going for several reasons which I will share at some point but mostly I stopped going so that I could find truth. I am deeply committed to finding truth and I can't seem to get at it with all the Christian culture stuff distracting me. Here is a quote that I found today that sums up things nicely.

      "There is not much truth being told in the world. There never was. This has proven to be a major disappointment for some of us. When I was a child, I thought grown-ups and teachers knew the truth, because they told me they did. It took years for me to discover that the first step in finding out the truth is to begin unlearning almost everything adults had taught me, and to start doing all the things they'd told me not to do." Anne Lamott

I am working on the unlearning. It is full of pain and joy. I pray for Christians around the world to throw off their fear of the unknown and try it. Maybe we will all find the truth.

Sigh.

I decided a few weeks ago that growing up in a evangelical Christian church definitely did me more harm than good. I have spent years unlearning what I was taught there. This is tricky for a person who is still has a deep belief and faith in God. It's been a painful and enlightening process that continues to shape me. I think maybe this process is taking hold of many Christians, I hope it is.

I spent time with a wonderful friend the other night. She is the happiest and most content person I know. We grew up in the same church and faith traditions. After high school she left traditional Christianity and I remember feeling several things that I now find extremely disturbing.

My first reaction was to believe that she was undergoing "spiritual warfare" because she went to an extremely liberal secular college. I am sure I thought that her campus was swarming with demons looking to devour Christians. We were taught that anything that even has the "appearance" of evil(anything apart from our faith tradition) was wrong and probably the devil at work. As crazy as it seems, I recently had a Christian tell me a struggle I was having was probably "spiritual warfare".  My struggle I shared with her was simply my questioning the church. Sigh.

My second reaction was to cut her out of my life. It's the only way I knew or had been taught to deal with people that had a difference of opinion when it comes to faith. I am sure I argued with her fervently, quoting scripture and praying all the way but in the end I let her go, so sure that I was doing that right thing. I mean, I didn't want to cast my pearls before swine, right?

I recently ran in to my youth pastor from high school at a coffee shop. I didn't speak to him but I did over hear him disciplining a young man. I really wanted to go over and hold the dude firmly by the arm and tell him to do the opposite of whatever youth pastor was telling him. This is what I heard,
     "You really have to manipulate them in to believing. Get close to them and then share the gospel in a way that sounds really good. Then they will believe and they will never know what hit them." Sigh.

I am devestated that I was ever a part of this. I was sharing this that night while walking with my dear friend from high school. I was telling her about my path of enlightenment, my sadness with all things Christian and my deep belief. I can't open up and tell many people in my world because of the shunning thing or the spiritual warfare thing, or the people thinking I am rebellious and slightly crazy thing. My friend said something that was very comforting and eye opening to me. She said,
     "I travel all over the world and talk to lots of different  people. Many of these people are telling me the things you are saying. You are not alone and you are not crazy. I think the general opinion out there is that most of Christianity is not operating in reality. Keep being who you are and strive for love and hope."

Apocalypse

I enjoy thinking about, reading about and watching movies about the Apocalypse. It really doesn't freak me out at all, it fascinates me. I was talking to a dear friend last night about the Apocalypse. We were actually talking about a book idea I have involving all my favorite things: time travel, end of the world, fashion, 18th century history, etc.

Do any of you ever feel like your brain is tuned in to a different radio frequency? Like everyone else is set to 95.5 FM and you somehow can only hear 1350 AM? That's how I feel when I talk to most other Christians about Christian kinds of things. It's almost like I am speaking another language. It's most often how I feel when I sit in church. There is this wonderful man who sits in front of me at church and pats his head the whole time. I am pretty sure that he is tuned in to 1450 AM because I kind of get the head patting thing. It's a good reaction to church.

I am really hoping I am wrong but I think that 95.5 FM is mostly noise. You know what kind of noise I mean, its the music that you know all the words to and sing all day and really have never thought about what they mean. The noise that just kind of seeps in to your brain. It totally remind me of the Apocalypse and it makes me think that the Apocalypse is here and now.

Don't get me wrong, I am really in to Jesus Christ and all that He is and does. Maybe we are coming to a time in our churches where we are going to stop caring about power or programs or growth or money. I hope this Apocalypse leaves a few survivors.

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The Noise, Zombies and Thoughts on Fatih

I had a crazy epiphany this summer. It took me by surprise. At first I thought that maybe my mind had been taken over by aliens in another dimension. I like to think about reality in another dimension. It also occurred to me that maybe I had turned in to a Zombie and had eaten another brain. I think about Zombies a lot too. They are fascinating.

Tonight I enjoyed spending time with a friend I don't see often. She was sharing all about what her life has been like for the past 9 months or so. I was listening raptly while still thinking about zombies and dimensions and so on. My friend did have lots to share and it was all interesting and joyful and painful and real, but one thing she said really stuck out for me. She mentioned that someone had told her that her faith in God was a result of being brain washed her whole life. Of course she was very hurt because it was a terrible thing to say. 

But what about it? What if most of us are brain washed? What if what we think being a Christian is, is wrong? What if we all have got it wrong? It's not a very peaceful thought. You can see why I thought maybe it came from another dimension but being the person I am, I have been giving it a lot of thought.

After a whole summer and fall and most of winter I have decided to call it "The Noise". "The Noise" are the thoughts we have about how to be good Christians. These thoughts come from many places and lots of those places aren't consistent with the teachings and person of Jesus Christ. When we let "The Noise" guide our lives it's like letting a zombie eat your brain. Henry Nouwen has a lot to say about it in his book "Finding My Way Home".
  "The devastating influence of power in the hands of God's people becomes very clear when we think of the crusades, the pogroms, the policies of apartheid, and the long history of religious wars up to these very days. It might be harder though to realize that many contemporary religious movements create the fertile soil for these immense human tragedies to happen again. In these days of great economic and political uncertainty, one of the greatest temptations is to use our faith as a way to exercise power over others and thereby supplant God's commandments with human commandments. It is easy to understand why so many people have turned away in disgust from anything vaguely connected with religion. When power is used to proclaim good news, good news very soon becomes bad, very bad news." Henri Nouwen

I have a dear one who has lost faith. It is a blessed thing for me to behold. Although she mostly disagrees with me, I like to tell her that she is closer to the pure and humble truth of Christ than many many Christians. She woke up one day and decided to stop listening to "The Noise" and realized that all the Christianity she had ever known was about power, greed and manipulation. She has never experienced freedom, joy and hope in religion, only rules and propaganda. I am so glad she decided not to let the zombies eat her brain. They did some serious damage though.

I wonder how many of us have any brains left at all?

Prayer

I had a sad experience tonight. Actually, I had a weekend full of sad experiences. This sadness is the kind of sadness that wells up inside you and makes you feel like you can't breathe. It's shocking really. It's like burning your hand on a hot pan when you forget that the pan is hot. It shocks you and angers you and hurts like crazy and then it just throbs for days.

I wonder if most Christians get it about prayer, about words, about the power of words. After tonight I think most don't. I hope I never have to hear these words again: "thank you for showing us favor", "we are so blessed", "you are going to do something huge", "please give us Christians in office", "please bless us", "I am so happy to be in a church that stands up for prayer", "God is going to do it". I am sure there are a few more that I don't remember but those are the ones that stood out.

It actually kind of makes me want to scream.

I didn't hear one prayer begging for mercy. If Christians really want to be Christians, we should start silently begging God for mercy, over and over again. We should pray it all day long. Pray for mercy and wisdom in our words and stories. Pray for mercy and pray to show mercy and don't stop because you can never have enough. Please God mercy.

My husband tell me that I am too judgmental. He doesn't really understand why I get so upset about things at church. He is much more easy going than I am and is good at accepting things for what they are, but he also doesn't have very high expectations.

I remind him often that having a broken heart is different than being judgmental. I ache for Christians at church. I also ache for the people that Christians isolate in the name of God and church. I am pretty sure that the burning and throbbing in my heart isn't going to heal very soon.