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.

Lent and Traditions

Many people give things up for Lent. I do not. I read "The Fellowship of the Ring" trilogy. I have a great love of story, hope and redemption. I have a dear one who frequently asks me why I believe in Jesus Christ when it doesn't really make sense to do so. My reply is that I love story, hope and redemption. The Easter story is about redemption and hope for sure, anyone can agree to that. I think it also is about beauty, music and creation. Another friend told me that he felt that there was only one way to approach the story of the cross, through the cries of music and poetry. I agree.

I recently went to an all church meeting. I felt compelled to go. I sat and listened, and listened, and listened, and listened. It was really long and very silly but I did have two very interesting experiences. I would like to say that it was more good evidence that most of our churches are really businesses. I wonder if we can ever get away from that;  from money, loans, beautifying, building, graphs, charts, numbers, comparisons. I think maybe it's the only way we know how to do things.There is another way.

My mom was sitting next to me. The fact that she was interested in going is funny in a way. She has spent years in church service. She once tried to do things another way, and was pushed out of the way and forgotten. She spent her time at the meeting eating popcorn and laughing under her breath. It made me very happy because it means that although she was forgotten she can't be ignored.

I spent some time listening to the reports but found my mind wandering quite a bit of the time. I started looking through the pew rack and found some church business cards. Scrawled on the back of one of the cards were the words "Please Help Me". What a wonderful and appropriate thing to find. I have spent many years sitting in church crying the same thing for many different reasons. It reminded me that though we are in church, many of us are very lost. Whoever wrote on that card was desperate enough for someone to know about her pain but couldn't say the words out loud. Why is that?

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for us to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

Church Sadness and Sleeping at Last

I keep having the same conversation over and over again. I don't go looking for it so it must mean something. I have been trying to decide where to put it, how to make sense of it and the sadness it brings me. I can't let it go and I can't shelve it either.

I wonder if people in the church, leaders more specifically, understand that people are leaving faith totally because of how things are in our churches. This is the discussion that I keep having. Am I having it again and again because no one else is listening? Where are the church leaders who are listening? Are they too busy running church and being Christians to listen, to feel the pulse of what's happening around them?

Something is happening in Christianity.  It's like people are waking up from a deep slumber. And when they wake up I hear them say the same things: "I just realized that none of it matters." "I don't think I believe in Christ at all." "What is the truth?" "Why have I been manipulated?" "I have decided I want freedom." "I am tired of people who aren't real." "I can see that it is just business and power."

Someone told me a story today about visiting a church. The pastor was preaching on being unsure. He asked the congregation to stand if they ever felt unsure in their faith. My dear one had the guts to stand up. The pastor called for the rest of the congregation to lay hands on her and pray for her.I find it deeply disturbing that she was the only one standing. I find it heart breaking that the solution was to single her out and pray for her "weakness". It seems like a gesture of love and faith to many Christians, but is it?

I do want to tell you about one of the most profound faith experiences I have had in a long time. I went to see this band with a dear friend a few weeks ago. The venue was an old church turned in to a coffee house with a free store/food pantry in the basement. The first thing my dear friend said to me was, "Why do all these college kids look so wholesome?" They didn't look wholesome to me exactly. There were lots of hipsters and a few dirties. There were lots of beards and tattoos and old lady loafers. They felt wholesome though. When the band played it was so beautiful that all I could do was stand a stare and breathe really slowly. The music was filled with glory, peace and hope. It meant something and everyone there knew it. Not one person said anything about being a Christian but the beauty of their art communicated it so profoundly. Everyone was happy to be there and everyone was happy. It was glorious.

Going to church the next morning left me feeling like I was missing something.