Hi, it’s me, reporting to you live from my self-imposed religious exile, on Easter Sunday morning, 2008. The mood here is a bit melancholy, I’m afraid. Feeling adrift and homeless casts a sad shadow on the hope and celebration of Easter, I admit. On the other hand I have to say I truly wouldn’t have it any other way today. Maybe next year I’ll be settled enough to celebrate, but this year, again, I must abstain from the festivities.
I considered, briefly, the possibility of attending an Episcopal or Anglican service today, knowing I would thoroughly enjoy the ritual, the pomp, and the beauty of the experience, but no.
A few years ago our family attended a service at Lookout Mountain Community Church on Christmas Eve. Peter Hiett was speaking as “Larry the Sheep Guy.” Larry explained that our idea of proper religion, with our seriousness, our ritual, our stained glass, and our holy observances was just an elaborate game of “hide the stink” – flawed humanity desperately trying to cover the human condition in a show of manufactured holiness. Meanwhile, the true message of Christmas was one of the divine being born in the midst of smelly, messy humanity. A religious switcheroo, an ironic game of hide and seek, God hiding holiness in a pile of stink.
GET IT?
Yup, I got it. Got it so much I was ruined. Considering the history of the Christian religion, I came to the conclusion we missed the point entirely, beginning with the Catholic church and it’s idea of holiness, hierarchy, exclusiveness, ritual, mystery, and fear. The Episcopal church is just a difference in etiology, I’m afraid, plus the doctrinal influence of the Reformation. I love it, but aren’t we still missing the point?
There’s always Protestantism, Evangelicalism, and the Charismatic, of course. Been there, done that. Can’t do it any more. So here I am, feeling just a little sorry for myself, in the deconstructed rubble of my own religious landscape.
Doubly ironic is the sense I have of being asked, by what I can only describe as God, to exercise, well, faith. A hopeful assurance that I am held by divine love, that I am on a journey not alone, that I am invited to participate in a joyful stream of spiritual life and goodness, if I could just stick my neck out a little and believe. Take a risk or two.
Imagine my chagrin when I realized that what I had considered faith wasn’t really faith at all, but the security that came from assenting to a coherent theology. Who knew I could feel the tug of the divine outside the confines of ideology, in the midst of my messy deconstruction. How divinely ironic – or heretical – depending on your perspective.
That’s how the Easter egg rolls this year.
I came your way via Jen Leman’s blog, which I hit through Brene Brown’s blog, whose book about shame blew me away about 6 months ago.
All I can say is WOW. I identify with the “desconstructed rubble” of a once secure religious landscape. This post, and the post yesterday, spoke to me in profound ways.
Profound enough to make me post a comment, even though I usually just lurk.
Divinely ironic, or just simply divine!
I have been inspired by the community so many of you seem to share, which in my mind IS the point, precisely. Keep writing.
Dear Renae,
Thank you so much for taking the time to write. I was beginning to wonder if anyone was resonating, or if I was pondering alone in the universe. Your words are a great encouragement to me. Welcome to the journey, and please, stop in any time.
There seems to be an increasing amount of rubble on the religious landscape. This can only be good, as messy as it feels. Blessings on you as together we wander, but are not lost.
Doubly ironic is the sense I have of being asked, by what I can only describe as God, to exercise, well, faith. A hopeful assurance that I am held by divine love, that I am on a journey not alone, that I am invited to participate in a joyful stream of spiritual life and goodness, if I could just stick my neck out a little and believe. Take a risk or two.
Who knew I could feel the tug of the divine outside the confines of ideology, in the midst of my messy deconstruction. How divinely ironic – or heretical – depending on your perspective.
Held by divine love, exercise faith, risk, tug of the divine…I’ve got all these symptoms. And then I have what feels like absolute laziness. I don’t know if it’s despair or just “mental atrophe”? I get so tired of thinking..and have headaches almost everyday. I know from experience that taking risks will get me “unstuck.” So why do I want to continue to take naps instead. Let’s see…risks? naps? risk? naps? On the other hand. They say you can sleep when you’re dead, which I’m sure is a whole other subject, depending on what you do with the “resurrection.” Amen
Sometimes naps are good…Anyway, I resonate with this if it makes you feel any better. I spent several years in my deconstructed rubble phase, but it’s gotten quite a bit better lately. Now when I deconstruct things, it’s kind of fun – probably because it feels like I’ve come home to myself in some important way, and I’m very slowly starting to take a few risks.
Things feel coherent again – but in a completely different way. I didn’t do Easter either, but it felt okay this year. I think this is the first time I can say that. I still feel sorry for myself a fair amount, though, and I reserve the right to go back to wallowing if I feel like it.
Hang in there – it will eventually get better, and you will end up in a place that is good and entirely unexpected. And I think it’s okay to take lots of naps along the way…
Christy,
I have literally just gotten up from a nap, after feeling quite depressed. Your comment was the first thing I read. And you’re right, I do feel better.
Mucking around in the rubble is hard. Especially when we’ve been raised to “believe” that every block should fit precisely, with no chinks whatsoever in the wall.
Giving up the belief in the stability of belief, stepping off the cliff with no idea whether there is really anything there to catch us, embracing the ambiguity and the paradox – this is some of the hardest work around I think.
And it is necessary and acceptable to take it slow, to stop an rest, even to hold a single piece of the rubble and examine it with slow and methodical curiousity.
Part of the answer lies in realizing that the questions are the answer.
Christy – I did Easter this year, but in a mentally much different place than I’ve ever done it before. I hope to be able to NOT do it some day and that be okay too. It’s hard to step away from the tradition, even if you’ve moved away or beyond it in your soul.
Here’s to wandering but not being lost while being held by the divine in a way beyond explanation.