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I could see the storm coming from way off, a sheet of grey moving toward me. It was as though a gigantic artist was pulling a paintbrush laden with greyish black paint swiftly over the green of the hills. It was coming fast, likely faster than my horse could ride, but I pulled the reins to the left so that she would turn, facing away from the quickly-moving storm. I glanced over my shoulder to see that the storm had advanced in just seconds. Kicking my heels and pulling the reins, I urged the horse to gallop in the direction of home.

I could hear it before I felt it. It rolled behind us as the horse galloped on the dirt roads of the mission base. The sound of the rain as it hit first one row of houses' tin roofs, then another, was an unmistakable sound. I didn't even have to look over my shoulder; I heard the storm on the houses directly behind me, and then, immediately, my horse and I were drenched. I pulled back on the reins and told her to stop, giving up my now-pointless race to get home before the storm did.

This was the way of all the storms in the eastern highlands of Papua New Guinea. In California where we lived before my family moved here to be missionaries, rain started with tiny droplets and only gradually increased in size, at least in my memory. This was no rain; calling it rain was as silly as calling a trickle of water a waterfall.

Rain here was pounding. It sometimes hit the skin so hard it made it sting. It didn't gradually wet you; you were as quickly saturated in it as you would be if you dove into a swimming pool. I was instantly, totally drenched, as was my horse.

The dirt road became a kind of creek almost immediately, and though I was almost sure the horse could navigate the roads without slipping, I felt more comfortable with her walking that distance than running, especially through the bits that involved an incline. Besides, there was no urgency to get home now. I was wet either way.

The horse approached a well-worn shortcut that jutted down steeply, far more steeply than I was comfortable with, and began to walk off the road toward it, so I jerked the reins to indicate that I wanted her to follow the road, not the scary-looking shortcut. But it was too late. She had taken this route too many times to not do it by instinct. After all, we both knew she was really in charge and only obeyed my orders because she chose to.

The path she began stepping and even slipping down made me gasp. It was one thing to walk it or even ride it, but I had never seen it this flooded. I had to almost lay back on her back to counteract the feeling that my weight was going to pitch me forward as she slowly navigated downhill. I could feel panic rising in me. There was nothing to do but hang on tightly to the reins in my hands, gripping her sides ferociously with my thigh muscles.

The path cut through the local cemetery, another thing I wasn't crazy about. I avoided this path whenever I could, but here I was riding a horse down it in pouring rain.

I suddenly registered being cold. My wet cut-off shorts and lavender t-shirt clung tightly to my body, and though the rain felt actually warm when it first pelted me, my body temperature had finally begun to drop. I was shivering.

About halfway down I began to relax just a bit. We were going to make it.

And then it happened.

The horse's foot slipped and she staggered in the effort to stay upright. My posture, lying back on her back so as not to tumble over her head, was exactly what compromised me in the second that followed. She shrieked, I cried out, my hands lost the reins, and then I was lying on my back in the muddy path. The horse was frightened and didn't even seem to hear me calling her name, trying to encourage her to stay close. I struggled to my own feet, ready to reach for the reins at the same exact moment that she regained her footing and instinctively bolted down the hill, turned at the edge of the cemetery and disappeared from sight.

At thirteen I was very rarely alone anywhere. Even in sleep I was in the top bunk above one sister, with another in the next room, and my parents in their room at the end of the hall. I walked to and from school with a group of neighbor kids. I never went walking alone. I usually rode my horse with my friend and her horse, but even when I walked back by myself, I was almost always on or leading my horse. I'd been alone in the bathroom, but that was the only exception.

Alone. So this was how it felt. As if on cue the rain suddenly stopped, as quickly as if someone had flipped a light switch.

I could feel that my leg was burning and when I looked at, I gasped. There was a cut that looked bad, but blood was only slowly trickling from it, a good sign. I looked around me and saw only trees and headstones. A chill ran through my body, but this was not because of drenched clothes, skin and hair. It was the familiar foreboding feeling that filled me when I went anywhere near the cemetery.

I'd been here before. The first time I was with dozens of other people, including my family, and I'd held my littlest sister's hand tightly as we walked behind my mom down the narrow path. Our dad walked behind me and though he didn't say anything, I knew he was ready to grab one of our arms if we lost our footing and started to slip.

I heard the group we were joining before I saw it. A sound was coming from a clearing where many people were standing that sounded more animal than human. It rose and then became a kind of scream, but a scream I had never heard before, even from my hungry or injured younger sisters.

When we got closer to the group, I saw that the sound was coming from a woman we knew very well, since our first month in the country, during which we attended language and cultural school to prepare us for the culture we were entering, was also her first week in the country. Beside Molly stood her husband of only a year, someone else who attended that same month of school with his now-wife and my family. I remembered catching them stealing glances at one another during meals in that month we all spent on the coast, and noticed the way she became sort of flustered when he was around. Even a seventh-grader could tell that there was energy coursing back and forth between Molly and Tom.

Sure enough, they began "courting" soon after, and within months were married. Mere weeks later, she was pregnant, something she announced to my mother proudly, eyes a bit wet, in the middle of one of the aisles in the small mission base store.

As we neared the group, I got a closer look at Molly. She was leaning on Tom but then fell into the dirt next to a tiny wooden box, draping herself over it. Only after reading novels years later, did I learn that that sound had a word: "keening."

Her face was twisted in a way I'd never seen it. I knew why; we had been told what had happened, and then prepared for what we were about to witness while our mother made tight, smooth ponytails of our hair in the aqua bathroom of the house we lived in. Mama's words had not prepared me for this; this was the first funeral I attended and would be the last one until my husband grandmother's funeral when I was in my twenties.

In the minutes that followed Tom helped her up and then someone slid a chair under her. Molly put her hands to her face and dropped her head between her knees and then that same wild, sad sound came from her mouth again.

I don't remember what was said as far as a funeral service, but I will never forget the way that impossibly-small, simple wood box looked, likely made by Tom himself, since he was the mission base's school shop teacher. Molly lunged from the chair toward the box.

I knew there was a baby in the box. It had been delivered still-born but otherwise perfect, my dad told us. I wondered, as I stood watching Molly lay her head on the box, knees in the dirt, then kissing it frantically as she sobbed, where the baby had been during the days between when he was born, dead, and today. I also wondered if they had dressed the baby before placing it carefully in the box, and if so, in what clothes. I'd seen all this little baby's clothes folded lovingly in the nursery of their house when we went to dinner some weeks before. They looked almost small enough for my Cabbage Patch kid, I'd told her. She'd laughed and told me that as soon as the baby was old enough, she knew I would make a perfect babysitter.

Someone pulled the box from Molly's hands, and she screamed shrilly, "Nooooooooooo...." Something jolted inside of me that made tears well up and my chest tighten, an almost uncontrolable urge to rush forward and take the box from the man's hands and give it back to Molly filled me. I buried my face in my father's side.

Thud. I looked up at the heavy, unusual sound. Molly began her keening again as Tom held her tightly. The thud had been the sound of the box hitting the ground in the bottom of the small hole, a sound I would remember long after I'd lost the ability to imagine the sound of my grandmother's voice or a song my grandpa used to sing while we walked hand in hand along the bluff before sunset.

Shovels were picked up and passed around to several men. The dirt pile next to the small hole was slowly shoveled into it, until it filled it completely and then was flattened.

The hole was gone. If I hadn't watched the scene I wouldn't have known what lay below the surface of the earth that Molly now threw herself upon. Tom crouched down next to her and spoke quietly in her ear, petting her head gently, but she seemed not to hear or feel him. She screamed, her cheek pressed against the soil and her arms and legs spread-eagle, in the posture of a sky-diver, as though she was trying to free-fall into the earth. Many years later, after having three children of my own, I would realize that's exactly what she wanted to do.

Sitting there in the mud, my horse long gone, the memory of the funeral was fresh, only about two months earlier. I registered how cold I was, interrupting the memory. I very cautiously stood to my feet, putting my hand against a nearby tree to steady me, the very tree that I might have hit if my fall from the horse had occurred closer to it. I took several careful steps away from the tree, off the path, and looked around, sure that the site of the baby's funeral was somewhere close by.

There it was. There was no flat earth this time, though, and no keening Molly. I was alone, and the spot where the infant had been buried was now marked by a small wooden cross. I stepped close enough so that I could bend down and read what was inscribed on the cross. Yes. It was his grave, his name carved into it, a name he would never be called in from outdoor play by, or hear announced as he walked across a stage to receive a diploma.

I stood there looking at the ground and then knelt next to it. I was kneeling in mud, but it didn't matter anymore. I was covered in the same red mud anyway.

"Jacob Heinrichs," I heard my own voice say aloud, reading the words inscribed on the cross. And then the second line: "Desperately Wanted, Always Loved, Waiting For Us In Heaven."

Tears filled my eyes and then sobs escaped my mouth. I didn't know why I was crying. Part of the source of my emotion was obvious: this was a cemetery and the baby that was buried not so far below my feet was someone I would have played peek-a-book with in the church nursery where I volunteered every Sunday morning. Though I never met this Jacob, I still felt a feeling of loss, especially when I remembered his mother's keening the day he was buried.

There was something else, I realized, some other reason for the sobs that I couldn't stop now, even if I tried. What was it? I looked around to make sure no one was nearby to hear me crying and was both relieved and afraid to find I was indeed totally alone.

I looked back at the cross before me and read the words again. My tears increased and my chest tightened when I read the last phrase, "Waiting For Us in Heaven."

I put my hands over my eyes and let the sobs take over, shaking my small, wet body. This little baby was somewhere in heaven, the very place that was the subject of so much of my thirteen-year-old anxiety. It was the subject of a sizeable portion of my journaling at night by flashlight and by the thin light of dawn every morning. The pages in my Bible that had verses having something to do with heaven were heavily highlighted and underlined. I knew them by heart.

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us them, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness," I recited from I couldn't remember where in the New Testament, my voice quavering.

Another one, further back in my memory, its words in my heart since babyhood, bubbled out of my mouth. "For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him will not perish, but have everlasting life," I quoted, wiping my tears away. John 3:16.

And then another, one that made the sobs start all over again: "And the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord."

Baby Jacob had gone straight into the arms of the Lord, my mother told me that day as we trudged back up the hill after the funeral was over. That's what happened to babies when they died; they were sinless, she said.

"But what about me," I whispered, as I looked at the cross again.

I'd become a Christian at four, I knew. I had prayed the prayer of salvation, confessing my sinfulness, acknowledging Jesus as God, directing him to take over my daily life, and asking him to give me eternal life in heaven after I died.

After I said the prayer, I was saved, I learned. I didn't know what I was saved from at four, nor did I understand what sins I was supposed to be confessing. I'd just known that a man who was God, too, was nailed by his hands and feet to a cross, a vividly rendered picture in my Bible story book. My mother told me he would have let the bad men nail him there and let him hang until he died, even if I was the only person alive.

I couldn't imagine such pain, even when I tried laying on top of pointy toys so that they pressed into my skin until it hurt. If someone went through such pain for me, I wanted to do what he wanted me to do. My mother had me repeat the prayer of salvation after her, and I was a Christian then, the closest thing I could think of to thanking this Jesus for going through such pain for me.

But now at thirteen, I'd repeated that prayer hundreds, even thousands, of times. I'd said those words so many times that, even though I tried, I could not concentrate on each word or "mean" them in the way I meant them as a child. This inability to "mean" them was something that haunted me. I wasn't sure I had understood what I was doing at four, so I prayed the prayer again, by myself this time, many times a year after that day, with the desire to concentrate all my energy and will on each word. Every time I felt failure. 

Somehow, in a way I couldn't explain, the now-familiar words fell flat. At thirteen I realized I could say the same prayer in my own words, something I'd been doing for months now in the quiet of my bed, long after my sister had fallen asleep. The fresh wording caused me to "feel" what I was saying a bit more, but still, no matter how hard I tried to concentrate, tears pouring down my cheeks, I felt something inside me not quite immersed in them.

I was afraid. Terrified, really. How could I know that I was really saved? The baby whose grave I knelt on didn't have to pray a prayer; he was sinless. I thought of my sins: arguing with my parents, sneaking a book into bed at night after they'd told me it was time to sleep, talking my sister into giving me a toy with a logic I had intentionally used to trick her.

And then there was the worst sin of all. I'd read in a book about Christian sex on my parents' bookshelf that what I'd been doing under the covers, touching my private parts in a way that felt pleasant, had a name: masturbation. The book didn't say much about it, but enough for me to understand that it was sinful.

Only my future husband could touch my private parts; I already knew that, and I'd understood it. But me touching my own body hadn't registered as "someone else" until I'd read the part about masturbating. I wasn't even supposed to touch my body. The pleasurable sensations I had when I gave into the temptation to do so were feelings I was not supposed to be having until after marriage. I wasn't even supposed to know what those feelings felt like, I'd realized guiltily, a sick feeling filling my stomach. What if that future husband resisted temptation only to find that I had not? These were feelings meant to be experienced when my husband touched me on our wedding night. Even if I got married at twenty, that was still seven years away. Light years.

Masturbating was the one sin I had the most trouble not committing. And it wasn't as if I didn't know better. As soon as the thought entered my mind, laying in my bed in the dark, of touching between my legs, I knew I was already sinning. A churning began in my stomach and an ache in my chest, the familiar sensations of "guilt," and God's spirit giving me strength to resist, as well. "There is no temptation that has overtaken you, except what is common to man. And God is faithful and will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can endure, but with the temptation will provide a way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it." That was I Corinthians 10:13.

Sometimes I managed to resist temptation; other times I didn't. It was the times I didn't that I was thinking about now in the quiet cemetery. I'd confessed them, said I was sorry and asked God to forgive me, promising to never do it again. But then I did it again. Did that mean I wasn't really sorry? Did it mean that I wasn't really saved? And what about the sins I did that I wasn't even aware of; I hadn't known masturbation was wrong until I accidentally read about it.

The problem must have something to do with my heart not wanting to give itself up. And the masturbating.The answering churning in my stomach confirmed this thought.

I rested my head on the soft ground, my knees under me. "God, I'm sorry that I have had a hard heart. Please forgive me. I want you to have my whole heart. Please help me give it up. And please forgive me for masturbating. I know you don't want me to touch my private parts until my husband touches them, and I want to obey you. Wherever he is, he is probably not touching himself before we get married, and I don't want to disappoint him. Please help me. Please give me the strength to not give into temptation. I really want you to have every part of me. Please take every part. I don't want it. I want you and I want to spend eternity with you in heaven after I die."

I pulled my head up slowly, my eyes still teary but the sobs quelled. I searched my thoughts and feelings, looking for what I had read would follow absolute surrender of myself to God: peace. But no. It wasn't there. I didn't know what that meant. It scared me. What was I doing wrong?

The sun slanted through the overhead tree branches, hitting my face, and I stood to my feet, realizing it was getting late and not only would I have to get home before dark, I would have to find the horse, likely near the coral at the top of the hill, clean her saddle quickly, give her some food and put her away.

The cemetery suddenly felt creepy. I felt a kind of panic fill me like something dead was right behind me, at my heels, about to catch me. I ran up the hill the way the horse and I had come, topped the hill and then set off down the road toward the coral.

How Christianity Screwed Up My Moral Compass

Christianity screwed up my moral compass.

Not only that, but the further I get away from organized religion and institutional spirituality, the more clear I get about what I REALLY want, and the cleaner and more reliable that moral compass inside of me becomes.

But let's back up.

Fact: when people act based on something besides their inner moral compass, they and others suffer.

Fact: the individual, part of a group who is setting the rules, is conditioned to act based on the morality of that institution.


Fact:  Institutionalized rules and codes of behavior keep those without moral compasses in check, as long as the religious/civically-obedient person is motivated, for one reason or another, to follow those rules.

Fact: throughout history, deplorable acts have been done and deemed "righteous," "what God wants," "holy," "good for the country," etc.

Fact: when people act based on their inner moral compass, even doing the opposite of what the religious or civic institution tells them is "good," some of the most courageous, the most humane and the most world-altering acts in history have been done (i.e. Jesus, Ghandi, the Buddha, the saints in the Christian tradition, Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, Mother Theresa, etc. etc. etc.).

What does this look like in real life?

In my experience, being taught to do/not do certain things because that is what people are supposed to do, because that is what the Bible or another holy book says to do, or because that is what my culture put pressure on me to do (and I am talking about the spiritual/religious cultures, as well as the wider culture I grew up in) caused the moral compass I was born with to be underdeveloped, atrophy, and become rusty and inaccurate. I knew how to obey the rules.

But get this ... I wanted to obey the rules and my under-used, under-developed moral compass was a part of why. Some part of me (the real me) KNEW that I had that moral compass and recognized the "good" in the rules and standards I was taught. But the real me also allowed itself to be deceived into believing that the rules could become my moral compass.

That's right. Being a good Christian, being a good citizen, or being a good whatever REQUIRED me to silence/shut down/not act out of what my moral compass could have and would have told me to do. Of course that's not what I was taught.

I was taught that the real me, unleashed from the rules of my faith, would lead me into everything that was bad, immoral, hurtful to others, hurtful to myself, illegal and ugly. "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it," I recited as a child. I believed that my "natural" self was evil, degraded and not-to-be-trusted. If I wanted something, I immediately heard warning bells go off in my head. If I longed for something, I could be pretty sure that it was something I should not do or have. My instincts were human, after all, and being human was the state in which I needed deliverance from. I could do nothing good or right except when the Holy Spirit acted through me, and that would always be actions and behaviors called "good" by Christianity and the Bible.

The thing was: the moral compass in me would never quite DIE.

I cried because that "me" inside would not be silenced. I begged God to remove the desires of my heart that weren't in accordance with what he wanted for me. I hated that I could not do as the Bible taught and fully put my humanity to death. I was ashamed of the way my mind insisted on grappling with what I seemed to be the only Christian I knew who experienced as inconsistencies. Why could I not just have simple faith, I wondered? Why could I not suspend those questions and doubts? Others seemed to have no problem doing so. I felt like something was wrong with me.

Fast-forward.

Now, at 35, I'm a self-professed former-Christian. I haven't been to church in something like four years. My five-year-old thinks cross necklaces are "lowercase letter 't' necklaces." I am not sure if there's a God. I don't believe in or feel any fear about "going to hell." I admire Jesus' life, but don't think he was any more divine than I am. I am comfortable with the fact that I don't know if there's a God or not, and I am pretty sure I won't ever know while my spirit lives in my body. And (oh, yeah) I know I am more than this body. There is something I experience as being connected to others in a non-physical way. There is something solid and deep underneath my physical existence that I can feel the edges of sometimes. It's fun to talk about, read about, think about and wonder about what that is. I am confident that until I am not in a physical body any longer I will not have any answers. Just more questions. And that makes me happy and excited.

And here's the thing.

As the post-Christian me that I am today, I am not the greedy, never-satisfied, mean, vindictive or ego-centered person I was told I would become without God.  It's just not true that when I do what I "want to do" I want only that which hurts myself and others. I am more compassionate. I feel more empathy. I am more thoughtful. I act with more courage. I take more responsibility for my actions that hurt others. I do less rejecting and more accepting of others' differences. I am a more nurturing mother. I am more honest. I am kinder. I am a better friend. I feel less fear. I connect with people more and better than I ever did before. I am not perfect. But I desire to lessen others' suffering more than I ever did. I am more aware of my foibles. I have a greater desire to, when I hurt someone, make it right. I love more. I accept love more.

How is this possible?

The real me ... is ... well ....

GOOD.

There is a moral compass that I am learning to use and that is beginning to function more and more naturally. And as I learn to use that compass, I find that more and more, what I REALLY WANT, when I drill deep down, is GOOD. It is not always what someone else would call "good." And of course I can look back and see that even when I was trying to do what was right, I hurt someone and/or myself. This helps me do better the next time. But more often than I ever thought possible, when I do what I (the real me/the spirit in me) wants to do, my actions are more consistent with many, even most, of what the Bible says is morally "good."

And this takes more courage and energy than obeying rules. Any robot can do that. But when I give from that real, inside me, or I love from that real, inside me, or I act on someone else's behalf from that real, inside me, it is more sincere, more heartfelt and more brave than any actions or behaviors I did because I was supposed to, should, or must.

This means I'm learning to ask myself some questions that the Christian me would never have DREAMED of asking ...

What do you want?
Are you doing what you want to do?
What are you doing that you do not want to continue doing?
What are you doing/working on/lending energy to that makes you feel good?
What are you doing/working on/lending energy to that makes you feel bad, dishonest, anxious, sad, or frustrated?

Slowly, surely, one day at a time, I am learning to be ME. And that's good.

Another Reason Why I Am No Longer a Christian

image from here

For a few years now I have been unable to accept some of the doctrines I once held to as a Christian. In many ways, the initial "break-up" of me leaving Christianity was a very emotional and gut-level reaction. I knew that claiming to believe the core doctrines of Christianity was no longer my truth. To continue to pretend it was would be to compromise my own character and to participate falsely in something I could no longer be part of while being authentically me. Lots of people who were anywhere near my facebook, blog or mouth :) could tell you that I expressed a lot of anger and sadness toward God, Christianity, the evangelical churches I grew up in and the Bible. That was real. It was very like the sort of explosive emotions that refuse to be repressed that someone experiences before an actual "break-up," and it is the intensity of such emotions that provide the energy to remove oneself, cut oneself off from and leave behind that which one can no longer participate in honestly, authentically and with a whole heart.

The further I get from the initial "break-up" of me leaving Christianity, the less angry I am. As time has passed I have found I am more able to put what I was reacting to and rejecting into words that are logical and sober.  This is important for me, even if my thought processes and truths don't make sense to anyone else, or if others think they are based on flawed thinking. I don't need to prove to Christians that I am "right," but I do want to be able to communicate why I have personally rejected Christianity, if for no other audience but myself. The simple act of writing or talking helps me do that.

One of the Christian doctrines I have rejected for a couple of years now is that of human beings being inherently sinful and in need of God's intervention, without which they would not be capable of doing "good." You can read a another post about this here. Even more specifically, I no longer accept that good happens only when humans essentially die to their own natural way of living, speaking, acting and even loving, so that the Holy Spirit, a manifestation of God that Christians believe "indwells" them, can live, speak, act and love THROUGH them.

My experience is to the contrary and has led me to believe that there is inherent goodness in every person, and that the manifestation of that goodness (love, charity, kindness, empathy, compassion, forgiveness, courage, selflessness, etc.) is possible only when one draws on one's OWN spirit, which may or may not be connected to a kind of collective spirit. Of course there are those who do bad things; I am one. But I do not wrong myself or others because my spirit (I call it "knowing place") is by nature "bad," but because I am not, for whatever reason, acting or reacting through the lens of ego. That ego is not "evil/bad," and in fact has some very important usefulnesses, but when one only looks through ego's lens (as a young child does) one does not act from that "spirit" or "knowing place." Learning to listen to my spirit is a process and that, I believe, is the journey of life: learning to act from that place, supporting those around me in learning to act from that place and, in any way I can lessening the suffering of those around me.

What's the difference between "my" version of spirit and Christianity's version of "holy spirit?" My version of spirit is already IN you. Christianity's version comes from outside of you. Further, evangelical Christianity teaches that one must intellectually assent to its other core doctrines before that holy spirit can come into and begin to live through the flawed nature that evangelicals say we are born with. My version of spirit can not be taken away; Christianity's version is not mine unless and until I convert, ask Jesus in my heart, or a variety of other actions, depending on the denomination of Christianity you listen to. My version just IS; Christianity's version has a twist in that if you do NOT convert or what have you and invite that holy spirit to indwell you, you not only are incapable of doing anything good in this life, but will be thrown into eternal punishment and separation from God.

I have written quite a bit about my rejection of the Christian concept of eternal punishment/hell and the WAY the threat of that sort of punishment "if you don't...." hanging over a person makes love impossible. Here's one post about this. Basically, if I tell you to love me, or else, all I will be able to get from you is the love that is given out of fear, which is actually not love at all.

But it occurs to me today that there is another important reason for believing that human beings are "good" inside, rather than "evil." The idea that we are evil and that the only goodness we ever do is because God somehow has done it through the filter of us as willing conduits, doesn't just make authentic loving relationship with God impossible. It makes authentic, loving relationship with other human beings impossible, too.

In other words, if you are only as good as you are allowing God to be through you, then I can not even accept your most "ardent love" as authentic. If you are incapable of doing anything good, authentically and from your heart, apart from God, you are nothing more than a machine when you are loving me. You are nothing more than a conduit of God's love.

Likewise, the love that originates in God and comes through me to you is like the air blowing out of a heater. The heat is dependent upon the heating machine; in fact, the heat is a bi-product of a machine doing what a machine is designed to do. If my love is the heat and God is the heating machine, my loving you is not because there is anything about YOU that is inherently lovable or special. You are not chosen, picked or uniquely-loved. You are loved just the same way as everyone one else is, by God, through the machine of a human being. That is not from the heart. That is not a love that you INSPIRED in me.

Not only that, but this also means that if you aren't loving me perfectly, you are an imperfect filter of God's love. You aren't allowing God to love me through you well enough. Again, you are failing. There is no human emotion. There is no "being moved by" someone and love being an expression of that movement. There is only you and I as supine conduits. Willing pipes through which God's love can flow.

Call me crazy but that sounds not only painful, but boring as hell. How then to explain it when I am "moved by" someone or something? My heart and mind tell me that that very "movement" inside is evidence that I am more than a conduit of divine love. My own human feelings, emotions and inner movements betray that I am more than just a pipe. I am definitely not just part of a love machine.

Furthermore, if it were true that the ultimate goal is to become "less" (since, according to this doctrine, that is the only way my sinful nature con be overcome) so that God can more effectively use me as a conduit of his love, I would then feel more able to love when I become "less me." And that is not the case. If that were true, when I am "less me" others would feel more loved. And that's just not so, either.

When I FEEL and then I SEE in the eyes of another human being, the reflection of what they see when they experience me, I feel most loved. When another human being says, "This is what I see..." and I can feel that what they see is the "me" that only someone who really is LOOKING and really is GAZING DEEPLY with loving, adoring, tender eyes could see, I feel loved.

To see human beings as a conduit of God's love ignores the risk and the courage that it takes to love someone else, as well. When someone, in spite of the very real fear that their expressed love will not be returned by me, allows their feelings toward me and the beauty they see in me to float fearlessly into their eyes so I can see it there, and cares enough to put the things they see in me into their own words, I am changed utterly.

Not only that but when the person doing that courageous mirroring of me to myself has seen me at my worst...my "shadow," as Carl Jung called it...and can look past that to see the truth that I AM ONLY PARTLY THAT SHADOW... I feel loved. That kind of love is more intimate and more personal than the act of physical intimacy. Anyone who has been on the receving end of that kind of love knows the way that "I've seen you AND I love you" kind of love is more transforming than almost any other human experience.

The person who, without regard for whether their unconditional love will be returned, who STILL persists in loving someone in such an active way is not being a willing pipeline or conduit. This is an active love.
This sort of love is risky. This sort of love IS being alive. It requires a kind of standing in the fire of relationship in order to even SEE those truths of someone else, let alone SPEAK/mirror them back to the other person. It requires a kind of recklessness, even, since it is the bucket of one's own soul (or it feels like it is!) that one lowers down into the deep well of someone else's real self in order to bring back the real water that's deep, deep down.

This is unconditional love: being a mirror, mirroring the goodness in the other to them, not knowing if they will reciprocate.

This is unconditional love: knowing exactly how one wants most to be loved and giving that to another without strings attached.

This is unconditional love: loving fiercely and extravagantly without holding back.

This is unconditional love: loving the other in all these ways EVEN IF the other person doesn't even "get" or "appreciate" that you are doing so, or understand/acknowledge the risk that it took for you to do so.

This is unconditional love: even allowing the person you love to walk away if they decide to but allowing your love to follow them for the rest of your life.

This is unconditional love: to choose to continue to see the other person for who they really are, and not to label them in a negative way, even if they reject you.

This is unconditional love: to, even after you are rejected, persist as far as you are able to communicate to the person in that mirroring sort of way all the beauty and goodness you experienced of them. In other words, thank them for the gift of the time they did give you, the parts of you they did show you and the way that you were altered in positive ways by having had contact with them.

I have felt this kind of love, coming and going, with and through other human beings. I have loved this way. I have been loved this way. And the only way to give this sort of love to another being is to look for, see and mirror the "real them" that I experience. That "real them" IS their spirit. The unconditional love you and I both long for is not the kind of love that says, "if...." "unless" or "until." It doesn't know time; it positions itself with arm outstretched, love offered, without condition, Now, Yesterday and Tomorrow. That love is IN ME. Not from an outside source or in spite of my nature. That love is called forth in me BY YOU. That love in me is only possible WHEN I am fully, completely and authentically ME.

Or perhaps it's this simple.

If I was standing before you and the fullness of who you are was visible, and I said, "I love the you that you are, no changes necessary and without regard to whether or not you love me back," how would you feel?

If I was standing before you and the fullness of who you are, and I said, "I love you because God is loving through me, and here is the goodness I see in you, which is only possible because God is good through you," how would you feel?

It IS that simple. Perhaps the last two paragraphs were all I really needed to write.

p.s. If you want to read more about some of my discoveries/experiences/thoughts about unconditional love, here are a few:
This one. But only if you don't mind the "f-word."
This one, inspired by a Ghandi quote.
This one about tattoos and love is one of my most-read posts.

How do I stop wanting to dance?

Understanding that foot binding was a deplorable practice
Doesn't mean the women whose feet were bound since childhood can dance.
A change of policy
Doesn't heal the tiny nubs for feet that women can only hobble on.
Not binding their own girls' feet is good,
But it doesn't mean they can run with their whole, big-footed daughters.
Understanding that they should have been allowed to dance on their big, lovely feet
Doesn't make the desire to dance disapear.
How do I stop wanting to dance?

Jesus & The Starbucks Connection

I don't claim to be a Christian anymore, but that doesn't mean I don't think about the faith I grew up in. In fact I think about it a lot. Write about it a lot, as you know if you stop by here with any frequency. Often I write in my sadness and anger, looking back at a former set of beliefs that hurt me in more ways than it added to me. I've left evangelical Christianity behind, but I think it would be easier for some people to believe that because I say I'm not a Christian, that that means I hate God, don't believe there is a God or have completely stopped thinking about God.

Fact is, I'm not a Christian and I think about God a lot.

I especially respect the person of Jesus as represented in the Bible. His interaction with people, especially those the religious establishment of his day judged, wrote off, condemned, rejected and abandoned is simply beautiful to me.

I'm not a Christian and I think about Jesus a lot.

Jesus, according to the Biblical account of his life, interacted with people in some really incredible ways. He connected with the people they WERE, rather than asking them to change, telling them they should change, or even asking them to emulate his own actions and behaviors. When Jesus interacted with people, he effectively made a "place" between the people he was talking to and himself. A place where they could sit down together with no shame and no hiding of their true selves. He understood the context of their pain. He saw THEM and didn't define them by their actions or behaviors.

That "place" he created for himself and whoever he was relating to was what he called "The Kingdom of Heaven." It wasn't like a lot of our experiences of "church" where you have to dress up, hide your pain, pretend you are "better" than you are and act like you have it together. Jesus, over and over, looked for and saw the REAL person underneath the behavior, actions and pain, related to and loved unconditionally THAT person. The connection between Jesus and the person he was relating to was for many the first time they had ever been utterly naked AND utterly loved and accepted. That's exactly how I want to be loved and how I want to love others.

But what was going on in those moments? I think I know. This wasn't all about God being able to magically see into people's hearts. That may or may not have also been going on. But I think to only define Jesus' treatment of others by that "divinity" would be a grave error. He seemed to think others were capable to doing the same. So what is it that he was doing that we are also able to do?

I think it was simply that Jesus approached connection with others with the expectation/goal of seeing through the shit to the real person and loving THAT person. I think it's that simple. He was living proof that the religious way of approaching people with a, "Are you 'good' or 'bad?' I get to decide," attitude was not loving and had no place in the kingdom of heaven. He simply saw. And he loved. Period.

So what was happening that created such a "real" connection between Jesus and those he interacted with? I've been thinking a lot lately about how, when we accidentally or on purpose connect with someone outside an established human construct, we often feel and experience a "connection" that we wouldn't normally. That connection is, at least in my mind, usually of a spiritual nature. Something happens when we are connecting with someone in a way that isn't governed by rules, norms or standards. It's almost as though we can sneak in a backdoor, by-passing the part of our brains that says, "Act like this; talk like this; this person is that; this interaction is limited to ..."

It happens in Starbucks sometimes. You might be sitting there in a sunny spot, watching stranger after stranger walk by, but then one stops and asks if they can share your table since the others are all filled. Every once in awhile that thing happens where two people move from strangers to people who "see" the other one in a matter of minutes, simply because they shared a table at Starbucks.

It happened in the streets of Christchurch, New Zealand a few weeks ago during the earthquake, and then again in the aftermath of the tsunamis in Japan. Strangers clung to on another in a sudden, illogical intimacy as they stood in the streets and watched helplessly while family, friends and colleagues were crushed or drowned. All of a sudden two people who would normally have no reason to even speak to one another spontaneously joined hands and cried into one another's shoulders. People who would never have helped one another because of gaps in age, gender, socio-economic level, etc. became one another's very real saviours, friends, brothers.

It happened in my family when one of my sisters gave her son up for adoption nearly 8 years ago. It is an open adoption, which means our entire family has a real relationship with my nephew and his adoptive family. Open adoption is new enough that there aren't "rules" for how to do it. We've made them up as we've gone along, following heart rather than head, without even meaning to or realizing we're doing it. While others would think we "lost" my nephew to another family, the reality has been that we "gained" a sister and brother "in-law," a second nephew and two extra nieces. My kids have an extra aunt and uncle, as well as extra cousins. There's no map, no rules and no "optimum result" besides my nephew being loved. That's it. So much beauty has grown out of what could have been a heart-wrenching loss.

Sometimes we experience this connection with someone else in the beginning stages of a romantic relationship. Often times it is at that "love is blind" stage of a relationship that we are able to see the "real," the good and the beauty in a person simply because we WANT to see it and are looking for it.

But my husband and I have experienced it in moments we'd never have expected it, as we sort through the anger, hurt, sadness and disappointment of our marriage. Our love isn't blind anymore, and in fact, the eyes with which we see all too clearly now often brim with tears. We're working through some serious shit in our relationship. It hurts like hell. But sometimes after hours of agonizing conversation, we find ourselves laughing through tears about some silly thing totally unconnected to the bitter pain that is still wet on our cheeks. In those moments of half-hysterical hilarity, we see in one another the old Cheryl and James that stood on the balcony of a pink house all those years ago, watching the stars 'til the sun came up. Sometimes the giggles lead to a tearful embrace and for a few minutes, the pain is gone and it's just ... "us," however impossibly, connecting.

Wherever or however it happens, we've all felt it to some degree. And I guess I'm just asking if maybe those "moments"—those connections—whether for a brief time or a lifetime, are what life is all about. I'm asking if maybe Jesus was living like that. I'm wondering what would happen if we intentionally lived like this, as much as possible.

How much in our lives and in our world would change if we lifted the human "constructs" off and just looked around at one another with eyes like Jesus'?

Wait it Out

I "hear" this song by Imogen Heap on a personal level, but also on a spiritual one. Very poignant reflection of the whole "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" that's always eluded me. I realized I could live an entire lifetime in "the wretched hollow."

There are other "wretched hollows" in my life and over and over again, I see, once more, that putting curtains up in a prison cell doesn't make it "home." Maybe getting fed up with the "wretched hollow" is what finally motivates us to grow, change, move, stop waiting for someone else to engineer our satisfaction, and instead begin making our own happy lives.

On a Sunday in '81

Red velvety pew seats that aren't as soft as they look
11 o'clock sun hesitantly shining through dirty stained glass windows
Heads all around me - curly, grey, short, long, brown, straight, blonde - bowed.
Pastor's soft but loud voice in the microphone murmurs
Then lifts and falls
Falls and then lifts

And then
Like a transistor radio my four-year-old ears suddenly tune in words and phrases
"...cast into burning hell"
"...a place prepared for the devil and his angels"
"...eternal separation from God"
"...those who are saved will be ushered into glory"
"...they will be with God"
Some words fall to the ground, incomprehensible
Others stick to the lobes of my brain
Where cement is quickly poured
Grey matter will eventually learn to skip agiley over those spots without even looking down

Many more words later
Many more pages later
Many more wordless cries later
Many more appeals through ragged sobs later
Many shouts into empty rooms later
Many more thoughts locked away before they can become words later...

A door opens
Fingers pick at lobes grown around cemented old words
They dig deep
Oh!
Pain in core of my being
Blood - so much blood
And then the cement is finally removed - all but a crusty film
And I am broken
So broken

Bandage up, or try to
And then the angry voices
A few sad voices
They are angry about my bandaged wound
Or more accurately, bloody pieces of cement cast aside
You can't do that, they say
But it's done, I say
There's no putting that back
That's done
That's over
That's through
They leave - for now
Silence
And then
Aching, crawling, relentless pain
I can hear my own groaning in my ears
It's your own fault, they say over their shoulders
They keep walking

Pain knocks me over
I fall in the discarded shards of broken, bloody cement
That cut my knees
That try to enter through my hands
But I roll away
Into the shadows
My own voice in my ears -
Someday wounds will heal (whispered)
Someday wounds will heal? (voice breaks into splinters as it falls like a glass into a sink)
Someday wounds will heal
And then?
Learning to think around and through
Scar tissue

Put down the pooper scooper: I'm not shit and you aren't, either!

I was interacting with Ron Hollenbach on Twitter and in my effort to explain why I take issue with this post by Fleming Rutledge about Advent, I ended up realizing something pretty big for me.

Fleming Rutledge wrote, "When a culture of impunity is present human beings become bestial toward one another~that’s not an opinion; that’s a fact." She goes on to say, "Imagine a world without judgment. That’s impunity," and to basically imply that without impunity we'd all be doing atrocious acts of violence.

I just don't buy it. As I was trying to put this into words, I ended up tweeting,

"The problem is not our hearts; Our hearts are the solution."

And then I had that sensation that you get when you have one of those rare but wonderful "a-ha!" moments. The heavens open up. The hallelujah chorus. Rays of sunshine. The whole nine yards.


O.k. so maybe your thought is, "Duh..."


Or maybe it just feels so freaking-super-duper-significant in my funny little mind because of its uniquely goofy wiring and idiosyncrasies. And genius, of course. haha.


But either way, it's really, really BIG for me!

See...I grew up thinking...hang on...here comes a caveat... 

(not because anyone intended to teach me this...I need to preface these "I grew up" statements because I am fully aware my own kids will grow up and say, "I grew up..." and I will say, "What the HELL??? That's the opposite of what I was saying, you dodo-head!" or something along those lines)

I grew up thinking that without Jesus' death, which covered over my sins and allowed him to come into my life in the form of the Holy Spirit, I was pretty much...well...SHIT. To put it simply.

Yes. I was shit. And there I was all stinky and nasty and needing to be picked up with a pooper-scooper and flung straight into...well...HELL.

But Jesus strong-armed the pooper-scooper out of God's hands, calmed him down (he really despises poop, you know, and was always itching to pitch me and all the other shit in the place he specifically, intentionally designed for shit since the beginning of creation...you know...he made us...then made a place to torture us...totally logical) and threw himself on the cross. When he died there, then came back to life, now God looked at me and saw....flowers. Or at least less stinky poop. Depends on the particular brand of theology you subscribe to. But anyway, I wasn't just plain old poop anymore.

IF!

And oh, that's a big "if." IF...I agreed with God, "Yes, God, I am stinky shit and I deserved to be thrown into hell, but thank you for sending Jesus to wrestle the pooper-scooper out of your hands and die on the cross so that you could get those awesome rose-colored glasses you wear now when you look at me."

You see, depending on what church it was, what pastor it was, or how well my ears had been cleaned (you never know where these ideas come from), I vacillated between thinking that God super-glued those rose-colored glasses on his face OR that I had been reconstituted from stinky shit into something different...pretty flowers, let's say. It was usually a funny melding of the two.

Either way, I was stinky shit without God. Either way, I was on the way to hell with all the other stinky shit, until Jesus saved me. And either way, now, on this side of agreeing to all the right things, I'm going to heaven when I die and I'm now capable of maybe possibly doing some good because now God is in me in the form of the Holy Spirit.

But here's the problem I've always had with this idea. That means, if you aren't a Christian, YOU, my lovely bloggy friend, are stinky shit. It's easy to think Sadaam Hussein is stinky shit or the guys raping women in Zimbabwe in the Advent post I am reacting to are stinky shit. But what about....your friend? Your spouse? The lovely, caring man at the nursing home who doesn't have to visit your elderly mother every day, but does anyway...who it turns out is Buddhist? The sweetest angel of a kindergarten teacher who it turns out is an atheist? And what do you do when Stinky-Shit-Atheist-Lady is nicer than you? Or what do you do when you find out your pastor was molesting little boys?

So this has been a really big problem for me. I just don't buy that we are all "desperately wicked," "evil" bastards that, given the opportunity, if no one were watching, would rape, kill, steal, maim and destroy everyone else.

But then people get raped, killed, stolen from, maimed and destroyed by people who it is way easier to just agree are "Stinky Shit." It's much more convenient to believe that if they just accepted the free gift of salvation through Jesus, they would stop being Stinky Shit. It's a lot easier to think that their problem is being HUMAN.

But I'm human. And I don't rape or kill. Guess what? I just checked really thoroughly in my heart and...surprise! I don't even WANT to rape or kill! And here's the inconvenient truth...brace yourself...

I'm not a Christian.

So what to do now?

I'm being all snarky and sarcastic, but now I'm going to stop, sit down and let the tears flow.

Yes. Tears.

How many years did I waste not feeling good enough? How many years did I waste feeling guilty because I clearly wasn't fully surrendered to Jesus if I wanted to make out with my boyfriend? How many years did I spend begging God to take all of me and reconstitute every little cell of me, no matter how long it took, or how painful it was, into who he wanted me to be?

My chest aches thinking about it. Why?

Because I was already who he wanted me to be.

Oh my that hurts.

So today, when I was finally able to say,

"The problem is not our hearts; Our hearts are the solution,"

It felt AMAZING. There it was. All simple and shiny and right.

The truth. What I've been trying to say. What my knowing inside has whispered my whole life.

It's not a removing of my shittiness.
It's not a reconstituting of my humanity.
It's not a covering up of God's eyes so he doesn't see the reality of my shittiness.
It's not a big giant holy fix-up job.

It's a looking into our hearts and finding...oh my goodness...LOVE.

It's looking into our hearts and NOT finding nasty black shit all over. It doesn't mean that we're perfect. It just means the "answer" is that our hearts are good, and the solution to EVERYTHING is already there.

It's a falling back into. It's a laying back in. It's a turning my head toward what I always desired anyway.

It's a, "It was there all along!"
It's a, "I knew it."
It's a, "I've always known it."

And then I can turn to YOU, because I know you are not stinky shit at all, I can look deep into your eyes and I can say,

"You are good. You are very, very good."

Runaway Bunnies, Breasts & Hell (yup, you read that right!)

Read this post over at In the Hush of the Moon. I understand the feeling of watching a little guy growing up...my youngest is going to be four in a couple weeks. Four is NOT a baby. I've asked him to stay three but he said no. sigh.

But this post isn't about that. This post is about The Runaway Bunny that Emily referenced in her post. I read the snippets from the book that she included and that thing happened that often does when I read a children's book: a little piece of truth went around to the back door of my brain, snuck in quietly and sat down when I wasn't looking. Funny how that happens.

I have tried several times, in several venues, to write about why I don't believe there can be a hell. It's because I am a mother and I know how I love my three little ones. And I'm not even the best, most well-balanced, unselfish mother, either...but I'm their mama. So as a mama, with a mama's heart (and I daresay it's similar in a daddy's heart), I can't help but love my children unconditionally. I don't know how to do otherwise. My heart says the words of The Runaway Bunny (below) right along with Mama Bunny. My heart already knows these words by heart because they mirror it perfectly.

The words of my heart, and any mama's heart, are not the voice of a God who made a hell with a door that opens "in"....but not "out." Not ever. Maybe as my friend, Jonathan, suggests in his book, the verse about hell's gates means you can leave hell when you want to, that it's not God's hand pushing you back into the hottest part of the fiery inferno to make sure you really "get" how stupid you were to not believe in Jesus and his death on the cross, the inerrancy of the Bible, or whatever.

So read the words of Runaway Bunny as the words of God, if there is one. Don't even bother trying not to cry:

Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away. So he said to his mother, “I am running away.”
“If you run away,” said his mother, “I will run after you. For you are my little bunny.”

“If you run after me,” said the little bunny,“I will become a fish in a trout stream and I will swim away from you.”

“If you become a fish in a trout stream,” said his mother,“I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you.”

“If you become a fisherman,” said the little bunny,“I will become a rock on the mountain, high above you.”

“If you become a rock on the mountain high above me,” said his mother, “I will become a mountain climber, and I will climb to where you are.”

“If you become a mountain climber,” said the little bunny, “I will be a crocus in a hidden garden.”

“If you become a crocus in a hidden garden,” said his mother, “I will be a gardener. And I will find you.”

“If you are a gardener and find me,” said the little bunny, “I will be a bird and fly away from you.”

“If you become a bird and fly away from me,” said his mother, “I will be a tree that you come home to.”

“If you become a tree,” said the little bunny, “I will become a little sailboat, and I will sail away from you.”

“If you become a sailboat and sail away from me,” said his mother, “I will become the wind and blow you where I want you to go.”

“If you become the wind and blow me,” said the little bunny, “I will join a circus and fly away on a flying trapeze.”

“If you go flying on a flying trapeze,” said his mother,“I will be a tightrope walker, and I will walk across the air to you.”

“If you become a tightrope walker and walk across the air,” said the bunny, “I will become a little boy and run into a house.”

“If you become a little boy and run into a house,” said the mother bunny, “I will become your mother and catch you in my arms and hug you.”

“Shucks,” said the bunny, “I might just as well stay where I am and be your little bunny.”

And so he did.

“Have a carrot,” said the mother bunny.

What do you think? It touches something deep inside, that something that whispers, "That's the love I've waited my whole life for."
So, as you know, if you read my blog, I really am not sure about there being a God "out there." However, I am sure that I love my kids with that love that runs after a runaway child and never gives up. I can't help it. I feel it. I don't have to believe it...I know it. And a God who doesn't love that way...I have no use for.

A God who doesn't just not chase down his child, forever, but actually goes so far as to create a place of eternal punishment for that child, just because he or she "didn't get it"...that is a God that does not love like a mother does. If God is real and I am made in his image, how is that possible?

I dearly love one translation of the word, "Shaddaim," one of the names of God in the Old Testament: "a God with breasts." I know how my kids' eyes looked up at me when they nursed as infants. That utter rest, peace and satisfaction. A mother with milk in her breasts doesn't give sustenance when her baby acts like he loves her enough. In fact, if she waits too long to give the rooting infant what he wants, the milk begins to leak out! A nursing mother becomes the most terrifying being in the universe if someone tries to tear her nursing baby from her breast.

So, as Emily eloquently describes, when that same infant becomes a toddler and toddles away, a mother is watching a piece of herself walk away. I have no idea how it feels to watch them move out when they reach adulthood; I don't even want to begin to think about it. All I know is no matter how far my children try to go from me, I will always find them.

I'll storm the very gates of hell if I have to.

Book Review- "Discovering the God Imagination: Reconstructing a Whole New Christianity," by Jonathan Brink

Sometimes we are absolutely certain we understand something, and are in fact so sure of our comprehension, we base our entire lives on it. I was sure I understood Christianity and even more sure I had no use for it. And then I read Discovering the God Imagination, by Jonathan Brink and it changed everything.

I hope I’m not getting anyone’s hopes up. I should probably clarify: I’m not going to start attending church and I still don’t believe in hell. But I’m literally and figuratively re-opening the book on God. Yeah…that book. I have a love-hate relationship with the Bible, but thanks to Brink, I’m giving it another read.

If you were to take the classic fairy tale, Cinderella, cut each individual word out, throw all these words into a hat, shake them around, pour them out on the table and ask someone unfamiliar with the Cinderella storyline to use the individual words to create a story, it is unlikely that the end result would be the version of the story we grew up with. Sure, there would be a pretty dress, a pumpkin coach, a beautiful maiden and a romantic ball, but the way the happily-ever-after shakes out might be nothing like the story we have come to expect.

Jonathan Brink does something similar in his book. All the elements of the creation-to-crucifixion drama are there, but they are told in a way that changes the entire meaning of the story that has defined modern Christianity. Brink himself comes out of this very tradition, 2,000 years in the making, which has interpreted the God/Human story in a very definitive way; he clearly grasps this widely-accepted interpretation and then promptly turns it inside out.

Brink challenges the Christian framework in a manner that is, at once, supremely bold and stunningly simple. All the key elements of the story remain, but they are arranged in an entirely different way that makes the “happily ever after” something altogether new and different. It’s as though Disney’s Cinderella was re-told so that the evil stepmother is reformed, becomes the heroine and rides off, Prince Charming in tow, to begin a new life as a fairy godmother.

I spent the first 30 years of my life trying, not to make a religion work, but to have a relationship with Jesus Christ. I was an evangelical Christian in the truest sense. But about 2 years ago, I opened the door, invited all the questions, doubts and instincts I’d kept locked up tight to come in, have a seat and speak freely. I finally got honest with myself and the consensus was that not only did I not want to go to church anymore, but I could no longer say I was a Christian. I wanted to believe the “right” things, but I just didn’t, and in retrospect, I realized I hadn’t for quite some time.

Leaving Christianity was painful; I’ve likened it in many ways to a divorce. Though it was a profound and palpable relief to finally allow myself to stop fighting to keep my true feelings and thoughts at bay, Christianity was like a thread woven through the entire fabric of my life and pulling it out was simultaneously the removal of a source of huge pain and a deep, gut-wrenching loss. The desire for a personal relationship with a God who loved me wasn’t easy to give up and walk away from.

It was difficult and painful to insist on what my inner knowing says when, from all accounts, I was walking away from God by doing so. I don’t want to “walk away from God.” Decades of my life were spent wanting a personal connection with God more than any one thing in my whole life, so following my knowing, what felt like away from God, has been painful, hard and many times, desperately lonely.

Then I read this book. Brink’s interpretation of the Biblical narrative is like looking at the whole of my life with a pair of glasses on and being shocked to realize what looked and felt like one thing was something else entirely. What if it wasn’t that I was “walking away from God” at all? What if, all along, he was “calling” me away? The exercise of thinking that’s possible, for even a minute, floods me with a mixture of joy, remorse, regret, pain and sadness.

Brink looks at the Biblical narrative and sees what he calls “the God imagination” at work. To look at not just the Bible, but my own life, through that lens means letting my assumptions go. Among other things, Brink says challenging our assumptions involves “leaving old stories behind.” He goes on to say that, “it means starting over again and building new ones…finally answering the deeper questions in our souls, the ones haunting us when we sleep.” (p. 72)

The prospect of doing so is, for me, terrifying. Re-opening the book on God means going back to “the scene of the crime,” as Brink refers to it. It means returning to the very ground on which I was hurt most, knowing I might be hurt again. I know from experience that anything that’s worth anything requires just that sort of “all in” risk, but that doesn’t change that it scares me to death.

Brink responds to this very fear when he says: “Reconciling our assumptions means we just might have to engage in our own restoration. It means we just might have to tear away the covering which blinds us to the God imagination. It means coming out of hiding to discover our worst fears aren’t true.” (p. 72)

Now I have to ask: what if the stuff that has always felt “off” for me about Christianity is also “off” in God’s mind? I experienced such pain, rejection and fear during my “questioning/doubting” years that the idea that I was on the right track all along makes me weep – both for the waste and the hope. Do I have the guts to go back and take another look?

Previous to reading this book, I had easily and without equivocation left Christianity behind. Discovering the God Imagination hasn’t “brought me back into the fold” by any stretch of the imagination, but it has created a space in which I am able to look at the concept of God with new eyes, for one reason and one reason only: it paints a picture of a God who sees me with eyes that, when I look into them, I realize I have seen before. They are familiar in the way the bar of a song sung in childhood might be. The expression of love and acceptance in those eyes is what I recognize I’ve been waiting for all my life. To be honest, I don’t know what to do with that, except to keep gazing into them and follow my heart.

Survey Says: Better Not Play Bible Trivia with Un-Believers or You Might Lose

Contrary to common Christian belief, the average atheist is not in fact someone who needs to have the Gospel presented to them in a clear way. They don’t need to have “the bridge illustration” doodled on a napkin for them. The average agnostic is NOT “not sure about God” because he or she doesn’t want to think too hard or is chronically fickle. In fact, according to an article in today’s L.A Times, “a survey that measured Americans’ knowledge of religion found that atheists and agnostics knew more, on average, than followers of most major faiths.”

Say, what? Yup…you read that right. Why, you ask, would an atheist or agnostic know more about religion than a Christian?

The L.A. Times interviewed Alan Cooper, the associate director for research at the Pew Forum, the organization that released this survey earlier this week and he answers this very question. He thinks the reason atheists and agnostics know more about religion than those who ascribe to those religious beliefs is because they are more likely to be people who grew up in a religious tradition and went through a process of reading, reflection and decision before leaving that tradition. In other words, atheists and agnostics are not in fact people who don’t want to hear about, read about, or understand the “Gospel.” Rather, they are people who have grappled with it in a more serious way than the average believer; their atheism and agnosticism is something they came to thoughtfully.

“These are people who thought a lot about religion,” Cooperman said. “They’re not indifferent. They care about it.”

The study also found a correlation between atheism/agnosticism and being well-educated. However, this is not to say that the most educated people became atheists and agnostics, since Christians with similar education levels still knew less about their beliefs than non-believers.

The L.A. Times article also quotes Rev. Adam Hamilton, a Methodist minister and author who, commenting on the survey’s findings said, “I think that what happens for many Christians is they accept their particular faith, they accept it to be true and they stop examining it. Consequently, because it’s already accepted to be true, they don’t examine other people’s faiths.”

I’m someone who, as an evangelical Christian, assumed that, if atheists/agnostics just examined Christianity, they would get on board with it. I also told myself that atheists and agnostics liked sinning and therefore found their unbelief more “convenient.”

Today, as a not-atheist-and-sort-of-agnostic-but-definitely-not-Christian, I can say, looking back at my former thought process, that I couldn’t be more wrong. I’m not interested in finding an excuse for sinning. I ate, drank, breathed and lived the Christian gospel for the first 30 years of my life and very thoroughly understand it. I have beyond-average knowledge of biblical facts and Christian theology. I wanted to believe it, more than anything I’ve ever wanted.

When I say I’m not a Christian, this is not something I say lightly. It’s something I say a little sadly, because I wanted so much to believe it. I can’t. That’s not because I want to live in a certain type of “sinful” lifestyle and need to believe things that make that lifestyle o.k. If only it were that simple. My belief/unbelief came at a high cost. It’s something I wrestled with for decades. My saying that I’m not a Christian is very simply, honest.

These days I’m reluctant to publicaly state that I’m not a Christian anymore, mostly because my hard-won belief/lack thereof is immediately written off by most Christians as “lack of understanding.” I can’t even explain the process I’ve been through without a Christian trying to “better explain” the Gospel in a condescending voice, no less. I’m not stupid, believe it or not, and neither are most other atheists, agnostics and otherwise “un-believing” folks. More knowledge about the Bible or Christian theology isn’t going to convince me to change my mind. That’s because, according to this survey, chances are I understand Christianity better than the average Christian does and, with brain intact, I’ve opted out.

**You can go here to take a quiz that represents a sampling of the actual Pew Survey of Basic Religious Knowledge.