Me and Religion-[A Repost]
Leaving behind resentments and coming full circle
For my entire childhood, Labor Day weekend meant camping at Fort Wilkins State Park with my extended family. I have a million memories of biking around all day with cousins, lifting rocks to catch crayfish in the shallows of the lake, getting ice cream from the tiny camp store, and sitting around fires way past our bedtime with teeth coated in marshmallow sugar and melted chocolate on our faces.
This year, I went back for the first time in well over a decade.
On a late Saturday afternoon, I found myself sitting in a camper chair around a fire-less pit of charred logs from the previous night with Uncles Corey, Jeff, Jimmy, and Jamey.
I had recently learned that my Uncle Jamey and Aunt Liddy had stayed with our family in the camper during Labor Day weekend in 2002. It was only two months after my father had passed. I asked Uncle Jamey about it, and he said it was to help my mother, and she had wanted us kids to still get the experience of camping that weekend and playing with cousins.
He said it was incredibly difficult, and my mother cried every night.
He looked up at me from across the fire pit and said (paraphrasing), “And yeah, you know, what can you do in that situation?” I nodded and knew exactly what he meant, but I didn’t continue the conversation in that direction because I would have gotten emotional.
I knew the feeling all too well because that camper was the perfect metaphor for our life at that time.
Hearing a sobbing mother behind a closed door was our life.
Thinking about what the hell you could possibly do to soothe that pain was our life for a very long time.
I remember sitting in the living room and trying to read comics with my little brothers but being unable to because our mother was in bed and wailing, the most painful, grief-stricken, desperate cries could be heard throughout the whole house.
I remember looking at each other, shaking our heads, putting the comics down, and going outside.
It happened a lot.
Again, the camper Uncle Jamey and Aunt Liddy experienced that weekend was our life.
I have memories of walking into the kitchen for a snack or down to the dryer to grab a clean pair of socks and finding her on the floor sobbing.
What’s anybody supposed to do in that situation, much less an eleven-year-old?
At some point, however, those painful cries turned into “oms,” and the house was then consumed in the loud learning-to-meditate, “OOOMMM” chants of a mother trying to pick up the pieces. And it worked.
That’s what eventually brought her peace.
That’s what allowed her to get out of bed.
That’s what allowed her to start eating again and, thankfully, keep a family of six somewhat on track.
When it came to the religious faith and structures she spent forty years of her life in, she, “had more questions than answers.” She was having beautiful, powerful, life-altering spiritual experiences that weren’t properly explained in Christianity, the Bible, or the sermons of her religious upbringing—although, she is always quick to say she loves Jesus and what he taught.
But it was very unsettling to have those old walls fade away and to step into something new.
For her, peace was found in meditation and Eastern traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, and what would be termed New Age Spirituality—although, like me, she’d surely balk at that label as it’s extremely loosely defined.
Call it whatever “woo-woo hippy-dippy bullsh*t” you want, it saved her life and, ultimately, all of our lives. It brought her the peace that allowed her to make sense of the trauma that smashed through our lives and helped us move forward as a family.
But for some in the religious Apostolic community we grew up in, because we were no longer attending the church, my mother had lost her way and was allowing her children to “stray from the Path of God.”
Because central to their belief is the Christian concepts of Heaven and Hell and that Apostolics have the “True Faith,” by leaving the church, we were seen as abandoning the road to Heaven and were therefore destined to burn in Hell for Eternity. Not only that, but as the years went on, our family soon checked every box of Earthly Sin by drinking alcohol, wearing makeup, piercing ears, and hanging in worldly places known to be full of degenerates, like bars and cinemas.
It’s a small community, so people talked. They expressed their disappointment in what my mother was “allowing” us to do and the life our family was living.
They spoke poorly of her behind her back.
I want to clearly state that the behavior was by no means a reflection of the entire community, and many friends and family showed nothing but support, love, and acceptance, but there were enough judgemental and disapproving voices to have a very noticeable impact on my mother.
I left the church as a young teen, so I couldn’t have cared less what any religious person said, just as I would never lose sleep over the Amish judging me for driving a car, the Mennonites condemning me for listening to Eminem, or the Mormons thinking the caffeine in my morning coffee was the path to Eternal Damnation.
Apostolics believing my soul is captured by Satan because I’m slowly covering my body in tattoos doesn’t bother me in the least, and I often make the joke with my mother, whenever we might be engaged in something frowned upon, “Eternity is a long time to burn, Ma!”
We laugh in the moment, but it’s not a joke for her.
The judgment of people she grew up with and shared a life with for forty years affects her. It really hurt her and continues to have an impact.
For a very very very long time, I could see having to go to the church for any reason made her uneasy, stressed, and nervous.
Witnessing that as a teenager and young adult filled me with rage and resentment. My mother is about as close to a saint as anybody I’ve ever met. And to have people purporting to follow the teachings of Jesus hurl daggers at my loving mother completely turned me off to the idea of organized religion.
If one’s “faith” has them making a widow trying to raise six children feel like she’s failing, they’ve completely lost the plot. Not only on what it means to be a good Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, or whichever religion one follows, they’ve lost the plot on what it means to be a good human.
Putting aside the fact that she got all six of us through college and raised decently balanced criminal-record-free kind-hearted humans, even if we had ended up in and out of jail with abuse problems, that situation would demand sympathy, empathy, and grace.
Anything else is just cruel.
Again, I want to reiterate that the behavior isn’t a reflection of the entire congregation, but it took me a long time to come to terms with an institution that would foster such judgment.
But I can see now that most of it wasn’t necessarily coming from a malicious place.
If one truly believes in Hell and that they have the faith, norms, and etiquette that “light a path to Heaven,” when someone strays from that path, a natural response is to be concerned that they’re now “lost” and to try and get them back to the “True Word of God.”
During a sermon in the Old Apostolic Church recently, I heard the minister speak on a similar subject with the analogy of a shepherd not allowing their sheep to wander too far for their own safety or a parent disciplining a child out of love.
It took me a long time, but I can now see it from the perspective of a religious person. Even though it manifested in actions I find wholly unacceptable, it came from a place of concern.
It took me a long time, but I can now extend that grace and accept that they might not see the unnecessary pain they caused and were trying to help in their own way.
I’m reminded of Luke 23:34, “Forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
We’re all lost in one way or another.
We’re all trying our best.
And we’re all attempting to find meaning in this crazy journey of life and make sense of the unknowable mysteries of the Universe.
As Jesus says in the book of John, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” It’s an edict I try my best to live by because it’s something my mother embodies better than anyone I know.
I’m a flawed, imperfect human. I’ve made one million mistakes and will make one million more. Who am I to judge?
I’ve worked on myself to find a place of Peace, put down the resentments that weighed me down for too long, and I’m going back to church with Love in my heart.
I’m grateful to be Here, Now, reconnecting.
And I’m grateful I’m still welcome to sit in church with my family, even if we’re doing things in our own ways.
Love this🙏🏽