This piece was written in June 2020. I’ve become incredibly practical in my spiritual beliefs/rituals since then, to the point where I hardly consider myself to be a “spiritual” person at all. To explain it would require a new essay :)
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It has been a while since I've done any real writing. My life got turned upside down this spring. I knew it was coming, I felt a swift change of direction. The old patterns had to be broken. It's been a lot of drama and it's been utterly exhausting.
But these are the times when you're confronted with yourself with few filters. You see life from a different perspective. The old falls away, and who really knows what will take its place, but at least you can get more clear on what you're NOT about.
I am, at the moment, having yet another type of faith crisis. Nothing is ever quite as dramatic as 2017 when the hammer fell and smashed everything I thought I knew. Since then I've held things lightly, knowing that most likely they will be taken away or fail at some point. I no longer have this lofty complex belief system about life, so when my beliefs and behaviors crumble around me now, it's not so hard a fall. I've been here before, many many times. I'm getting better at functioning in this space.
I abandoned my Christian faith in 2017. It basically happened overnight. The veil was lifted and I saw that all these things we believe in are merely our own human constructs. We've been worshipping idols of belief, the images of the cross and the Bible, doctrines and rules, while failing to grasp that none of these things are God Itself. We've worshipped and believed in form, rather than connecting with divine essence. We're so completely out of touch with the spirit of the law, continuously fawning over the letter of the law. The most "spiritual" and supposedly non-legalistic Christians I know are STILL worshipping their beliefs about God as if these beliefs are God itself. Challenge their beliefs and they insist you are actually challenging God!
When you finally see the true God behind and through and within all these beliefs and doctrines and images, you realize how, ultimately, all these constructs are total rubbish. They are but poor inadequate translations of a divine language our egos will never be able to understand. The translation is not the truth. It simply and clumsily points to the truth it can't possibly contain.
I didn't know how to come back from this divine revelation. Indeed, it is impossible to "come back". I have been born again, again. I can't go back to the dead works.
But, tearing it all down and sitting in the rubble for a long long time is uncomfortable. It seems pointless. There is a desire to rebuild. There is a desire to fill in the void. That darkness, that unknowing, is frankly terrifying. Every time I meet the abyss I fear I will be swallowed up in it and cease to exist.
I knew the exclusive Christian model would never be able to support me again. I needed some sort of replacement. I've dabbled in paganism, animism, goddess worship, and various rituals from different faith traditions, just trying to rebuild my faith in life. I still held on to many Christian elements and symbols because my fresher understanding helped me connect with the divine through them.
But now I find myself at yet another threshold. I am tired. I am tired of all of it. I cannot continue rebuilding my faith upon externals that I KNOW are just poor translations.
I know that much of what I'm feeling right now is a direct response to my current situation and environment. My family has been abruptly displaced and we are working on building a new home. During this time, I've lost sense of what things I actually enjoy. I'm exhausted from all the work this move has and continues to demand.
I tell myself not to think too deeply about such spiritual things right now, not to mindlessly cut off from things that have (seemingly) supported me just because my life is currently in major upheaval.
And yet, that's the point... What good is a faith that cannot withstand the ever-changing nature of life? If all these so called spiritual things cannot support me NOW, when I need support the most, then truly, what good are they??? How true are they?
After my daughter died seven years ago, I realized how pathetic and utterly worthless so much of Christianity was. I didn't lose my faith at that time, but I sure discarded a lot of worthless beliefs and ideas. I desperately needed support in the midst of my soul-crushing grief, but could find very little within Christianity, just a bunch of vomit-worthy platitudes that pissed me off to no end. Was I overcome with bitterness??? Absolutely. And I had every right to be angry. I'd been sold lies, empty phrases that couldn't help shit in real life.
the rhymes went cold
the ride got old
and the bill of goods that I'd been sold
failed to offer comfort when I needed it the most
This may be the first time in my life that I've sat with grief and realized I've run out of spiritual coping mechanisms. I'm not even looking for any because I know they will all fail.
Most of us use religion and spirituality as a way to bypass the pain and discomfort of our lives. Even when I thought I was moving away from bypassing, I still found myself trying to find external spiritual rituals to help me "process" things. But then these rituals and practices become a religion unto itself and you forget that it's meant to serve you rather than you serving it (Sabbath was made for man, not man for Sabbath). And then I discovered that, yet again, I was getting hung up on the images instead of moving with the energy/spirit. I was relying on the translations of truth just to cope with life, instead of connecting with truth itself and actually living life.
Right now I'm just weary and exhausted. The symbols and images that have gotten me through the last tumultuous three years do not speak to me anymore. They speak of an existence that I simply cannot connect with at present because it is no longer my current experience. I'm not there anymore. And it would be absurd to assume or demand that I should still be there.
We grow and mature and change. Why would I return to the faith of my youth? I'm not a youth anymore. My experience of myself and the world around me and my personal responsibilities have dramatically changed since then. Likewise, why would I return to the eclectic mix of symbols and rituals of the last three years when I am clearly in an entirely new phase of life? For one, I'm getting a lot more clear on what isn't me, and all the support structures for those roles are crumbling to ashes. And I literally cannot return to my birch grove and Mother Tree for comfort and wisdom. I don't live on that land anymore. They are inaccessible. They provided a necessary support system and space for me during a very particular time. But I've moved on, both literally and figuratively.
I'm currently in a "burn it down" phase (ever since January, the process just keeps speeding up, especially with global events) and if I can look ahead a year or two or three and discover that I eventually develop some sort of robust faith of deep meaningful ritual, I'm cool with that. I'm not resentful of future me or think she's wasting her time. If that's what she ends up doing, then she's got good reasons and I trust her.
But right now... I live now. And I accept that, right now, I'm better off leaving it all alone. I'm finally ok with my faith being in complete shambles. I'm ok with being a spiritual orphan, with having no roots to ground and nourish me. I'm just here, living. And I'm ok.
I no longer feel a need to rebuild my faith, to somehow replace what once was, simply because something used to be there. I think true faith will build itself. As I spend my time nurturing my body/temple and following its cues, I hope that a truly genuine and unshakable faith will arise... Because it will arise from the solid truth of my eternal/internal being rather than being a temporary/external mold I try to fit into. I will no longer be the vine clinging to the tree for support, structure, and nourishment. I will be the tree itself, with deep roots, strong trunk, and branches extending to heaven.