I did not plan to write this today. The plan was to write about life as it is now, about temperament, about seeking, about questions and to end with a couple of questions I need to ask not only of myself but to trusted people around me. The big question right now is "Where do I go?" It's a very positive question. This all needs writing but what poured from me today was about the past and a transformation from misery in certainty to resolutely leaving that certainty behind.
Leaving Christianity behind was hard.
For two decades it had been my life, my centre, my meaning. It was the only hope I could find and I held tightly to it, my rudder, my purpose, my path, my destiny. It was community of some kind. Connection. A point of convergence between me and the like-minded. My God was my everything and I knew that without him, without all the certainties and slogans and absolutes I’d be lost again. Without my faith what would be the point of living at all?
Leaving Christianity behind was hard.
For two decades it was my peace. For two decades it was a confirmation of my hell, a sure revelation of what I already knew. That I was unworthy, a monster deserving only condemnation for existing. The true, pure, full Gospel agreed with my ideas. Yes, you should burn. You should suffer. You cannot do a good deed. The true, pure, full Gospel provided a way out. Jesus will save you. Jesus will take you to heaven. Jesus will give you joy. Here are the chapters. Here are the verses. Here are the promises. Jesus will give you joy. Show you how much he loves you. Jesus will grant you peace. It’s in the book. God said it.
Leaving Christianity behind was hard.
I did not know joy. I did not know love. Consolation was unknown. Mostly. I smiled at times. Made the best of my life. Married. Served when I could. More often I just stayed alive and believed that perhaps Jesus would grant the promises if only I served more. Be crucified with Christ. Deny yourself. Take up your suffering cross. Serve. Serve. Love Jesus more. Pray fervently. Sing out worship. Get down on your knees and grovel. Hate yourself and love him. Die. Die. I wanted to die. Most days. I knew I couldn’t die though for the sake of others. Never for myself. I couldn’t stay alive for myself. Every year those who knew me best wondered, feared I would end my life. Every year.
Leaving Christianity behind was hard.
No solace. I found the most extreme of churches. No solace. I turned to Rome. No solace. I prayed for six hours a day. No solace. No let up in faith. No alternative. He is the way, the truth, the life. The only way so I couldn’t dream of walking away. Christians berated me, disciplined me with words and sometimes deeds or penances. Why aren’t you joyful? Where is your faith? Read these verses three times a day and you’ll be happy. Just trust in the Lord. You can do it. He loves you so very much. So why doesn’t he fucking show me? Just once when I’m wanting to run razors across my wrists and doing deals with death to run them only gently on my arms and legs to play with the blood oh Jesus did you shed blood for me? well here I am shedding blood too and god you stay silent, silent and I love you still but your death is nothing compared to all these years of enduring what I endure every single crapping day and I know there’s no hope anywhere else and I see the lost, the sinners, the damned, condemned by their own evil and you are the only way to acceptance so why do you make me hurt?
Leaving Christianity behind was hard.
I couldn’t leave. There was no alternative but to stay. Jesus died for me so don’t you think of walking away you ungrateful piece of shit. He gave you everything so kneel, kneel, get before the Sacrament, get those chaplets said, read another book and learn how bad you are, vile, a wretch, depraved, and it’s only mercy that means you can pray at all. Trust and obey. There’s no other way to be happy. It didn’t work. No matter how many prayers, songs, sermons, services, crying. There were Pentecostal highs but a cheap hit isn’t a cure. Brokenness remains. One more cut. One more day staring into darkness and persevering only to avoid hurting others, one more body in the river, in the Menai Straits, in a blood soaked bathroom, drugged in a bed. Kill me Jesus because I cannot kill myself. I tried though. In the worst times. And no God held me. Trust and obey. Trust and obey. Rosaries in the psychiatrist’s waiting room. Supplications and petitions in drug withdrawal. Dead inside with a terrifying smile for the world.
Leaving Christianity behind was hard.
I had no option but to stay. Suffering would be worse outside the sheepfold of the saviour. Yet I left. Cracks in the one way. A glimpse of original blessing. The most uncertain beginning of self knowledge, self acceptance. Cracks. Cracks. Years of cracks. Space to move. Philosophies. Christians who spoke in other ways. Light in silence thwarting the restraints of the orthodox. The revelation of queerness. The revelation that the world wouldn’t end. The revelation that I wouldn’t be alone if I held up my hands and claimed just a bit of truth. The broken mirror and a better world tumbling through.
Leaving Christianity behind was hard.
I had no option but to leave. Beliefs turned out to be nonsensical. If there is a god then many grasp it in other ways. I realised what it cost to see my sin upon the cross. Realised the myth of redemption. There is no redemption because there is no condemnation from the sky. No hell. No heaven. No one sacrifice on a hill far away. Freedom. Freedom. One life to live. One miracle on this earth among billions of others. Humanity in the universe. One life. Ten thousand scars to heal. Many more revelations of my beauty. Of the extravagant complex sunlight in every one of us. Jesus, let me go. I can no longer live in what I believed to be your vast mansion. It was for freedom that I was set free from Christ.
Leaving Christianity behind was hard.
I left. In the end, when I left I’d been surrounded by good people. Supporters. Allies in three places: The church of the queer. The church of the unity. The church of variations in silence.
I left. With the blessing and love of a pastor whose biggest wish was for the lost to find themselves, the wounded to heal, and for us all to walk proud in acceptance of ourselves wherever we choose to walk.
I left. I believed that was the end of the story but leaving is a beginning not an ending. Where does a woman go after leaving? Where can she heal? Where might she find a purpose far from the ways of hell, of narrowness, of drowning in orthodoxy?
I left. There can be no return to that Jesus, that God. No return to that religion. The world is thousands of miles across, the universe millions of light years. Yet the possibilities of one human being dwarf them both.
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