The dEǝЯDeRe-Construction of Me, Part 7 - I am not a philosopher

 Someone said to me:

"As you would put it, ["Terrible Lie" by NIN] resonates with me.  Maybe not everyone has these moments in these, or have them as much as I do sometimes these days. I suppose the only difference now is not renouncing everything. You can take the person out of the Orthodox Church but you can't take the Orthodox Church out of them. Funny part is, unlike past protestant churches, I wouldn't want to anyway. I do actual reasons, and just like that high school girlfriend I totally had who lived in Vancouver, they do exist. All joking aside, there are real reasons but I'm not here to talk about that.

This is the kind of stuff going through my mind when I say I ain't gonna make it. The usual hellfire and fear of devils ready to punish you isn't what bothers me. We know that isn't even what happens anyway. For me, it's whether it is even worth trying now. We seek the life of the world to come but...is it worth what we gotta go through to be supposedly free from sin and whatnot? Believing and "knowing" things don't mean shit if you don't want to or can't bring yourself to do it. Even if you do, it can almost be arguably worse that doing nothing if you fuck it up enough. It doesn't matter how wrong or much it deviates or corrupts whatever you claim you're doing. The damage is already done and if you can't make it right, you better hope someone else can figure out how to fix the mess you've made."

So I have been thinking about this for the last couple of days. Listened to the song, with the words, again. And it’s deep. Songs like this touch that place inside of us where the anxiety and doubt live. “Bring Me To Life” by Evanescence does it for me.

I was trying to come up with something helpful and then I realized I had read something helpful recently by someone who has been doing this thing far longer than me — Steve Robinson. It’s a bit long but this part stuck with me:

“If any man be zealous and love God and become obsessed with the Church, and drove his priest nuts demanding to be let in NOW, if any have labored long in fasting and two hour prayer rules before you were even catechumens, and attended every service even with six kids from the first hour, then fell off the wagon at the third hour and went to the bar, then staggered to the job at the sixth hour but half-assed it and ended up taking a nap behind the J-John until the Ninth Hour, then decided to give it a go until the eleventh hour, then just gave up and threw in the towel and had the balls to ask for an advance on your paycheck just because you showed up again… the Lord, who is jealous of his honor, will accept it all, from the first flirtation, to the zealous pursuit, to the lapse in focus, to the falling asleep, to the half-assed attempt, to the well intentioned screw ups: He gives full recompense and rest unto all.” ~Staying Orthodox by Steve Robinson

The rest of the article is great too but this made me relax my shoulders from around my ears, unclench my jaw, and do a little wiggle of relaxation.

That being said, the below is ALL ME.

Let's face it...the OT is built on a foundation of war waged against Those Who Are Not Like Us, women-blaming, and literally the destruction and murder of other lands and people in the name of a war and thunder god of a relatively minor people group in Western Asia during a time when gods popped up like mushrooms after a rain.

The man Jesus called Christ (“the Anointed”) looked at that and said, “Nah, fam. We’re doing something different.” I believe he worked with what he had, the Torah and the Prophets and the Temple, and founded something entirely new because the character of the god in his parables is not that of a war-mongering, vengeful, jealous, bloodthirsty tyrant. The character of Christ’s god is the father of the prodigal son and the man who gets up out of his bed to give bread to his neighbor at midnight; the vaguely annoyed judge who gives in to the persistent old woman seeking justice and the rich man who forgives the debtor but serves justice when said debtor does not pay that forgiveness forward; the Samaritan who cares for the man beaten by thieves and the man with two sons.

And, as for hellfire and brimstone, well…Somewhere it says “absent from the body is present with the Lord” and “every knee shall bow”. To me this means that every being from Day One of all humanity's sentience/sapience, pre- and post-Resurrection, will stand before him, see that he/They are god and have the chance to acknowledge him/Them and be ushered in. (Interestingly enough, when Paul wrote that every knee would bow and every tongue praise God, he referenced Isaiah who used the word "swear" instead of "praise/confess" an change of phrase I find quite fascinating).

Because eternal conscious torment for all eternity based on a finite understanding and/or ignorance is neither just nor loving and that is not the character of the god described by Christ.

My chosen expression of worship has become more...eclectic...as time has moved on but I’ve chosen Christ (NOT Christianity; there is a difference and I am not a Christian regardless of the fact that I do my best to follow Christ) and when I want to be in a church I choose an Orthodox church with all of its rites and almost all of it's doctrines and dogmas. I know he/They are there. I am fairly certain he/They are also elsewhere because it says so in the Book, but as I am not familiar with other expressions, I am not going to go there. Literally and figuratively.

And then I run off and do my thing because I am not built for existential navel-gazing.

The upshot of this is as follows - either god is loving and just or they aren’t and their chosen physical expression of themselves was a lying liar or he was not.

Regardless, the prodigal son’s dad was pretty cool and this is where my brain went.

Relevant Reading
"Terrible Lie" by NIN
"Bring Me to Life"  by Evanescence
Staying Orthodox by Steve Robinson
Parable of the Prodigal Son
Parable of the Man in Bed
Parable of the Persistent Widow
Parable of the Unforgiving Servant
Parable of the Good Samaritan
2 Corinthians 5:1-8
Isaiah 45:23 and Romans 14:11 
The dEǝЯDeRe-Construction of Me, Part 6

The dEǝЯDeRe-Construction of Me, Part 6 - Spiritual but Not Religious?

Once upon a time I did not understand folks who said "I'm spiritual but not religious". I honestly thought it was a cop out of the highest order. Then there was a Pugilistic Pandemonium and tfog was POTUS and OH MY GOD never in my life have I seen so much anti-Christianity displayed, lauded, and praised by so many people claiming the Name. 

What do I mean? Well...There's the triumphalism, colonization, nationalism, and appropriation; the blatant white supremacy and racism; the greed; the misogyny and misogynoir; the patriarchy; the clericalism; the glorification of violence and the gun worship; the science denialism; the conspiracy theories; the disdain for the poor; the sheer unabashed and unchecked hatred of those who are not cisgendered or heterosexual; the leadership who are supposed to keep that shit in check NOT doing so and encouraging it even when they get members of their congregation calling them out for not doing so (#iykyk); and finally and especially the really, really bad theology used and abused to justify all of the above.

Like...duuuuude. 

Not cool. Not cool at all. 

So I'm pretty much just done with the Christian denominations I've had personal and intimate (see definition #4) experience with, ranging from (and in no particular order) Assemblies of God to Southern Baptist to Presbyterian to Methodist to Charismatic Evangelical Protestant to Eastern Orthodox - Antiochian to Eastern Orthodox - Greek. I've been some flavor of Christian all of my life, even when I thought I wasn't.

Wait...no. That is incorrect and incomplete. 

I am done with Christianity. Period. Done with it as a religion. Done with it as a way of life. Done with it as the arbiter of what I believe is good and right. Done with it. In the words Mahatma Gandhi supposedly said, "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." And, yes, while Gandhi was problematic in his own right that doesn't make this statement any less defining of my current experience.

And no, my choice is not because I "wasn't worshipping the real God" or that I was "mistaking "men" for God" or any of the other gaslighting, abusive nonsense folks like to use on people who leave the church as if you will get brownie points for keeping folks from exercising their free will. I'm not that stupid and I honestly do not appreciate the assumption that I am. If you have gotten this far with me and think I am seriously that dumb what does that say abut you? Think about it while you go someplace else with that bullshit.

Moving forward. 

So where does that leave me? Are you kidding? There is a whole flipping 93 billion light year sized UNIVERSE out there! And that's just be bit we can see! Which means there is SO much more to see and experience out side of the box I put myself in out of unfounded fear (more on that later), trying to get a guy to like me, and in an attempt to please so many people who literally do not give a rat's fuzzy patootie about me. 

I think...I am spiritual...but not religious. Hm. Kewl. 

~stretches~ It's SO good to be out of this box. It's ADVENTURE TIME!

Relevant Reading

What the heck?

America's Non-religious are a growing, diverse phenomenon

Did he say it? 

The dEǝЯDeRe-Construction of Me, Part 5

"..it is better to speak, remembering..."

 A Litany for Survival

For those of us who live at the shoreline 

standing upon the constant edges of decision 

crucial and alone 

for those of us who cannot indulge

the passing dreams of choice 

who love in doorways coming and going 

in the hours between dawns looking inward and outward 

at once before and after 

seeking a now that can breed 

futures 

like bread in our children’s mouths 

so their dreams will not reflect 

the death of ours; 

For those of us 

who were imprinted with fear 

like a faint line in the center of our foreheads 

learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk 

for by this weapon 

this illusion of some safety to be found 

the heavy-footed hoped to silence us 

For all of us 

this instant and this triumph 

We were never meant to survive. 

And when the sun rises we are afraid 

it might not remain 

when the sun sets we are afraid 

it might not rise in the morning 

when our stomachs are full we are afraid 

of indigestion 

when our stomachs are empty we are afraid 

we may never eat again 

when we are loved 

we are afraid 

love will vanish 

when we are alone we are afraid 

love will never return 

and when we speak we are afraid 

our words will not be heard 

nor welcomed 

but when we are silent 

we are still afraid 

So it is better to speak 

remembering 

we were never meant to survive. 

Copyright © 1978 by Audre Lorde, from The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde by Audre Lorde. Copyright © 1997 by the Audre Lorde Estate. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Relevant Reading

A Litany for Survival

Audre Lorde

Bibliography

The dEǝЯDeRe-Construction of Me, Part 5 - The Series Continues!

In a lot of ways the "apophatic way" is the only theology that makes sense. It also seems to be at the heart of the "deconstruction movement". This is nothing new, it is "The Way" of theology from the beginning...  

...Indeed, we have the Incarnation as the revelation of God, however the Incarnation itself is beyond understanding. God is ontologically unknowable to the human being, however economically God has "revealed Himself unto us" as we chant in Matins every morning. The issue is confusing economia with ontology which is a distinction unknown to many/most people who are finding out their concepts of God are inadequate, contradictory, oppressive, lacking, or no longer useful to their spiritual progress. 

~ Steve Robinson

What he said.

All of this is true (big words not withstanding). It is impossible to know if God exists or if They do not exist. "God is ontologically unknowable'" They cannot be proven or disproven using the scientific method.

And that is important. 

Frankly, trying to force my belief (or non-belief) to be scientifically provable is delusional on my part. As physicist Sabine Hossenfedler says, "If your belief conflicts with empirically confirmed knowledge, then you are not seeking meaning, you are delusional" (Existential Physics, xvii). And I agree. It makes no sense to try to force 14 billion years into 6,000. What's the point of that? It's stupid. And I am many things but stupid I ain't.

Justifiable critique of atheistic scholasticism aside, there is nothing wrong with being a human who believes in things that are not scientifically provable. Saying "I don't know" is not the unforgivable sin. The things I do not know, as my mom would say, would create a whole new universe.

Once upon a time I embarked on a journey to figure out what I believe. It began when I was in high school, progressed through university, marriage, divorce, motherhood, a new degree, no money, less money, more money...Just...life. Life teaches. Life either hardens or softens and I know I have both hard and soft places in me. I have no idea if God is hardening those places in me or not, a la Pharaoh and everyone else They decided to harden for <reasons>.

I have learned, though, that I won't sacrifice my brain to a system that tells me I can't ask questions, that I ask the wrong questions or that can't stand up to being questioned and sadly, a lot of American Christianity demands this sort of unquestioning, lockstep blindness to reality. And it literally does not matter what flavor of American Christianity it is -- United States ev-Protestantism is the loudest culprit but United States Orthodoxy and United States Catholicism are there with it (yes, I know that's a generalization). I can't with that. (I do not about Judaism or Islam or <insert belief system/religion I do not know about here> and not knowing I cannot say.)

So I guess we have that settled. What I believe/know must be able to be questioned. If questions are not allowed then said system is straight out into the nearest dumpster. 

Someone might ask...Am I trying to bend Christianity into something else? My response can be best characterized by the following:

Kombucha Girl

I have the feeling that I may have to begin to look outside traditional religious expression here in the United States. And that's not a bad thing, IMO.

Relevant Reading
Closer To Truth ep1103: Why Believe in God? - approx 20 min

Existential Physics, Sabine Hossenfelder - 

How Does the Bible teach 6000 years? - Citation =/= belief

Kombucha Girl

The dEǝЯDeRe-Construction of Me, Part 4

The dEǝЯDeRe-Construction of Me, Part 4

 Creation is far too magnificent.

"What doesn't make sense to me is the idea that beauty has to be intentional. Some of the most beautiful things are random and unplanned. But the idea that it could be random or unintentional yet still exists makes it even more beautiful, tbh."

@Rynnstar

All of that. 

The observable universe is a sphere 

NINETY THREE BILLION LIGHT YEARS!!

in diameter.

Think about that. Yes. I can imagine a god who might be able to create that but can I also assign that god qualities that make them a micro-manager of my personal life? So much so that that god would give a flying fart (supernova? hypernova?) about what some random mass of protoplasm that exists less on average than a subjective century might choose to do on any given rotation as the rock it clings to based on gravity revolves around a rather average star? SO much that not only do They maintain this stupendously humongous personally designed mechanism we call the universe they also created a place where I and others must be eternally consciously punished for any minor infraction of rules handed to a single rather minor group of protoplasmic entities (and no others) on the western edge of a continent on that one tiny rock circling that one rather average star?

Maybe? I dunno. I'm having a very hard time of that, though. 

Relevant Reading

Rynnstar's TikTok

Ned Wright's Cosmology FAQ

Minute Physics: How Big is the Universe? (less than 5 minutes)

James Webb Space Telescope

The dEǝЯDeRe-Construction of Me, Part 3

The dEǝЯDeRe-Construction of Me, Part 3

"The Abrahamic religions were originally formed upon a martial, violent god with a perceptively nasty streak and a tendency towards promoting genocide. There have been developments since and finer impulses have emerged but that nasty god is still there, hovering around like a perplexing bad sore...It's absurd to build a religion on a supernatural thug."

~ Stanley Wilkin, University of London

He's not wrong. Have you read the OT from which all of the Abrahamic faiths branch? I am of the opinion that there is something inherently patriarchal, misogynist, and bigoted rooted deeply within the faith begun by Abraham and his descendants. And the fact that it has been co-opted by ⚪ supremacists is nothing less than to be expected because the NT is built on a foundation of woman-blaming, war waged against Those Who Are Not Like Us, and literally the destruction and murder of other lands and people in the name of a thunder god of a relatively minor people group in Western Asia during a time when gods popped up like mushrooms after a rain. 

I said what I said.

When I began this trip 35-40 years ago to understand what I believed I had no idea what I was even looking for. Folks on the inside said that being a believer would lead me to salvation and joy unimagined. 

Not one of them mentioned the gaslighting...

the victim blaming...

          the requirement that I be happy all the damn time (that's mostly ev-Prot; Orthodox want you to be miserable about your sins all the time, which is just plain confusing)...

                    the triumphalism... 

                                 or the holier than thou attitudes that often accompany those who believe that, in spite of the fact that literally millions of people lived and died prior to and after the advent of their particular belief system, they are the ones destined for eternal life because they believe...

...those millions of other folks by the way are being eternally, consciously tortured for being born someplace outside of said thunder god's range...

And that last part is something I cannot wrap my brain around. Because, if you are all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving why do you go around creating folks only to torture them eternally for the crime of being born before you offered a Get Out of Jail Free Card in the form of human sacrifice or for not hearing about said Get out of Jail Free Card before you died? That strikes me as abusive as fuck.

And I know I am not the only one to ask these questions. Nor am I the only one to be told I'm not allowed to ask them because "why are you questioning the Lord!" 

But those questions never actually went away. They just got suppressed. 

Relevant Reading 

Thread on Research Gate dated 6 Feb 2018

The Abrahamic Faiths

The dEǝЯDeRe-Construction of Me, Part 2

The dEǝЯDeRe-Construction of Me, Part 2

 The Chief of Sinners.

And I said this parable, "Two men sat down at their computers to post on social media, one a Remnant Christian and the other a Deconstructing Believer. The Remnant Christian posted thus to his followers and "liked" his own post: "God, I thank you that I have found the Exact Exposition of the True Faith and I am not like other men, heretics, ecumenists, modernists. I obey The Rudder, I follow the True Calendar, I reject the Ecumenical Patriarch, I'm prepping for the End Times, I say a 300 knot Prayer Rope every day. Don't audit me, but I might give tithes of all that I get. I am the chief of sinners, Lord have mercy."

But the Deconstructor, because he was no longer accepted by the Remnant Exact Expositors, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, nor condemn anyone else, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, I'm no longer sure of You, nor myself, nor my faith, nor the Church, nor it's leadership, nor where this is all going, I'm trying to stick close to you even if I don't know where You are, oh, and I gave the spare change in my cup-holder to the guy on the freeway on-ramp... but if I die before I work all this out, be merciful to me a sinner!'

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who piously humbles himself before men will be truly humbled, but he who truly humbles himself before God will be exalted." ~ Steve Robinson

Relevant Reading

Pithless Thoughts II: Postscripts on Life

Steve the Builder

Parable of the Publican & Pharisee

The dEǝЯDeRe-Construction of Me, Part 1

The dEǝЯDeRe-Construction of Me, Part 1

The deconstruction of your faith is HARD. The reconstruction of your faith is HARD.

Both are work and both require thoughtful, considered, as well as emotional contemplation. Otherwise you go off half-cocked and lose yourself in the impulsivity of the moment. Leaving a place, an ideology, a belief you have ardently held because you are hurting or have been hurt or see hurt happening is painful and traumatic. Trauma requires a retreat to a safe place so that healing can take place.

Trauma requires a retreat to a safe place so that healing can take place.

Sometimes that takes a very long time.

It may take forever. It may take a couple days and a martini. Depends on the person.

Regardless, it is A Very Hard Thing.

St John of the Cross didn't call it a Long Dark Night of the Soul for nothing.

It is painful. There are stages of grief one goes through. And however many there are (5/4/12/952) they tend to fall into the same patterns:

• Denial. Dissociation. "I only want life to be as it was"
• Acceptance of the facts, but refusal / denial of the need to (re-)plan. 
• Bewilderment. 
• Anger. 
• Scapegoating. 
• Bargaining. 
• Despair/Depression
• Bewilderment (again)
• Acceptance. 
• Reconstruction -- A missing stage 

One of the biggest issues to improve on, in the 5 stage model, may be around being constructive. The 5th stage is "Acceptance", but a lot of people get stuck in a kind of Acceptance that is little different from Despair – so that accepting the fact has not led to reconstructing a worthwhile life..."Acceptance" sounds completely passive, yet reconstruction must be active. So there seem to be two quite different final stages: (1) passive acceptance, which is perhaps little different to Despair or Bewilderment; and (2) active acceptance which means moving into a new re-planned way of living, which requires the person to be active and creative: "Reconstructed". This isn't just about stages of reaction to grief, but also to other kinds of changed circumstances. ~ Draper, 2021

Acceptance, as the blurb above states, is rather passive. I "accept" that X has been painful and that I need to recover from it. But then what? What do I DO? 

I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start with faith. In general and in specific to me. I think that is a good place to begin.

Faith is such a personal thing. For most folks it is deeply held and when that faith is violated either by humans or by circumstance (or both) it strikes at your heart and soul. You break and you hurt and are angry and ride what I call the emotional spiral up and down. And while you ride it you sometimes break it apart and examine why you ever thought this was the way to eternal life in the first place. 

Please recall that I can only speak to faith as a Christian, an Eastern Orthodox convert from charismatic evangelical Protestantism. I have no idea if someone from another faith goes through this but I believe it is probably a very human thing to do. But for me, as a Christian, the last decade(give or take) has taken a toll. I have seen folks who claim the Name say, do, and cosign some disgusting stuff all in the name of <insert cause directly orthogonal to the teachings they say they believe in>. If you have not been under a rock you know what I am describing. After a while, I just gave up. And honestly the Great Prestigious Pineapple of 2020 was a godsend because seriously I could just STOP with the uncomfortable "faith -proving" things I felt like I had to do and THINK about why I was doing them in the first place.

The questions and thoughts were...disturbing.

Does faith matter? Does it change people for the better? If so, then why are there some really decent atheists? Is it all about getting stuff from the Great Vending Machine in the Sky? Why is it in the sky? Why are people such assholes? Do they even believe this? If they do why are they being so hateful? Why am I being so hateful? What is the point anyway? Is eternal life even a thing? Does it matter? Salvation from what exactly? Is there a God? Is the God I know about the right one? If God exists, why are They such douchebags? Like, Jesus was chill and all but His Dad has major jealousy and anger issues. And so do His followers, really, and that book (pick a version) and institutions they came up after He took off for parts unknown are seriously in need of some executive reworking. And what about science and the things we have learned? Do not get me started on quantum physics, string theory, and the expansion of spacetime. No one took those things into account when my faith tradition was formed. Heck no one KNEW about those things when my faith tradition was formed!!! Church folks even today outright fight against SCIENCE and it's 2022 and they are still burning books about things they don't like and calling it "Christian". What the everlovin' fuck, man????

(By the way...if you plan to say something like "Well church is about God and if you were truly a Christian what other people do wouldn't matter blah blah blah." Just don't okay? That is not helpful. It's patronizing and condescending. Yes, people can be dumpster fires and do some icky things in the Name of Jesus, but they don't have to. They could decide to NOT be a dumpster fire. So don't try to say it's MY fault when I hear blatantly racist crap coming out of people's mouths (or posted on their Fb walls) and believe those people should be taken to task by those in charge. AND that those in charge should not be the ones I have issues with in the first place. Thanks just all to pieces)

But I digress...

When I started actually thinking about what I was thinking about I was broken. Like "Man oh man, some of this stuff is just plain TOXIC as all hell," I started reading and doing some research (always dangerous) and noticed that what I was experiencing (within my faith tradition) was not all that uncommon. I was just floored.

It had a name.

It's deconstruction. And I have always liked taking things apart.

It's taking what I know and believe to be true apart and looking at it again. Closely. And with different, less, rosy eyes. When I started this journey, this Christian journey, I wanted to believe. I wanted to have that faith like a mustard seed that could move mountains...I wanted to be worthy of it. I never did. I am however, stubborn and I stuck to it even when I saw its feet of clay. 

I used to love the story of the man in Mark chapter 9 with the child who had seizures. He brought his child to the Lord's disciples for a cure and they were unable to cure the child. Christ, who had gone to pray, came back and they told Him what happened. He told them, "Bring me to being the child and his father." When they got to him, Christ said to the father, "Do you want him healed?" And the father said, "Yes! Please! If you are able!" And Jesus said to him, “If you are able! —All things can be done for the one who believes.” The father of the child says, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:14-24)

I used to identify with that man. I wanted help with my unbelief. But...why do I have to believe first? Like, why is belief necessary? If this thing is true it should be true whether or not I believe it. The sun burns whether or not I believe it burns. Vaccines work. The Earth is warming. The galaxy has a black hole at it's center. And I don't have to "believe" those things.  My belief should not matter. Besides, if didn't believe I wouldn't be here in the first place. If my belief is what makes me worthy then I've been there, done that and bought a dresser drawer full of t-shirts.

It's time for that faith to prove itself worthy of me. 

Relevant Reading

5/4/12 Stages/Steps of Grief/Addiction/Accepting New Ideas, Steven Draper

Orthogonal

The Dark Night of the Soul, St John of the Cross

Mark 9:14-29

Deconstruction Self Care