Fighting the Insurgence
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Yesterday, I decided that if I had a massive hangover today I would start this post by saying that it felt like coalition forces were fighting insurgents in my head. I’m not that hung over, but I didn’t want to waste the line.
Though I feel liberated from the Evangelical church, there are still pockets of insurgents that strive to undermine this liberation. My intelligence can readily identify two of these insurgent cells.
The first is a feeling of emptiness. Being an Evangelical gave me a way of understanding the world and a sense of purpose. When I decided Neither one of those things fit me anymore (or I didn’t fit them) I left. But I didn’t go on to anything. Is till don’t have a comprehensive way of looking at the world, and I find myself torn and uneasy about moral judgements, often waffling because I have no rule by which to judge right or wrong actions. People I know who have left the Evangelical church have found ultra-liberal Christianity, Zen, Paganism and Marxism. When they show their excitement and their love for these new systems, I think it’s cute and endearing (as haughty as that sounds) but also sad and envious. I find it hard to believe in anything except the most basic of principles. Even as I try to develop more (like the honesty thing) I get tripped up by my own thoughts. The insurgents exploit this weakness by planning sneak attacks that suggest perhaps I would have been better off staying an Evangelical, because then I wouldn’t feel this empty.
The Second is a feeling of loneliness. As an Evangelical, the church was like my second family. The people I considered my real friends were there. Older people took me under their wing, younger people looked up to me for advice. When I left, I left most of that behind. I don’t belong to a group anymore. There’s nothing that draws me closer to a group of strangers and gives us reason to meet week after week. The insurgents exploit this weakness by planting bombs of loneliness that explode and make me long for the days when maybe I had more people around to support me, friends who I would see every week.
Liberation Day is the day I strike back. Liberation Day is the day that I remember why I left in the first place, and why my life is better because of it. Part of that celebration is doing things that I considered sin. I used to feel such enormous guilt, particularly about masturbating, not because I thought God would punish me for it, but because I thought it was wrong and that I shouldn’t do it, but I did it anyway.
There is, of course, more than just a lack of cosmic guilt which makes my life better without the Pentecostal Church. This year, I am making an offensive strike against the insurgents and shore up my weakness.
I may struggle with the emptiness I feel as a result of a lack of clear purpose and world view, but I felt empty when I was in the church. At least, unsatisfied. I felt I had to pretend that the ideas and purpose the church gave me was enough and it wasn’t. Now I can explore other things. I can take bits and pieces from here and there to figure out how my life is meaningful. It’s hard, fucking hard, and it makes me not want to try. And when I get bogged down with the mundane pressures and detail of my life, when I feel that everything I do is meaningless, it’s not because I left the church. It’s like an alarm system going off in my brain that indicates I need something more in my life. When I am able to crush the insurgent attack that often accompanies the alarm, I can go about exploring different way of doing more. Finding meaning in my own life. Without the church, my options are so much more wide open, and often more daunting, but I let the excitement of those possibilities be overshadowed too frequently. I need to remember that there is a world of possibilities I can explore.
I don’t have to fit into a group where I feel I don’t belong anymore. That’s what happened in the church. I felt different, and the more my doubts and questions emerged, the more different I felt. Now I am free to explore other relationships with people outside the church boundaries. I haven’t done this well, but the possibility is there. I don’t have to look at non-church friends as people who might go to hell and a symbol of my failings as an Evangelical. My friends aren’t always reliable, aren’t as close as I would like them to be, but what keeps us from being close and reliable isn’t a belief system. I bel3eive there are many obstacles between people. Leaving the Evangelical removes one of them. I need to work on the other obstacles that are my responsibility and accept the obstacles other people struggle with without taking it personally. Going back to the church wouldn’t change that.
How’s that for a Liberation Day “Swarmer” for ya?
Yesterday, I decided that if I had a massive hangover today I would start this post by saying that it felt like coalition forces were fighting insurgents in my head. I’m not that hung over, but I didn’t want to waste the line.
Though I feel liberated from the Evangelical church, there are still pockets of insurgents that strive to undermine this liberation. My intelligence can readily identify two of these insurgent cells.
The first is a feeling of emptiness. Being an Evangelical gave me a way of understanding the world and a sense of purpose. When I decided Neither one of those things fit me anymore (or I didn’t fit them) I left. But I didn’t go on to anything. Is till don’t have a comprehensive way of looking at the world, and I find myself torn and uneasy about moral judgements, often waffling because I have no rule by which to judge right or wrong actions. People I know who have left the Evangelical church have found ultra-liberal Christianity, Zen, Paganism and Marxism. When they show their excitement and their love for these new systems, I think it’s cute and endearing (as haughty as that sounds) but also sad and envious. I find it hard to believe in anything except the most basic of principles. Even as I try to develop more (like the honesty thing) I get tripped up by my own thoughts. The insurgents exploit this weakness by planning sneak attacks that suggest perhaps I would have been better off staying an Evangelical, because then I wouldn’t feel this empty.
The Second is a feeling of loneliness. As an Evangelical, the church was like my second family. The people I considered my real friends were there. Older people took me under their wing, younger people looked up to me for advice. When I left, I left most of that behind. I don’t belong to a group anymore. There’s nothing that draws me closer to a group of strangers and gives us reason to meet week after week. The insurgents exploit this weakness by planting bombs of loneliness that explode and make me long for the days when maybe I had more people around to support me, friends who I would see every week.
Liberation Day is the day I strike back. Liberation Day is the day that I remember why I left in the first place, and why my life is better because of it. Part of that celebration is doing things that I considered sin. I used to feel such enormous guilt, particularly about masturbating, not because I thought God would punish me for it, but because I thought it was wrong and that I shouldn’t do it, but I did it anyway.
There is, of course, more than just a lack of cosmic guilt which makes my life better without the Pentecostal Church. This year, I am making an offensive strike against the insurgents and shore up my weakness.
I may struggle with the emptiness I feel as a result of a lack of clear purpose and world view, but I felt empty when I was in the church. At least, unsatisfied. I felt I had to pretend that the ideas and purpose the church gave me was enough and it wasn’t. Now I can explore other things. I can take bits and pieces from here and there to figure out how my life is meaningful. It’s hard, fucking hard, and it makes me not want to try. And when I get bogged down with the mundane pressures and detail of my life, when I feel that everything I do is meaningless, it’s not because I left the church. It’s like an alarm system going off in my brain that indicates I need something more in my life. When I am able to crush the insurgent attack that often accompanies the alarm, I can go about exploring different way of doing more. Finding meaning in my own life. Without the church, my options are so much more wide open, and often more daunting, but I let the excitement of those possibilities be overshadowed too frequently. I need to remember that there is a world of possibilities I can explore.
I don’t have to fit into a group where I feel I don’t belong anymore. That’s what happened in the church. I felt different, and the more my doubts and questions emerged, the more different I felt. Now I am free to explore other relationships with people outside the church boundaries. I haven’t done this well, but the possibility is there. I don’t have to look at non-church friends as people who might go to hell and a symbol of my failings as an Evangelical. My friends aren’t always reliable, aren’t as close as I would like them to be, but what keeps us from being close and reliable isn’t a belief system. I bel3eive there are many obstacles between people. Leaving the Evangelical removes one of them. I need to work on the other obstacles that are my responsibility and accept the obstacles other people struggle with without taking it personally. Going back to the church wouldn’t change that.
How’s that for a Liberation Day “Swarmer” for ya?
posted by deadwriter at 12:30 p.m.
4 Comments:
ya know...those of your friends who have 'found' alternative paths may not be quite as secure in them as you think. we who have lived in the insular communities of evangelicalism may find other places, but once we have left what at one time seemed so secure we will, it seems to me, never be able to give our entire soul into anything again. we know that we could very well change our minds. paganism doesn't give me a strong base of ethics or a community near as strong as the mennonite community did. but i also wouldn't trust it if it tried. the only sure thing i know is that in 10 years time i will no longer believe as i do today. my ethics will change. my community will change. i try to think of this as a strength but many days i too feel it as an emptiness.
I'm glad you tracked down the blog tarma. I understand what you mean by the dichotomy of wanting a strong base of ethics and a strong community, but distrusting organizations that offer just that.
Maybe I am too quick to accept the enthusiasm and devotion of people who have found alternative paths. Mayeb they are often compensating for their own doubt and mistrust.
This might help me understand better, but as you say, it takes a real ewffort to view this as a positive thing.
I don't believe in concomity or anything like that, but "wow, you could be me"..
Except I wasn't an evangelical. I was a happy clappy charismatic. And I felt just as empty. And just as different. And I left too.
Tarma's onto something, I think. Clinging to a creed quite often is a sign of insecurity. Not only do you not know truly what you believe, but you don't know yourself well enough to admit that you don't know.
I haven't got a clue what all this is about (I liked your meditations on the cross blog, by the way), I just know I have certain beliefs that organised religion isn't able to embrace. I don't want to be a mere sheep. I want to think and know that thought is welcomed.
Jeez. I found your blog because you like Wise Blood too, and here you are, thinking similar things to me.
Concomity?? Nah..
Hey O,
Glad you found the blog (must confess I had to look up concomity...) Picking through your blogs. Lots of stuff there. Read a tiny bit of your Short Story project and thought you might be interested in Milk, a novella by Darcey Steinke. She's a trendy scatterd, annoying woman from Brooklyn, but she writes well.
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