Sigh. I wish you could hear me sigh. I'm tired of rehashing the same old stuff. Religion is always going to be there, and nothing I say will change that, and people are going to remain in their narrow-minded boxes if they want to. As well, I'm not longer a slave to religion, nor do I think I have anything new to say about it. I found myself saying to a friend that "I just don't believe any of that anymore", but I'm so tired of trying to explain it. The immediate response is "You don't believe in GOD anymore?!"...no, no, that's not what I was saying...
That doesn't change the fact that I need to write and I always love to have the chance to interact with my friends. School has been a season of adapting for me. I'm learning to use my time more wisely, which means my ability to read and interact on each of your blogs is greatly reduced. I am here, I'm not going away, but please don't be offended if I don't get to your places very often. I'm going to try to stop making that apology, but the thing is, I MISS it. I miss knowing what's going on with you and reading your experiences and insights. But I have to do what I'm doing right now.
I have a question. Do you think love is black and white or shades of gray? In other words, do you think you either love someone or you don't, or is it more like your feelings for a person fall somewhere on the spectrum? Do you think it is something that you have to think about, to consider if where you fall on that spectrum is more towards love or more, well, not? Likewise, IS love a choice? Can you choose to love someone, or does it jut have to be there.
I'm not only interested in answers stemming from the perspective of, say, a new love relationship. I'm wondering also about long-term marriages, friendships, within the Church or the church, and even our feelings for other people in general.
Often, we are made to feel as though if we don't belong to the church, we don't love it or it's people. It's not that I don't love them, I just don't love them enough to subject myself to abusive environments; which unfortunately many of them are. Yet, somehow, in some people's minds, that "not enough" love translates to hate. How is that?
I'm so beyond arguing about this. My level of apathy scares me. I don't really care anymore what anyone else thinks about my faith, it is what it is, and either God is OK with it or he's not, but if not, I'm not capable of more than I'm giving right now. Otherwise, people just need to lay off. It makes no difference to me whether or not you believe I'm going to heaven. You don't get to decide.
Anyhow, that's not where this post was going, initially. My relationship with God is many shades of gray, just like love. I believe, but my beliefs all fall somewhere on the continuum between conservative and liberal, between belief and disbelief, between love and not love.
Do you think spectrums are acceptable when it comes to spiritual matters? To love? Or does everything just have to be one thing or the other?
If you are not a fan of Harry Potter, this quote may not mean much to you, but,
ReplyDelete"The world is not split into good people and death eaters." -Sirius Black.
That quote almost always makes me cry, as I also think of the final climatic scenes between Dumbledore and Harry as their relationship gets more complex and we see that Dumbledore is not as black and white as he was in the first six books.
I have often felt on the outside of the church as well, and I sometimes have not had the answers.
Thanks for sharing this. I am in a different but similar situation (I know that's vague, but it's the only way that I think of describing it).
I think "the church" should get the hell over itself. Seriously. the way some Christians are so TOTALLY touchy about everything, it is astounding when you consider that a belief in God is conducive to a correct and relaxed approach to life and living and loving, and yet so many people STILL mistake the system for .. for GOD???? That is really creepy and really all very antichristy, isn't it.
ReplyDeleteTo think that people cannot discriminate between what you say you do not like about the system, and between God boggles my head and it gives me pause to yet again offer you my condolences that you are stuck with people like that around. Because they are the baby ones who are blinded by their stupid system instead of the IS, baby.
Whereas you are gutsy enough to see the IS :)
I think love is spectrum :)
Oh, I have no time for black and white divides in any context. Interestingly your question made me think of my workplace (a dementia specific facility for the elderly), where our relationships with our 'residents' are anything but black and white. It is easy to care for them when they are in a positive frame of mind, but often they are difficult and uncooperative, but we are employed to care for them through both states. So we have moments of joy and moments of exasperation, but love is most definitely present, and, I feel, richer for all its fraught dimensions.
ReplyDeleteI have been relatively lucky with friends still inside the church system. If I'm honest, I was very ruthless in cutting myself off from those who made no attempt to understand me situation ("well, why don't you just come to church while you're looking for another one," etc). Thankfully, these weren't people who were particularly close to me, I guess true friendship does transcend any awkward angles that arise within it.
/Rant. Sorry for rambling! I have missed reading your blog so much Erin.
Love, like most aspects of life, is not binary. There are many "in between" shades. Sometimes it's best to keep your distance from someone in order to love them. Yes, I think there's a spectrum.
ReplyDeleteI beleive that applies to spiritual matters as much as anything - but then, I would, as I'm in a similar situation.
In the sense of whether your love someone or not, I do think it's a binary thing. However, I also think that there are many kinds of love and countless ways to express love.
ReplyDeleteI love my mother. I love a certain gentleman friend. But I love them in two different senses, and I express my love for each of them in different ways.
In the case of abusive situations and people, I think there's love in saying, "I love you and I hope you find what you're looking for and what you need. But I cannot give you what you're looking for or what you need, and remaining in this situation is destroying me. I will not allow that."
Of course there are shades. Just like there are different types of love (agape, eros and all that).
ReplyDeleteOh, and by the way, I understand about the writing and being tired of discussing the same ol' over and over again. You'll note the religious posts on my blog have tumbled to zero, and I've stopped reading blogs where the only thing the person posts about is religion. Per your FB post today, reading (and writing) about it is not doing it.
ReplyDeleteHi Danny, it's great to meet you! Yes I'm a HP fan, and I love that quote.
ReplyDeleteI have come to terms with being outside the church; I am suspicious that it is a permanent condition for myself. It's not easy, but it's where my comfort lies.
Ha Sue, I love you for how you can re-articulate what I say. Yes sometimes the church is very anti-christy in how it manages to make people so much less like the image of Christ and yet they think they are so much LIKE him. Many churches are the antithesis of the unconditional love Jesus brought, and in some ways that's hilariously contrary to me.
ReplyDeleteGod does not live in a box, in a book, in a theology. God lives in a PEOPLE.
Hey Fiona, so glad to see you around again, I read your blog today.
ReplyDeleteI love what you say about true friendship transcending awkwardness, and I have found the same to be true. My decision to leave was multi-faceted, as is my decision to remain out. Some people simply cannot see the shades of gray in that.
However there is a level of authenticity that even people who have been through all of this with me can't quite bear. I have been much more authentic here on my blog than in real life....and though people in my life are welcome to read here, most of them don't. That's OK, but then when these kinds of conversations come up, they are surprised when I am honest.
Thanks, Barry. I agree. Sometimes I simply struggle with the people who want everything to be clear and simple. Sometimes I think that is simply born out of fear...either something is or it isn't and as soon as they know, they can respond accordingly. When something falls on a spectrum, then it becomes much more complex to deal with.
ReplyDeleteYeah, this is why you and me struggle, I guess, with the conception of finding community. I am feeling more and more drawn. It feels time for me to find something bigger than me containing people other than me and my internal friends, haha ;) It's so scary!! (finding community, not having internal friends. They're all pretty much integrated, I think ... ;)
ReplyDeleteYes, Jarred, there are many kinds of love. I think it is different for different people.
ReplyDeleteI think there can be times when someone loves someone/thing less and times when you love it more. So there are "degrees" of love.
However, for some people, I think love is simple a yes or no answer.
True, Jim, I hadn't thought about it in those terms.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about religion. In fact, I sometimes wonder about myself that I have moved away from talking about it, but am unwilling to move into DOING something. I love that quote from Ken Loyd. I just don't know how to be that person. Maybe I'm too selfish, I don't know. Or maybe I simply don't see my spirituality as belonging to religion anymore. Maybe that's the out I need. :)
You know, it's funny, Sue. I go through seasons of feeling drawn, but then I just let them be and eventually they go away and I don't have to deal with them. But I'm not sure one should look for religious community...I wonder if one simply looks for "community" in any form and it will fill that need without having to be religious-y. And then obviously, in many communities there will be people who are spiritually similar and those who are not, and what an interesting situation!
ReplyDeleteYes, I think you touch on something interesting, Erin. And I'm not interested in finding ANYTHING religious. I hate that word "religious" so much, haha!
ReplyDeleteI have been thinking for a long time about going and hanging out with these guys: http://urbanseed.org/Street_Work_Hospitality/Credo_Cafe.aspx. They are like an attachment to a Baptist church in the city which do great things. I think that's what I'm looking for - not the church itself, but the sideline things where I can find people to hang out with.
But I agree. Anything that has any sort of agenda attached to it (even if it's "love your neighbour" or whatever) always has a certain sort of a weight to it that non-religious things don't have.
Agggh
Well, the greek laguage actually has either 9 or 11 different words to describe love. Phileo, Agape, and Eros are the most well known. But there are others, Plato sploke of gay love and used the word that meant a natural love. Also conotating that there would be one for unnatural love, like for a goat.
ReplyDeleteBut there have been many times Sherri and I have not liked each other very much throughout our marrage, even though we still fiercely loved one another. I think that is more of where you might be coming from. For even the person that I disliked most in the world, if they truly needed help, I would give it to them.
Well, I guess I can get over my offense at you for not leaving comments on my blog...if you won't be offended for not my not always leaving comments on yours. :)
ReplyDeleteLike with most things I once had cut-and-dried answers for, love has become something I'm not so quick to describe. I think there has to be a choice thing involved with love, and that our feelings can't always govern that choice. I have, at times, had to *choose* to love when everything in me wanted to selfishly close off. Making that choice has rescued relationships.
Even so, I see how the Bible doesn't make love an "on-off" switch equivalent just to choosing. I was thinking specifically of how the Hebrew mindset would use "love" and "hate" as comparative words rather than opposite ends of a spectrum. When Jesus said whoever didn't hate his father or mother or brethren couldn't be His disciple, it couldn't have meant how we take it to mean. Jesus was making a comparison--love for Him compared to love for family makes one seem remarkably less than the other. All this rambling to say, that kind of thinking requires love to be in different degrees and of different types. Otherwise how could such comparisons be made?
So I don't know how they fit together, but I think they're both true--love involves choice, but love isn't "on" and "off." Maybe it has something to do with the fact that God is love, and God is always "on," and somehow we sort of plug into that love in different ways.
I think that looks mighty interesting, Sue. I hope you could get involved there without having to jump through the hoops. I've been thinking about doing some secular (gasp) volunteering, but haven't decided where or what yet.
ReplyDeleteYou make an excellent point, Nate, about confusing "love" with "like". Maybe that is where I'm coming from. Can I love the church and not like it at all?
ReplyDeleteJeff - I read your blog every time you post...but so often I either a) don't possess anything meaningful to add or b) don't have time to write up the things I do have that are meaningful to add. I still love your writing and the topics you come up with.
ReplyDeleteI like what you said about Jesus' love in comparison to human love. So then there *must* be a spectrum. I hadn't thought about that.
I'm very thankful for those friendships which transcend awkwardness otherwise I would be a very lonely girl!
ReplyDeleteI think it's brave of you to offer your real life friends the opportunity to read what you write here. I've been thinking about letting one friend in particular read my blog, but I still balk at the final hurdle - I feel as though I would end up censoring myself and being less honest about what I'm experiencing. Maybe this is one area of life that still needs to be compartmentalised for me.
There's nothing wrong with compartmentalization, Fiona. Sometimes it's necessary...I have just found that I came to a point where I wanted to integrate all the parts, and one aspect of that was to allow real life people to know the me that is here online.
ReplyDeleteBut my blog was written under a pseudonym for the first 18 months (if you go back through my archives you'll find my earliest posts written by 'Lily'.) because I needed that buffer of separation. As well, it's true there are some people I don't advertise this blog to, not because I want to be separate, but because I need to avoid the resulting arguments.
WWHHOOOAAA THERE MISSY!!!! Who said anything about loving an institution? I was talking about the people within the building, not church itself. They are still two different things in my eyes.
ReplyDeleteI know, Nate. Perfectly clear. That's what I meant, too. :)
ReplyDeleteErin, I hardly write on my own blog because of people that read it...I always worry that I'm offending someone. There have been times that I feel like I NEED to write, but I just can't for fear of the arguments, judgements, etc. that I know will come from those who somehow found me there even though I didn't advertise it.
ReplyDeleteAs far as you post goes, I definitely think there are differing degrees of love and different types of love. This is one way I look at it: There are some days that I am completely out of my mind crazy in love with my husband, my heart is just gushing. There are other days that this love is not the kind of love I feel for him at all, but I know I still love him. The steady, underlying love...don't know if that makes sense.
How sad it is that we so often feel like we can't be ourselves around other IRL people or they will harass us and condemn us. How crappy Christianity has become that we would think we can do that to each other and it's okay.
ReplyDelete(Still, if you read the bible with that mindset, you will see countless reasons why you should displace the evil from amongst you. Let there be no hint of sin amongst you and all that stuff.)
I'm having a "is the Bible more hassle than it's worth?" day and a "I don't want to find any sort of Christian community *anyway*" sort of a day and "Why is it all so incredibly and unbelievably bloody hard to be real with people who are Christians and really I think I want to become a Buddhist because at least they are real and not living in some stupid fantasy land except oh, Jesus, I love *you* though" sort of a day.
Sigh.
Sue...I definitely feel like sometimes the Bible is more trouble than it's worth! Oh, lightening strike me now. I think I've opened mine 3 times this year. Not that I don't think it's God's word, but I think for me it's been so misinterpreted and skewed that I am not sure that it's where God has me right now. So be it.
ReplyDeleteFor me, it's more people that I actually know in person and have to see on a daily basis that makes me afraid to be vulnerable there...AHH! I know that just makes it even worse...but I guess I sort of feel like I've got 2 preschoolers right now and it's all I can do on some days to get THROUGH the day, so the less I have to battle, the better. Hopefully that will change at some point and I'll have the energy to really be able to stand up again!
That makes tons of sense, Kari.
ReplyDeleteI think I said before, I wrote for 18 months under a pseudonym. What I was dealing with was really scary for me, and I needed to be anonymous. I understand that need not to have anyone you actually "know" read your blog.
It's a matter of deciding who you answer to...what is your level of personal accountability to that person? Obviously my husband reads my blog, and he knows it all. I am accountable to him in that he will correct me sometimes and he has the right to.
However, someone who is an acquaintance, or even extended family...well, what will it hurt if they know the truth? What do you stand to loose?
Maybe I'm not putting it in the right words, because in the end we are each only accountable to Jesus. But there is truth that some people in our lives won't like what we have to say, and will be difficult because of it. It's a matter of weighting their right to your life.
Does that make sense?
Haha I just love ya, Sue. You put the words right out there.
ReplyDeleteDo you think you are trying to talk yourself out of community because you are scared of it, or scared that you'll never find it? Or is that just a peace that what will be, will be?
I won't blame you for talking yourself out of it, because I have been doing that almost 5 years and I'm perfectly happy with it. :)
But I'm just wondering because I think you are on the verge of something...it's tickling your toes...
Kari - I can't even tell you the last time I cracked a bible. At least a year, maybe 2? And then it was only to get a reference...to actually READ it? Probably 4 years.
ReplyDeleteTruth for me is that what is in there doesn't change...only the meaning changes. If I know what's in there, why do I need to bash myself over the head with it. It's bloody boring, it's abused me for 30 years, and I'm tied of trying to find God in some ink and onionskin. He has vacated the premises...strike me down or whatever because that's the way I feel.
Sometimes I refer to it online to see how God related in a particular circumstance, or again to find a reference or check a Strong's -- only because I need clarification on something I already know but maybe don't understand (like when I found out the Holy Spirit is a girl). But that's all.
Anyhow, you are right about having young kids...your kids are your bible right now...if you can see God in them (which I know you do) then you don't need a bible. They are where your effort belongs.
A day will come again...I promise...when you will have time do other things, but for now enjoy where you're at and try not to let people guilt you.
I look at your words here, at some of the comments here, but I can't help but continue to be lost. I used to think it was about the churches. I fought like hell, I studied, I prepared myself and I worked to make certain I had the right church.
ReplyDeleteThe last sent me spinning. Away from the church, away from the Church. The studies that were supposed to prepare me to be a soldier of God led me away from his army.
The picture got bigger, I studied all of the sides. I tried to determine which side was right. Which army to fight for. Whether any armies were involved at all.
I began to realize that it wasn't about a final fight, but a daily fight in this world to care for those around us. To protect them. To make the world work for those around us.
So my sacrifice has dropped from the lofty spiritual battle to the daily battles of anyone near me that needed my sword.
Off topic yet? Not so much. In this fight for every friend and every stranger and passerby, I look in the mirror and realize I don't even know who that guy is. That guy has not been part of this 20 year spiritual journey.
So if you need to back away and deal with what is important, I say more power to you. I think more of us need to take at least the occasional step away from the lofty thoughts and the serving of the world and make sure we still know the guy (or girl) who's steering the ship.
I think you make a lot of sense, Steven.
ReplyDeleteI'm not such a good navigator, but it's ok, because the scenery is always interesting. I truly believe that whatever or Whomever a person follows, the primary objective is to be a part of other people's lives, in a good way. However, sometimes we only have room for the lives in our immediate family, close friends....other times we will be able to reach out beyond.
"Often, we are made to feel as though if we don't belong to the church, we don't love it or it's people."
ReplyDeleteI was taken back a bit by this statement...
I've never thought about it that way or maybe I just never picked up on it before?
I think love is ultimately a choice with different spectrums...
Being married for 24 years has shown me just how much love changes and grows and ebbs and flows...
hey that rhymes! :)
Rhonda - you mean you have never felt that way about people outside the church...or that you have never experienced that perception?
ReplyDeleteYou are a wonderful person. It takes a real adult to step back from church and say. "hey I think there is something up here!"
ReplyDeleteYou are a great person and Jesus loves you.
Keep on writing for without doing it you may become a bit sick. Keep on letting out all the evil out all the bad teaching. Let all the toxin out and discuss it and dismiss it.