religion summer 2008

This is kind of a mess. I still can't find the right words to describe how I feel.Growing up I often felt like such an outsider. I was deeply religious and from a religious family. We listened to gospel music and NPR only when Garrison Keilor's show was on for family entertainment, and we couldn't watch anything that wasn't G-rated... even in high school. I always felt like I only knew a small portion of what was going on in the world, and I was right. I've always had enough conscience for myself and three other people. I'm a pleaser. I wanted to please my parents, my family, my teachers, my elders, my pastors, but mostly my god. And I was the golden child. I was obedient and hard working and quiet. I was as terrified of hell as the next person, but mostly I was afraid for those I knew who weren't "saved" going to hell... much more so than myself. I felt the guilt when someone else was sinning, and I wanted to take it from them and wondered why I couldn't be the one to show them the light. I felt there was no greater purpose for me than to become an obedient wife and raise children that would serve faithfully in "god's army." It was actually in my deeper study and intense reading and praying that it all came to fall away... instead of making me a better wife, a better mother, a better sister, a better daughter, a better Christian... I am now a divorced single mom, feeling very alone and sometimes as if I have a scarlet letter than only my family and former church friends can see, and when their eyes are on me it burns. But still, I feel like a Better Person. Less judgmental, less worried, less consumed with things outside of my control. I still can't escape hell, but the hell I know is within. I'm still on the outside of the world, looking in, feeling like there's so much I still don't know. I know I've talked about this before, but it still weighs heavily on me. I still feel the sting of disappointment when my father asks me if I've quit feeling sorry for myself and gone back to the church. And the most hurtful words are the questions about my ability to be a good mother because I'm not raising my children "in the church." It's hard for me to explain to my friends why it's still hard for me to break the "rules." There are two very different and distinct parts of me, the angel and devil on my shoulders, I guess, and they're still always fighting.I think if you haven't been raised in the world of fervent Christianity and then left it, you can't know what it's like... the freedom from the old chains but the inability to stop looking back and stop asking for forgiveness. I'm still looking for my family too... the people who don't see me as either a stain or a joke, and maybe even a few who understand.

Having dismissed the former fairy tale
Now standing on my own
I find myself searching still
For a system of belief
Somewhere to direct my spirit
In connection with others
With souls of compassion, understanding,
Acceptance, and good will.
What I got from religion before
Was not the answers
To life's tough questions
Nor hope for eternal life,
I received connection, direction
For love and giving
Until the rules and condemnation
And exclusion of
So many good souls
Pushed me away.
It became harder and harder
To find a like-minded"christian" because I found
that I am not one at all.
But I do still have a need
To connect somewhere
Beyond myself
With mankind and life
And death and
Something universal because
I believe there are
Unseen forces in this world,
Moving, flowing among us,
Between us and this earth
And beyond,
Something much greater
Than myself.
And the Bible holds
No answers for me,
The church has grown cold,
Yet my spirit is still reaching
For me to find something
To give it direction
Beyond my own life
Again.