I remember the moment, two moments, actually, that I stopped believing in God. It wasn't a sudden, conscious choice, but defining moments that changed the course of my faith much later.
My twelfth summer. A year or two after I had experienced what I considered my "new birth" and at the crux of my awakening as a conscious adult. This was probably the first season that I began thinking and reasoning critically as an adult. Values, choices, life experiences were coming to light in painfully vivid, new focus. My life as a blooming adult was full of "aha" moments as I started to think for myself for the very first time in my life.
Part of my adult awakening was a spiritual journey into Anabaptism. As a teenager I was looking for acceptance, and a movement, a group, an idealism, to get behind, to throw my teenage energy and angst into.
I will probably never forget the first Sunday I stepped into an Anabaptist church. Never in my life have I experienced such raw anxiety, anticipation, and thrill. But enough of the niceties.
It was communion Sunday for this congregation. The details have been blurred by choice and pain. I do remember the communal cup, and the old-world style loaf that was passed around on each side as worshipers shared what I only can assume was grape juice, and pulled pieces from the loaf. As the cup and loaf were passed through the congregation, an elder walked over to the row our family was sitting in, and deliberately passed the communion dishes around us. I awkwardly made eye contact with a few worshipers around us. We sat quietly with the realization that we had clearly been passed over for communion. I have never been so singly embarrassed and hurt in a church service. I could feel my face burning as my heart cried silently and I longed to run out the door and never come back. If only no one had seen us that day! If only we had chosen a different Sunday! But to be snubbed at the precious sacrament of communion.
My belief in god started to die that day. If there were christians who could discriminate against other christians they didn't even know and refuse to commune with them, then how could one trust other christians? How could anyone know who he or she could commune with? And who were human beings to judge the state of another's soul, a soul that cannot be seen by an mortal, only by god? If communion was god's way of acknowledging our clean souls, and man's way of communing with god himself.... then why could humans make the decision who can take communion?
There was a second day my belief in god died. They day I was told not to come back to my church's Native American outreach for children. I had stopped attending services with the church, but continued to faithfully volunteer for the children's services. Even though I had basically lost faith in the institution of the church, I still loved the kids, believed I was making a difference loving & feeding them, and didn't think it would be a good "testimony" to the children, since we were supposed to be representing the same god. In the end, it seemed my motives were more christian than theirs.
My faith in just about anything spiritual was eroding faster than the desert sand in a sudden rain, but I still believed in the children. They were my reason for keeping on most days. But that day I found out there were more important reasons in christianity than representing god, loving the children, and feeding the less fortunate. A mere man could prevent others from hearing the gospel, and could dictate the standing of others in the church, and by extension, god. If a man could do all these things in the guise of religion, and get away with it, then I could make my own relationship with god & religion on my own terms. If a man could make or break my own relationship with the church and god, then I needed a god, a religion, a belief made on my own terms with that god, and no one else.
I'm still working on whatever those terms are with that Being. Or whether that Being exists. Or actually watches us. But I know one thing, I haven't regretting shaking off the chains that bound me to a man-made god with man-made rules for pleasing that god.
My twelfth summer. A year or two after I had experienced what I considered my "new birth" and at the crux of my awakening as a conscious adult. This was probably the first season that I began thinking and reasoning critically as an adult. Values, choices, life experiences were coming to light in painfully vivid, new focus. My life as a blooming adult was full of "aha" moments as I started to think for myself for the very first time in my life.
Part of my adult awakening was a spiritual journey into Anabaptism. As a teenager I was looking for acceptance, and a movement, a group, an idealism, to get behind, to throw my teenage energy and angst into.
I will probably never forget the first Sunday I stepped into an Anabaptist church. Never in my life have I experienced such raw anxiety, anticipation, and thrill. But enough of the niceties.
It was communion Sunday for this congregation. The details have been blurred by choice and pain. I do remember the communal cup, and the old-world style loaf that was passed around on each side as worshipers shared what I only can assume was grape juice, and pulled pieces from the loaf. As the cup and loaf were passed through the congregation, an elder walked over to the row our family was sitting in, and deliberately passed the communion dishes around us. I awkwardly made eye contact with a few worshipers around us. We sat quietly with the realization that we had clearly been passed over for communion. I have never been so singly embarrassed and hurt in a church service. I could feel my face burning as my heart cried silently and I longed to run out the door and never come back. If only no one had seen us that day! If only we had chosen a different Sunday! But to be snubbed at the precious sacrament of communion.
My belief in god started to die that day. If there were christians who could discriminate against other christians they didn't even know and refuse to commune with them, then how could one trust other christians? How could anyone know who he or she could commune with? And who were human beings to judge the state of another's soul, a soul that cannot be seen by an mortal, only by god? If communion was god's way of acknowledging our clean souls, and man's way of communing with god himself.... then why could humans make the decision who can take communion?
There was a second day my belief in god died. They day I was told not to come back to my church's Native American outreach for children. I had stopped attending services with the church, but continued to faithfully volunteer for the children's services. Even though I had basically lost faith in the institution of the church, I still loved the kids, believed I was making a difference loving & feeding them, and didn't think it would be a good "testimony" to the children, since we were supposed to be representing the same god. In the end, it seemed my motives were more christian than theirs.
My faith in just about anything spiritual was eroding faster than the desert sand in a sudden rain, but I still believed in the children. They were my reason for keeping on most days. But that day I found out there were more important reasons in christianity than representing god, loving the children, and feeding the less fortunate. A mere man could prevent others from hearing the gospel, and could dictate the standing of others in the church, and by extension, god. If a man could do all these things in the guise of religion, and get away with it, then I could make my own relationship with god & religion on my own terms. If a man could make or break my own relationship with the church and god, then I needed a god, a religion, a belief made on my own terms with that god, and no one else.
I'm still working on whatever those terms are with that Being. Or whether that Being exists. Or actually watches us. But I know one thing, I haven't regretting shaking off the chains that bound me to a man-made god with man-made rules for pleasing that god.
Good for you! It's crazy to me how people can seem to get along outside of religious pretenses, but when doctrines and such are brought up in conversation, or even the subject of God itself, it suddenly becomes an excuse to stop getting along, and to stop being unconditionally accepting of a person, simply because they believe differently or one doesn't believe in something the other chooses to believe in.
ReplyDeleteI'm currently a section leader in a choir in a Catholic Church, and they have the sacrament of communion every Mass. It's a new thing to me, with all the liturgies and rites. I'm there for my love of singing, and nothing else, except of course for loving people too. So far I'm enjoying the experience, and don't mind the nonsensical stuff. I don't feel that I need to share my views on the religious nonsense when I'm really just there to do my job, get along and get paid. So far no one has taken me to task on things like not dipping my finger in the holy water, or not doing the crucifix; heck I even have been eating the communion wafers and no one finds any reason to call me out.
I'm glad you're being the best you can be for yourself and others! May the universe be forever a place of wonder, and may you never stop discovering the awesomeness of life, when lived without mind for a bunch of arbitrary rules and crazy people who like to create them for everyone except themselves.