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Sitting across from my mother in a Perkins Family Restaurant, I tried, in my very early stages of spiritual exploration, to explain how empty Christianity felt to me. How lacking in spirituality it seemed. I felt compelled to embrace nature, including the supernatural, and everything between, and the restrictions of religious doctrine, specifically Christianity, felt like a noose around my very curious mind. With the expectations of religion's faith, I felt strangled from the freedom I'd found with the loss of faith. I needed to explore my world - beyond the boarders of America. Beyond a population that's 80% Christian. Beyond the edges of my continent, planet, and even beyond our Milky Way. I was so eager to discover beyond all the realms of thought that I had been trapped within. I wanted more. I wanted there to be collective consciousness. I wanted there to be spirituality that involved the most magical of ideas. I wanted Harry Potter and fantastic creatures to have existed, just on another planet, in another galaxy, just waiting for me to explore far enough to find it all.
"I think I'm more Agnostic than anything right now."
What I was thinking at the time was, as I now know, 'deist'. I was really just trying to express the separation I had recently experienced, but my dad didn't have a clue what "Agnostic" meant. He said "what's that!?" My mother tried to explain that it means there may not be a God. He just shook his head and said "whatever." Well whatever it was, it wasn't what I thought it was. When I said the word 'agnostic' I had attributed it to some kind of religious theory. Well okay, sure. What I was trying to say was that I didn't know what I believed anymore. But it seems when it comes to religious discussion, people understand labels. So I tried to give myself a label that showed the separation. This conversation on my beliefs was just as much a failure as any other discussions of this nature I've tried to have with my parents.
Riding in the backseat of my parents Suburban, some how we got on the topic of non-believers. My father was going on and on about how he just can't imagine not believing. I was trying to explain that it's quite simple, if you just let your mind settle into the idea. He commanded, "But you believe it." I started to protest, frustrated that we'd been here and had this discussion, but he had obviously put it out of sight, out of mind. He then interrupted me to get the answers he was sure he'd get, "You believe in Jesus..." Half statement, half question. "You believe that the Lord is your savior."
"I believe Jesus existed and was crucified."
My dad further tried to clarify that his daughter surely wasn't getting to a point that he wasn't prepared to imagine (again, as we had had the talk before). My mother said to my father to just "drop it."
Yes, drop it. Drop it right into the oblivion of denial. I understand why it's so hard for my parents to see their daughter as a non-believer. I understand the urge to save me. I was once there. I was once a believer. I gave testimony and spoke with complete strangers about Jesus. I know what their fears are, their certain demise for me, I know of it all. I understand, and though sometimes I wish they'd just let me be, sometimes I wish they'd just tell themselves, 'it's her choice,' I know that just won't happen. When they imagine me as a non-believer quite literally flames rise up around their only daughter. They can hear my cries in the distance and the vision of me engulfed in God's wrath causes them to shudder from deep inside.
As I journey further and further away from my prior belief system, the one my parents still hold on to, I find it harder and harder to not judge a Christian or other wise religious person as simple minded and blind. I don't like the idea of judging religious people, as I don't like the idea of them judging me for not being religious. This, I believe, will be a struggle for me for the rest of my life.
"Everyone is born with the desire to know Christ," My father said, "Everyone."
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1 comments:
This post reminds me of similar conversations that I have had with my mother. I used to be heavily into Christianity. It was the comfort I needed to get me through a very dark time in my life, but now that I am older and able to handle life's harsh truths without the safety blanket of a false god I have begun to "come out of the Atheist closet". Much like you it came up in some random snippet of conversation. I decided not to use the word Atheist because it may sound too harsh. Instead I simply stated that I didn't view myself as Christian anymore to which my mother responded "Of course you're Christian, you have always been Christian." To which I stated "Yes, I was but I gave up on it years ago." She retorted with a skeptical face and simple statement "You're Christian, you will always be Christian." I decided not to pick a battle with her. Although I do find it irritating that it is so difficult to be open about your beliefs as an Atheist without being written off. My fiance is adamantly open about his lack of faith and is bothered by my lack of tenacity. I know he is right, but when you grew up in a Christian family, with Christian friends, in a Christian area it makes it difficult to declare a disbelief in God.
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