I think I’ve cornered myself as an author. There’s something especially daunting about investing in a specific writing style for a specific audience, honing that style to the point where I was regularly converting it to speeches and sermons, catering to that one audience, and then closing the door on the foundation of that schtick.
Have you ever had a conversation with someone who didn’t think they’d live past the age of 20, and now they’re panicking because every day they live is a new, unexpected, and unknown void? I never thought I’d die an early death (I mean I think we all fantasize about who’d be at our funerals though, right? Maybe “Faking My Own Suicide” by Relient K was only part of the niche I left, but it really got me thinking about who I’d absolutely shock with my untimely death. Actually, that song and its entire premise has aged horribly. I wonder how that got past the walls of the recording booth). I always thought I’d be married by 25 at the latest, with a child or two by the time I turn 30, and I’d figure it out from there. I think that’s the death I planned on dying.
A little over a year ago I penned (typed, actually) a farewell to my former foundation. I wrote about it recently in an unreleased, unfinished journal entry:
8 months ago I outlined the crumbling of my faith, on display for all to see. There is no tangible way that I've found to accurately describe slipping from, grasping at, and eventually losing a worldview without metaphor. "Bomb going off next to your Lego set" is one, "flood washing out the foundation of your house" is another, but I think my favorite is just..."Jenga:" your worldview is your tower, you choose your path to build, and you’re building it with other people supporting you. You tried to build it too high, so it’s toppled. But now, you’re alone. Jenga is a metaphor that's been used multiple times in my conversations about this topic over the past few weeks, so I'm taking it as a sign to shift my description from my previous favorite of the bomb and the Lego set.
The only thing missing about this toppling Jenga metaphor is that the game normally has to be played with people. There does seem to be something that keeps people together in the church, sometimes with no questions asked. I've never played a round of Jenga by myself, I just feel like that'd be sad. Every block of the tower I build now, every time my tower comes crashing back down, I feel like I'm looking around in an empty room for someone's laughter, someone's "aww," or someone's elation that they don't have to deal with the loud clatter as a result of their clumsiness. I'm playing this game by myself and the concept of community seems to be a thing of the past.
The thanks I've received for stringing my words together last year have helped me not feel so alone. Dozens and dozens of people have reached out to me, thousands have read the blog. It does help to know that there are at least a small portion of people I interact with on a regular basis whose towers have crumbled, but isn't it a strange thing to all go play our individual Jenga games and then come back to write a report on them, and maybe, if we establish enough rapport between us, to talk about our individual games in person?
I read a blog today from one of my all-time favorite medium-sized deconstructionist influencers (think Rachel Held Evans, just with 13,000 TikTok followers), reminding me of what sparked my exit from religion as I know it: the beauty of scripture in the way it was intended to be digested: not as a lab report. It makes me remember some things that satisfied chasms in my heart that haven't been satisfied outside of religion. I think of the comfort of knowing that grace exists as a baseline of my existence in a community: the acknowledgement that I'm not perfect and don't have to be. I think of people who care deeply about the invisible things that impact the health of my heart. I think about the feeling of being recharged - just making it to Sunday to remind me of the things that "really matter."
I think about what I've found to replace the things I used to cope with life in the midst of religion. I've found self-worth in recognizing that while I'm not a perfect person I'm a good person. I've found at least a small amount of community in people that actually accept me where I am and for who I was, who I am, who I might eventually be, and everything in between. I recall a conversation I had with a retired clinical psychologist who was born and raised in New York City and only left to retire in Florida. She was raised without religion and never found it. I usually posture myself in an apologetic manner to describe what I believed in my past, who I campaigned and voted for, and what I've said to people in the name of what I thought was right. This conversation involved me expressing discomfort and slight embarrassment at my aforementioned life, a sentiment which this psychologist shut down immediately. "Why are you embarrassed about the life that got you where you are today?" she asked. "Are you trying to say you'd change the very things that built you and gave you perspective?"
And now, here we are. I’m not fully apologetic, but I’m not fully proud either. Depending on the Bible and its translators to tell me how to live day-to-day is something I’ve taken for granted in a significant way. If life is water, I grew up in a swimming pool and was training to be a lifeguard. Now that I’ve decided to try the ocean on for size, I feel overwhelmed. And not like a lifeguard. In a similar way, what am I supposed to write about now? Life is so much bigger than deconstructing an inherited faith (though I do have a 3-part blog started on that, whoops). But then again life is bigger than most of the things we spend time on, so why not just talk about it?
I’d like to at least try. I miss writing, whatever it looks like. I’ll fight to get myself out of this corner, jump into the ocean, and start writing reports on my jenga tower. Unrelated, but also hopefully I’ll stop using so many metaphors.
No comments:
Post a Comment