An early realization that my mind was in flux came
the night I snapped my crucifix while washing my face and watched it clang down
the drain, into the abyss. Thoughts of how to trace the water pipe through the
six-story dormitory and where to fish out my sterling silver cross occupied my
entire, sleepless night. On recovering from the numbness though, I felt immense
relief. A wellspring of liberty came over me as the object on which I had centered
my mind during prayer no longer hung around my neck.
Denial
Denial is one of the most difficult stages of grief and I
felt deeply enclosed by it in the following weeks. Like most believers do, I
turned for help to my closest Christian friend. Not for some sort of
intervention but so that I would regain the certainty I once had, perhaps
through a spiritual osmosis of some kind. More than anything I missed my former
freedom from thoughts about death. Death rattled me through and through. So
much so that I suffered from insomnia and could drink an adult dose of Nyquil
and feel more awake.
Despite his best efforts (and thanks to Mel Gibson’s
“Passion of the Christ”) the time had come to admit it: I didn’t believe in
God. For people who have been “reborn” into the religion or only grown in faith
it will seem that I made a choice. Many try to rationalize it with having wayward
company or God “testing” my faith. “He made a purposeful decision,” they think
to themselves. And yet, I can tell you it wasn’t. My brain had changed.
An inadvertent shift had occurred at the level of my
unconscious, and therefore conscious, thoughts. I was no longer unthinkingly convinced by scripture or automatically taken by the ideal of
Jesus Christ. It was like I had suddenly found that 2 and 2 is not equal 4. I
suspect most non-believers become stuck in this stage. They rebel against all Christian ideals, even those shared
with humanitarians, and crusade against Jesus in totality. Good and bad. Down
with the bathwater.
It was not a choice to
leave religion any more so than it is a choice
for a child from a Christian family in a Christian neighborhood of a Christian
city in a majority Christian country to become Christian. We are not offered
the choice we don’t know exists.
Guilt
Denial may have slowed my exodus but it was guilt that kept
me from asking the right questions earlier. My faith had been riveted in place
by my not especially religious family and Catholic high school tenure. Our
small, often disagreeable and cliquish family rarely mention their faith
overtly. Rather like an asteroid orbit, they tend to recall their faith after
lengthy absences stemming from good fortune. Only when gravity tugs at those
good times are they reminded, and annoyingly remind others, of Christianity’s
false consolation: We are born in sin and powerless to become righteous without
Jesus.
Re-reading the lyrics to my favorite hymn[i]
from high school mass, it’s impossible not to notice how laced it is with the
twin poisons of utter dependence and self-loathing: “Other refuge have I none,
I helpless, hang on Thee.” One only need consider the aching conscience needed to
write these hymn lyrics:
“By my sins I have deservedDeath and endless misery” [ii]
However, the development of a guilty conscience is not
always explicitly wanton. It is often the subtle hooks that sink the deepest: “I
thought you wanted to be one of us.” I
am certain much of Christian upbringing is meted out in similar, however
well-intentioned, applications of social pressure. For instance, saying that
one can feel the Holy Ghost or know the existence of God sets the bar
for others to follow. Those without such feelings face a tough choice: Either
admit emptiness when it comes to such knowledge or fake it. Admission can be
taken as a sign your faith is not strong enough, especially in younger
participants building their social abilities, and make you an outcast. Faking
faith is a social imperative and one that becomes all-too natural with
practice.
I encountered this in a way that will forever stay with me:
Quite out of the blue one Sunday, my father brought my brother and I to his spiritualist church. He had never forced his new-found religion on us so we went along with his paternalistic attempt. Light filled the small airy room we sat in and we brothers stole glances at each other, withholding giggles. Then the preacher, a gentle but captivating presence, threw his head back. Frightening quivers rolled up his stocky frame and spewed from him in a garbled, rolling syntax. Clearly this was what everyone had come for. He bellowed and castigated in a language no one needed interpreted and ended the ceremony 15 minutes later in an exhausted heap. His spiritual scaffolding had seemingly given way.
Afterwards, and with no explanation of what we’d just seen, my father invited us into a prayer circle. My brother and I bracketed him with another six or seven elderly congregation members all holding hands. Each said a few words then fell into silence. The stillness was broken when I felt a tremor start in my hand and work up my arm. It was coming from my father’s sweaty hands in nervous bursts. I felt my brother’s startled look and could tell he was undergoing the same seismic sensation. Like all close siblings, that look was enough. As we turned our faces and bit down mercilessly, our cheeks hot and bunched in disbelieving grins, our minds shared a question: Does he really expect us to believe this?
Perhaps we were old enough to ‘get it’ or maybe he lost our trust in that moment. Whatever the case is, I have no doubt that an earlier
try would have worked. Right on cue we would flail our arms, grappling with the
surge of spirit throbbing in our heads and chant along in unison. How different
would my mind be? How much more trying the escape? Those are questions that
wouldn't occur to that mind: a sure
mind in lock-step with like-minded believers.
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