Bittersweet

For me the holidays come as a mixed bag.  I remember as a child watching in awe as the advent candles were lit and delighting in the Christmas carols we would sing throughout December.  My family had several traditions I could count on as a child.  They made Christmas special and I looked forward to each one.  When I became a mom I enjoyed watching my children’s excitement and joined in their anticipation of each event.  Much to both set of grandparents’ dismay, we didn’t pretend Santa was real.  I didn’t want to intentionally lie to our children and knew we could still have fun with the stories without the lie.  As our children got older they began stuffing each other’s stockings with gifts and we developed our own traditions.

I say mixed bag because while a big part of our Christmas centered around church activities and the “true meaning of Christmas” when our oldest children were young, that is no longer true.  We don’t attend a candle light or Christmas Eve service as a family.  We don’t read the Christmas story on Christmas Eve.  We don’t sing carols in church.  We haven’t even all been in the same place at the same time for the last three years.  I know the responsibility for our current situation rests in large part on my shoulders.  After all, I was the first to leave the building.  Yet, as our family story has unfolded I can safely say we would not be the picture perfect Christmas card I once thought we were even if I had never left.  Like the Christmas story itself, the truth of our story has not played out as expected.  In fact, many fellowships would not even welcome us as a family because of the ways in which we don’t fit the mold, a fact which both saddens and angers me, emotions I am growing accustomed to feeling.

My journey out of legalistic evangelicalism has at times felt arduous, never ending, and inescapable.  The annual “It’s Christmas not the Holidays” campaign that rages on social media from Thanksgiving to New Year’s each year reminds me how deeply entrenched the religious spirit still is in many Christian circles. And, when I read a “well intended” judgement on a FB post or hear the lament from the mom of a LGBT identifying child (as she tries to understand how  her church family can pronounce damnation on her child), the hot anger I felt during the middle of my own struggles with building-based Christianity once again begins to boil over.

The difference between eight years ago and now is I’ve learned how to control the flood gates.  All I need to do now is remind myself how thoroughly deceived I was; how willingly I submitted myself to philosophies, attitudes, and behaviors that were ultimately unhealthy and hurtful; and how ready I was to justify or explain away the negatives.  Anyone who has ever broken free from the grip of religious oppression can testify: those who make up the flock almost never see the chains until some trauma waken them.  When pastors portray their spiritual lives as perfect; when those who don’t meet the standard are shunned or shamed;  and when any who question leadership are portrayed as questioning God Himself, creating division, or at the very least regarded as less mature than those who blindly submit,  an individual’s sincere desire to please God is held hostage.  And, all questions are effectively squelched.  At least, such was my experience inside the building.

A friend recently shared with me a meditation from Father Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Knowing some of my story, she wondered what I thought.  Early in the meditation Rohr states, “You know that whatever has happened to you is all God’s work and you have merely been the lucky recipient. You did not do it; it was done to you. ” I told my friend that I no longer believe in a God who controls it all in such an overt manner. I see a difference between knowing what will happen and puppeting our life circumstances. I spent too many years believing God was in control.  That is organized religion’s game. If God controlled everything As far too many Christians believe what possible value would our worship have?

Later in the meditation my friend shared Rohr states, “You have met the formless One, so the mere forms of religion are not so important now.”  If I am not quite there I am at least heading in that direction.  Yet, I do so with a slight sense of melancholy, no regret–I would not go back even if I could.  Still, I miss the warmth of belonging, the comfort of guaranteed acceptance just for following the rules.  Life was easier when I knew my place.

“I  cannot always speak with grace toward those who would throw our son’s in hell because of who they might love someday,” I told my friend as I tried to explain the paradigm shift I have experienced.  But, my heart aches for the misery of their blindness and torment.  They must live with a terrible fear.

Pulling myself out of a milder version of that prison began by giving myself permission to not worship God, to determine for myself whether or not the God of my religion was worthy of my worship. In the end, I decided my religion was not worthy of my adherence, but also, that my God was not the center of that religion.  When I read the Bible with new eyes, not as a moral code that must never be broken but as a love letter wooing a similar response from me, I met a very different God.  Loving Him was not so difficult.  And, loving others is becoming easier.

As I listen to the mix of secular and Christian Christmas carols on Pandora and finish this post, I understand how letting go of what was is not the same as death. Even though it includes loss I have new traditions to look forward to.  The God I serve is not some spiritual Santa threatening to put coal in my stocking.  I no longer have to wear my mistakes, and failings, and weaknesses like a hair shirt.  I can quit today and start again tomorrow without needing to do endless penance as a result.  My God is for me.  He always has been.  He always will be.  And like a good parent, He delights with each obstacle I overcome and grieves–with me–with each mistake.  God’s love will not be deterred.  He is determined to have relationship with His creation.  This is the good news of Christmas–not that another judge had been born.  Christ is the Savior.