Religion, Hiding and Disbelieving

As often happens with me of late, I have been reflecting on my life.  I starting thinking about my relationship with religion.  Some of you will know that I was really involved in the Anglican church for a number of years of my adult life.  I first started going, when I moved to Edmonton, because there was something about it that totally appealed to me.  I really had a sense that there was something there for me.  I enjoyed the singing, I enjoyed the worship and I enjoyed a quiet place to be.  I really believed, I really had faith, or at least I thought so at the time.

For a number of years this really worked for me.  And then things started to fall apart.  It started slowly. Finding a few Sundays when I really didn't want to be at church.  Feeling more and more dissatisfied with the fact that everyone was totally "fine" on Sunday mornings, especially when I was starting to not be fine at all.  I got involved in the management of the parish I was at in probably two of the most challenging years they have had in a long time and I got more disillusioned.  I tried changing parishes and that didn't work either.  Every week I felt more and more like a hypocrite just being at church at all.

Now while all of this was happening my life was unravelling on many fronts.  I am convinced I had the depression before all of this, but it was definitely getting worse.  There didn't seem to be anything I could do to make things better.  So, I left.  I so desperately needed support and I felt like church should be a place I could get it, and yet, I wasn't able to tell anyone how much I needed them.  I couldn't stand the disconnected feeling, so I left.

In hindsight, my relationship with church is complicated, but what isn't ?  On the one hand I found it all very appealing.  On the other hand I was running from some major things in my life.  Some major hurts and being gay.  Really church seems like the perfect place to hide.  For the most part people assume that if you are a member of the church, you are not gay, so I didn't have to deal with that.  There were no questions, including from me.  Hiding what is going on is also easier than you might think.  The truth is that for the most part people don't share hurts in life and church is no different.  On some level I knew they were there, but I wanted to forget, to ignore and not deal.  Avoidance 101.  So, I hid.

What do I think now?  I can see that so much of the disconnect was me.  People at the 2nd parish didn't know me very well, so how on earth could they have known how much I was hurting, how much I was floundering?  Even at the 1st parish I didn't really ever share or "fess up" do what was going on with me.  Truthfully I didn't really know myself.  I have no hard feelings, no blame, no nothing.  Just truth for some understanding.

And on faith?  I can't be part of something that continually tells me how horrible I am.  And that is how I felt about Christianity.  I don't believe that and so it is hypocritical for me to be there.  Do I believe in the whole story of Jesus?  Truthfully no.  Do I believe that love is what matters in life?  Yes.  Do I believe that all people have value and something beautiful about them (even though is it sometimes hard to see)?  Yes.

Where does this leave me?  It leaves me in a place where I believe in love, in relationship, in connection.  It leaves me in a place where I could believe in God, and sometimes find myself praying.  It also leaves me in a place where my traditional answers to all of this don't work.  I don't believe in Christianity.  This is hard for me as it was so much a part of my life.  But it is the truth.