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Reciprocal Rage and Hurt


I am not unaware of what drives me. I am slow to recognize my feelings; however, once I recognize them I generally understand them. That is certainly the case with my feelings over recent church interactions.

The essence of my church disappointment is I am being told I must believe in a certain way to be acceptable. This is not the message I read in the gospels when I first saw them. The message I read is that the poor, the diseased, the ritually unclean, those unable to afford sacrificial animals, strangers, prostitutes and tax collectors, all are acceptable to God. That God's kingdom was all around us and available to us if we only will seek. I read not so much a promise of redemption by belief in sacrificial death as a promise of forgiveness and acceptability, a living mercy that leads to redemption.

And I loved this. It was beautiful to me. The idea that I might be acceptable to God, with my peculiarities, my failings, my sloth and gluttony, my greed and lust, my filthiness. That was and is beautiful to me. And that, perhaps, by contemplation of the Bible, I might find a better way, some way not to desire as I desire, not to ache as I ache, not to be angry as I am angry. To discover, in the words of Revelation which I love, an end to death and pain and suffering, for the old order really had passed away.

So it is especially hurtful to me to be told that my understanding, my profound belief, is not acceptable. I cannot speak about a message that is profoundly beautiful to me. My words, my thoughts, are unacceptable. I experience the very thing I have sought to find relief from- unacceptability, judgment, ostracism. The paradox is that, as I read and experience it, God brings, peace, acceptance, forgiveness, but the church brings only exclusion, condemnation, rejection.

My upset extends beyond theological issues. I have no special idea of self worth. I am quite cynical about it. I am not handsome, not a desirable conversation partner, not fluid and easy in parties. I received lots of female attention as a resident, but only because women wanted to be Mrs. Doctor, not because they were fascinated by me. The most flattering thing in my married life is that my wife has made it clear in many ways ever since we met that she likes me. Me. It remains a consoling mystery that she can be kind to me, accept me as I am.

My experience of much of early life was rejection. Teasing, hitting, abusing, cursing. Blood, death, fights, screaming. Not fitting into my school, not liking my home. Wanting to escape. I have no reservoir of good experiences on which to build a sense of self worth. Instead, all my life I have tried to prove my worth every day by what I do. My sense of worth is built on what I can do, not on what I am. Whether singing, operating, counseling patients, teaching, building models, composing, I define myself by what I do and think.

It is thus a very personal rejection to be told that what I think is unacceptable. It is a destruction of the only foundation of worth I really have, while simultaneously telling me that I am unacceptable to God unless I believe and recite the things the Church believes and recites. It is a broad and complete damaging of both self worth and the hope of acceptability.

Unsurprisingly, I react strongly, defensively and aggressively.

I think others do as well. My discussion of the non-literality of the Bible and human status of Jesus likely damages the self definition of many, just as they have damaged mine. They have reacted in the same anger and fear I have felt, with theirs magnified by fear for their church, to which I am a newcomer and a stranger. And for all that I have little sense of intrinsic worth I do have a very large, broad and deep reservoir of accomplishments. Not everyone does, and so their sense of acceptability and redemption may be more threatened than mine.

I found my first sense of comfort, of belonging, of acceptability, in the chapel of my school. I would go there during breaks just because it felt warm and welcoming. I have sat in sanctuaries simply to meditate and feel the numinous. It is at such times that I feel the presence of God. It is a terrible shame that the church must insist on a particular formulaic understanding of God in order to be acceptable in church.

The experience of God is a singularity, much like the many languages in which the Spirit was heard at Pentecost. I don't see why a church has to stuff all such singularities into a common, restrictive definition. That assaults my sense of God, of religion and of self, and that is more than my little soul can stand.
 
Apostate Monster

Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 17, 2013 at 9:16 PM

    AMEN good Sir!
    And thank you for softening the anguish of a teenager.....

    ReplyDelete

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