or –The price of whoring your conscience (choose your offense- I did)
So, it’s been a hot minute since my last entry. There are many reasons for this- some of which I’ll share, some of which I likely never will in a public format.
To say that I have been undergoing a total makeover would be a clichéd understatement. There was a lot that prompted this most recent journey for me, and due to the immense grief it produced I turned to journaling rather than asking any brave reader to succumb to my personal crisis.
I am nowhere near to the other side of this personal shift- and I’m not sure if I ever will be. The casualties both following and, even more so, preceding that shift are tragic and severe. It took a defibrillator-sized jolt to my consciousness to force me to choose a side of a deep and quickly widening chasm of the life I had spent years learning how to balance and navigate while hoping I could make it seem effortless to any onlooker. I was so good at this dance, I had even begun to fool myself.
In my life previous to a range of social and moral reckoning events, I was playing the game of religion, level expert. I knew the right answers in Sunday school (“pray and read the bible”). I had purity culture beat- yep, this girl was a virgin all the way up to my wedding night. I never took the Lord’s name in vain (Oh, God!), and if I ever slipped up, I was sure to beg God’s forgiveness and remind God of all the ways I was living to please him. I didn’t memorize a lot of scripture, but I could wield that sword in any way that would justify the side of politics I stood on. Just ask my previous homosexual coworkers and any female within earshot who might even consider abortion as the answer to their (life threatening, financial, inconvenient) dilemma. After all, didn’t God have that pregnancy under control? He must have some great plans for a fetus that is so unwanted by such a faithless mother. I didn’t realize that I was murdering the essence of each individual who fell short of my religious standard (including myself covertly) by telling them that they are so glaringly missing the mark of their responsibility to piety.
Let me explain.
Back up eighteen or so months. Actually, back it up to eight years ago. I was minding my own pious business and shaming others into doing the same when I first noticed it. A chasm between what religion teaches us to do, and what it actually does. I was quick to call it out to my fellow Sunday bench-warmers as an individual who believed she had earned her right to speak by actually remaining a virgin until marriage (among other holier-than-thou benchmarks). I had all the room to judge others from my pious pillar in the sky. I went by all the religious standards of faithful living and thought it my duty to speak up when much of the organized religion I knew started putting their faith in politics that didn’t always align with those Sunday school lessons where felt-board Jesus fed the felt-board hungry and healed the felt-board sick despite clear nationality differences. I then did what all good Karen Christians do and turned to social media to set things straight- but it seemed the more I called out the dissonance, the more they moved to the opposite side of the widening chasm. It was like screaming at a room full of robots programmed to take over the world and determined to leave no opposing survivors. My program was obviously malfunctioning on their precious watch and I was not going to get in the way of it. They had a nation to hijack in “God’s” name, damn the costs.
To add insult to injury, my personal life went off the rails and over the cliff in the most unexpected way six and a half years later. I didn’t see the chasm forming on the other side of me that now I can so plainly see. Despite my fight to prove otherwise, I was just another bad guy in the larger scheme of things. I won’t address the specifics of that event here, at least not yet, because I am not the only cast member of that ongoing story. But what I can share is how that particular shift has forced me to reevaluate the trajectory I had forged ever since I could steer my own path.
Controlled deconstruction met unexpected demolition in a matter of a few heart wrenching minutes for me one December afternoon in 2021. I disengaged all but what was essential to my life. By the time it all sunk in, I was an emotional and spiritual wreck. An existential crisis looked like a day at the spa at that point. I was forced to engage Plan B of which I had neglected to place any eggs at the expense of putting every last one in the church of Plan A. I had been all-in on Plan A because I believed the lie that I had no other choice if I did not want to spend eternity in hell. It seemed like the obvious solution at every corner, so I never considered even acknowledging Plan B. Plan B was for those luke-warm fence-riding secular types. I gave everything I could to the church of Plan A- even my own virginity. Don’t worry, I wasn’t forced to give it up, it was more like coercion with the threat of eternal punishment if I didn’t let them have their way with me. I suppose grooming would be the best descriptor, made secure with a patronizing consolation that it was for my own good- complete with gaslit clarity.
What?… you thought sex is the only way to take someone’s virginity? Who needs sex when the fear and shame of purity culture are so much more invasive?
Undue disclaimer: I am not a newly-committed proponent of sleeping with any Jo(e) that pitches worthy accolades producing grounds for snatching your “innocence.” What I am acknowledging is that who you sleep with and when is for you to determine within your own moral conscience- not the bible-clad fella behind the podium demanding your allegiance to his interpretation of what your purpose is on this earth and how you must go about fulfilling it to be deemed righteous by a predetermined and white-washed standard.
I digress. (Can’t say I didn’t offer fair warning to my lack of sure footing here on planet Plan B.)
My partner and I (yes, we’re somehow still married through all of this shapeshifting fallout despite acknowledging that we are about to celebrate our 2nd, 5th anniversary to each other- it’s complicated) quit attending any sort of organized church meeting about 7-8 months ago. It was the final disengagement of our spiritual (and social) deconstruction. It’s amazing how clearly one can hear, feel, and sense God (insert your own higher power here) when one steps away from those who feel the need to arrogantly, yet ignorantly, interpret what it is your Spirit-dwelling conscience is actually telling you directly. Sitting and listening to a preacher tell you how to live a life devoted to Christ is akin to listening to an interpreter with a thick and broken accent call you on a static phone line believing he has the platform to dictate for you what it is that the person right beside you is saying in your primary language and with the added benefit of fully understanding who you are and what you are going through. Yet, millions opt for the static phone-talking interpreter while hardly acknowledging the voice who knows them best and is standing right there within their own conscience. Many have been shamed into ignoring it all together.
Now I don’t know where you, reader, stand in your own spiritual awareness, and I want to leave room for your own unique perspective. But for clarity’s sake, I will share that through my own deconstruction, I have landed somewhere between believing the Bible to be the top idol of organized religion (but a performative case study for those of us who choose to allow conscious to drive our moral perspective), and a Holy Spirit living in and through us as an expression of his/her creation with the gift of free will to drive this opportunity at life with everything it is that makes us authentic. Authentic truth cannot exist within the construct of prefabricated foregone conclusion that is organized religion.
Authenticity is messy
Authenticity is messy. It’s messy on so many levels. What defines your authenticity and what defines my authenticity is vastly and authentically different. I am no longer who I was when I began writing this article. You are no longer who you were before you began reading it. Neither of us can be rightly expected to live out what was authentic for Paul (or any biblical character) to live and be- even if they each lived their lives perfectly. Neither can we, even when we aim to. Just ask any priest who pursues a life of celibacy that isn’t authentic to his nature- or homosexual who has ever begged God to free them of their authentic draw to the same sex.
Organized religion mocks the very freedom to live and express the authenticity of our birthright. It judges, stifles, and shames the essence of authenticity. It hijacks and abuses our right to free will telling us that free will is not ours, that it is only another burden we must manipulate and fashion to reflect the religious authorities if we want to be found acceptable in “God’s” sight- and by “God” they mean, the security of a social community we must struggle to maintain.
In biblical jargon, Jesus shares this sweet morsel, (it’s good to note here that I’m not against the bible- especially the Jesus’ teaching parts. But let your conscience determine what parts of it you allow to become your moral standard and let the others remain as an example of how others express their morality within their own conscience)- “I tell you the truth, all sins that people do and all the things people say against God can be forgiven. But anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of a sin that continues forever.” (Mark 3:28-30, NCV) If you’re more of a liberal theist, consider the the same verse in the Gospel of Thomas, “Jesus said, ‘Whoever blasphemes against the Father will be forgiven, and whoever blasphemes against the son will be forgiven, but whoever blasphemes against the holy spirit will not be forgiven, either on earth or in heaven.” (Gospel of Thomas 44, PBS.org)
If the standing chimney in the ashes of my deconstruction holds true, I see this flying directly in the face of organized religion. Not only does God (or insert your higher power here) dismiss the many times I’ve told him to go “F” himself when my life seems to have taken another undeserved turn, or the many times I have come into question of my relationship/belief/faith in him- he goes on to tell me that these will be forgiven. It’s when I fight my nature to expressively and authentically act from my nature that I am blaspheming (offending) the very “Spirit” within me. And yes, in my deconstruction, capitol “S” Spirit is the Holy Spirit of God who lives within our own will, our own conscience, our own unique expression. Again, take all the room you need for this description to ring true with your own authenticity. Because, unlike organized religion, God ( or your personal higher power here) is not threatened by who your authentic self is nor how you express it. We are free (and even expected) to live a life of unabashed, shameless, unmasked authenticity. No if’s, and’s, or but’s.
When we choose (because free will is a thing whether we believe we are actually free to wield it or not) to live inauthentically- we choose to succumb to a life of fear and shame because our standard no longer lies within our conscious- rather we are choosing to whore that given right out to a standard that can and will make us sick (even if that standard is built of all things deemed right and good). Fear and shame are bedfellows in a steep and fast-paced downward spiral. They are what drives anxiety (fear) and a vast array of other disorder traits including ADHD, PTSD, and situational-induced autistic traits, just to name a few. And I don’t name these disorders lightly while honoring individuals who come by them chemically rather than through a traumatizing persistence to fit the persona we were told we must wear through diligent masking, grooming, and abstinence from organic traits considered too sinful to acknowledge- and with the diligence of a security dog in a crack dealer’s house.
Another undue disclaimer: I am not saying that individuals struggling with pedophilia are now free to act upon that pedophilia or that we should just off the jackass that cut us off in traffic just because that would fulfill a very real urge from somewhere deep inside. Urges are not authenticity- they are often a trailhead to- and a result of- unacknowledged and unaddressed trauma. A Spirit vast enough to diversify him/herself throughout humanity and beyond would never find joy in provoking harm. No- that is the result of our perfect storm of unaddressed trauma given over to free will- which begets and multiplies future trauma. And even trauma can be passed down from generation to generation, both chemically and situationally. We are chock full of it from the day we are conceived.
A God that allows Pain
Why would a God allow that or any pain? Because that God grants each of us complete license to fully make our own choices within our conceivable and physical control- with built-in, supercharged ripple effects. And being imperfect, that license allows us to drive our biological/mental/emotional vehicle clean off the road while taking innocent bystanders with us if that is what we choose to do with it. Not fair? I suppose that depends on the angle from which we choose to perceive it. If fairness is the bar, then so is perfection at the expense of free will, which is what organized religion tries to legislate. No thanks- I’ll pass. I no longer want the church to be my surrogate conscience. I am equipped to do so just by engaging my human-given conscience. And now we’ve circled back to organized religion (the crime scene to whom my virginity was stolen) who believes they are filling in this moral gap, this “blueprint oversight” of God’s. They believe that their rules will force each of us to escape undue pain if everyone would just lay down their authenticity for a chance at what they deem the most perfect existence this side of eternity (whatever that means).
Again, I digress.
See? Messy.
If this all feels like a big, blasphemous, slap in the face-Good.
At least it’s coming from a place of authenticity- which is new to me in the grand scheme of my “conscious” existence.
With all of that said, if eternity is your goal- realize you’re already living it. Organized religion would like you to believe that eternity is a place to be earned, not a timeline to be lived. You’re already living it, sister (in the nonbinary sense). Your perfection is you living out your authentic self– and no one is more of an authority on that than your authentic self. Go with your conscience and live fully.
Reclaiming Sunday 