Sensitivity or Shame?

So it's been a while since I've written in my blog...possibly because my journey has become increasingly more difficult and slightly less optimistic. Let me explain...

When I first realised that I didn't 'believe' anymore, there was a sense of relief, of liberation even. No longer did I have to struggle with the doctrines of my faith that were at odds with the world around me. No longer did I have to believe in a loving God who simply did not appear to be loving at all. But as I have written about before, with the loss of my faith came a deep sadness. However, this sadness has continued to deepen until it has, at times, become a swirling sea of despair and grief flooding my heart and suffocating me from deep within.

I recently read an article by Dr. Marlene Winell (here is the link if you are interested. http://journeyfree.org/rts/the-trauma-of-leaving-religion-pt-3/) which explains the trauma associated with the loss of one's religion. It is what psychologists describe as an 'assumptive world view', which when shattered causes a sense of devastating loss and confusion similar to that of losing a loved one. Your 'assumed' understanding of the world has been destroyed, the rug swept out from underneath your feet so to speak.

My life has been far from sorrow free. It has been a bumpy road and incredibly difficult at times. However, there was one certainty that held me together no matter what I was going through and that was my understanding of God. I believed that there was a purpose to my life, to the world, to the universe. This 'cosmic purpose' was what gave meaning to every little thing that I did. Every tear that I cried had an eternal value and purpose and I believed that God collected every one and that they were precious to him. That is gone now. Gone. When describing my grief to my husband, he asked why I didn't just go back. It really isn't that simple. When faith is destroyed there is no going back. I can never pretend to believe something that simply isn't true. It would be like standing at the edge of a precipice and saying, 'I know there is no bridge but if I simply imagine one there, then it will be OK to step over the edge...' We all know how that would work out!

So there is no going back...but where do I go from here? I have no other way in which to see the world in which I live. No answers for the pain and injustice that I see surrounding me. No purpose in anything at all. No divine power to which I can cry out for help...nothing to even give me the illusion of hope.

There are days when I feel that the heaviness is going to crush me. Days when I feel can hardly breathe. Days when the tears are always so close to the surface, threatening to run over at any moment. It breaks my heart when my daughters tell me to 'be happy' and to 'smile Mummy...here like this, I'll show you.' Is my sorrow so easy for them to read? At least I know that they will never have to experience this. I hope with all that is in me that they will find a foundation of love, peace and happiness from deep within themselves that will see them through life constantly.

There are nights when the dreams of nothingness haunt me. Dreams where the world is shrinking around me, as if I was in a room where the walls were slowly moving in. Dreams where I am sobbing for my lost love. Dreams where I believe that I believe again and all is well. But then I wake up.

I know that this all sounds terribly depressing but I feel that it is necessary for me to share. The nature of religion is so pervasive and yet not many people talk about its consequences. But I am slowly moving through it. I tell myself that 'this too shall pass.' I will rebuild. I will find meaning in my life in new and amazing ways. I will find the happiness within myself that I so desire. I try to remember to be kind to myself. To acknowledge that this is a process of grief, that I don't need to have all of the answers today and to allow myself to go through this journey, to accept which is the final stage of grief.

As you can imagine, considering the intense emotional aspects of this experience, I can not just talk about it with anybody and I still haven't told my parents that I am no longer Christian. I think perhaps they suspect but they are too afraid of my answer to actually ask me. I am not really sure of the reasons that influence my decision to stay silent. Is it because it will hurt too much when they act as if it is only an intellectual decision that I have made with no regard for the pain that I am in? Or is it because I can't bear to hear the 'guilting' that I know will follow my revelation. I can't bear to hear that I have 'fallen from grace', that I am on a slippery slope to destruction. Yet somehow, I feel that deep down I am ashamed. I feel that I have let everyone down. I fear their disappointment. At a time in my life when I so desperately need their support and their love, I know that all I will receive is this disappointment and this judgement. They won't even know that they are doing it which makes it all the harder. They will think that in trying to point me back to what they see as the 'truth' they are actually loving me. How do you fight with that??

I've been telling myself that I'm being sensitive to my parents and to my Christian friends by not telling them because I don't want to hurt them. But that's not true...I think it's shame and I don't need them to add fuel to the fire that is already burning within me. But why are we always afraid to disagree with the religious? Why should their beliefs take precedence over mine? Why should I be afraid to tell my own parents that my beliefs are different to theirs? And why should they be allowed to be exclusive in their beliefs to the extent that they automatically assume that mine are wrong?

I really have no idea where to proceed from here. I am in agony. So would telling my parents really be helpful at this time? Sometimes, I have almost burst out 'I've lost my faith' to my Mum so that I can have the freedom of sharing my pain with her yet I know she wouldn't understand. I don't think I have ever felt so alone in my entire life. If any of you beautiful people out there reading this have any suggestions I would welcome them. I admit that no man is an island...yet why does it constantly feel that this woman is?

Thankyou for listening and sharing this journey with me...

Peace and Love
Amber May

A Sweet Sadness!

O bring me again to the place of my pain
To the sorrow that flows in the depths of my heart
Just let me remain and relive once again
The peace I once knew before life fell apart...

One of my English students whom I tutor is currently doing an assignment on prayer. Since she is attending a Catholic school she is required to research the Catholic understanding of prayer thoroughly and then compare it with one other non-Christian prayer tradition. So I (being the wonderful tutor that I am) promised to help her out by getting out some of my Catholic prayer books and other resources which may be of assistance to her. So today I found myself rummaging through my 'religious box'. It is a box which contains all of my Rosary booklets, prayer cards, prayer books, saint pictures and anything else pertaining to my previous religious expression.

As I worked my way through the box of religious items I felt a strange sense of sorrow, of loss...a deep, deep sadness. This sadness seemed to pervade everything. It felt as if I was standing at the bottom of a waterfall with the water cascading down on top of me, through me, saturating my entire being. Sadness... There is a beautiful line which still remains beautiful even when you realise it came from a Backstreet Boys song! :-) It says Sadness is beautiful, Loneliness is tragical. Those words hold a profound truth. There is nothing tragic about sadness. It is such a necessary emotion. It allows us to remember. It allows us to walk through the halls of memory and to take from those moments of our past that which we wish to keep and to let go of those which we would rather not hold on to.

Sadness is beautiful...I acknowledged this today as I stood there in my bedroom even though it felt as if a fist had just punched me in the gut, winding me to the point of breathlessness. But as I stood there gasping for air, I realised what the sadness was for. It was for a time when life felt simpler, smoother, safer.



O Ignorance sweet, let us once again meet
So that life in its harshness can fade for a while.
O coveted  bliss, seal the deal with a kiss
Let your charms and your wiles deceive and beguile.



I know that people may wonder how I can possibly turn my back upon my faith based upon the intensity of my past religious experience. I truly believed that I felt God's presence with me. I truly believed that He helped me through great times of darkness in my life. I felt him speak to me in quiet moments of reflection within my own heart and the sound of his voice brought warmth and great peace to my innermost being. I have often heard people say when speaking of their religious faith that it must be real because they 'feel so much peace.' Because their heart responds to the religious words, that response is taken as evidence of the truth of the religion. But does that logic really hold up? Does the fact that I once found peace in my Catholic faith mean that what that faith taught me was true or even real? Does the fact that I still somehow yearn for that peace like a small child yearns for its mother mean that I made a mistake in walking away? For yes, as I suffered through sadness today, part of me wished I could go back to what I had once known. But the paths of memory must be treaded with caution. How often do we, in a moment of emotion, remember only the happiness of a memory yet never the pain? How often do we forget the myriad of problems that caused us to leave a past lover and fixate only on the good times that we experienced with them? This kind of flippant approach to memory leads only to a repetition of a past mistake. We reunite with the lover only to remember once more all the reasons why the relationship could never be.

For me, Jesus is like a past lover. I have shared almost the entirety of my life with him. Though he is not real, he was real for me and, in some ways, still is. He was real in the palace of my mind, the throne room of my heart. I believed that he was walking with me and that belief was strong enough to generate peace and security. And this brings me to my earlier question...does peace itself stand as proof for a belief? In order to answer this question let me ask another. Does fear stand as proof that the object of our fear is real? Does the fact that a child is convinced there are monsters under their bed prove that they are really there? I mean, let's face it! Fear can feel incredibly real. It can take over your entire being, dictating your thought response and even your physical response to a situation. Yet we all know that fear does not equal reality. Of course there is a healthy fear but, like all things, the emotion of fear needs to be coupled with a good dose of reality and common sense. So if the presence of fear does not prove the existence of that on which the fear is founded, does it also follow that the presence of peace does not prove the existence of that on which the peace is founded? I believe that the answer is yes.




How I wish this could be, but my eyes they now see
The spell has been shattered that once held me fast.
Though I desperately long, I can never belong
The footsteps of knowledge are thundering past.


Yes I felt peace believing that Jesus loved me so much that he gave his life for me. I felt peace believing that God had a plan for my life that was beautiful, exciting and wonderful. I felt peace believing that I was destined for an Eternity of pure happiness with God in Heaven. But then, wouldn't this kind of belief bring peace to anyone who truly believed it? If you really felt that there was a deity looking out for you wouldn't that make you feel secure? And if you really felt that there was a predestined meaning to your life, wouldn't that help you cope with the ups and downs that life constantly throws at you? That peace is reminiscent of what a small child feels when she rests in her mother's arms. I have a beautiful memory from my childhood. I was only about three years old and was at church with my parents. My Mum was playing the piano for the service that day and so was sitting up the front of the church whilst I sat further back with my Dad and sister. I remember being very distressed that I was not with my Mum. I can still feel the intense yearning I had inside of me just to be with her. And for once, my Dad actually let me go up the front and sit with her. And I just remember the world turning right way up again. My sense of security and safety was reinstated. All was well! And don't we all wish we could feel that sense of safety again? Isn't it what we are all searching for in one way or another? Yet unfortunately we do not stay children and at some point we realise that our parents can not protect us from suffering and pain. Their arms are unable to keep the sorrows of life at bay for more than a short while.

And this is what happened between Jesus and I. I grew up. I realised that he was not who I thought he was. But though not real, he had still been a powerful image in my mind that had helped to motivate and inspire me and that image had brought peace. Though I do sometimes miss that feeling of peace, I know that I can never go back. Ignorance may be bliss but ignorance is still, well, ignorance! And that is a place that I never want to be found in! And life is not all tears and torment! Life is beautiful. Life is exciting. Life is exquisite. And in the times where tears and torment prevail, I know now that I have the strength and courage within me to persevere and to find meaning where none may at first present itself. In this new journey that I am travelling, I am still learning to find peace from a different source. It is no longer stemming from my belief in another but rather my belief in myself. And that, my friends, is a peace truly worth having!

Thank you once more for walking this journey with me!

Peace and Happiness
Amber May Bremner

The Other Side of the Coin!

Hello again! I think that it is high time for another entry here...

So today I thought I would write about an issue that has long been a subject of interest to me and was also one of the reasons that I eventually walked away from my faith. The subject is a rather complicated one and so some background may be necessary...

As a Christian I was brought up to believe that 'every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.' James 1:16-18

For many years, I never questioned this belief. By thanking God for all of the blessings in my life, I considered myself to be an extremely humble person. What I didn't realise, however, was that this belief was far from humble! It was actually quite the opposite!

You see, unfortunately, most Christians never stop to follow the logic of their beliefs through to their inevitable conclusions. In regards to the belief that all good things come from God, most Christians never stop to consider that if that is true then when people don't receive good things it must mean that God is withholding them! I think that most Christians when confronted with this argument would get a little squirmy! It is not a pleasant thought and it does not fit in with the wonderful theology that teaches that God is loving, compassionate and merciful. If he really was all of these things, would he really give good things to some and not to others? 

Now I do need to clarify something before I continue. The Christian philosophy does acknowledge that good people do sometimes suffer and that sometimes God allows suffering in the life of the Christian. So I am not saying that Christians believe that bad things only happen to bad people. The point that I am  making here is that if we believe that good things can only come from God then we also have to believe that God is responsible for when the good things are absent.  

So, consequently, if I believe that God has blessed me because of all the amazing things in my life it raises the question as to why I, out of all people on earth, would be deserving of the blessings of God? What makes me more special than the little girl in Africa whose every bone can be seen through the paper fragility of her skin as she is watched greedily by hungry vultures near by? Why is God withholding good things from her? Has she committed some great crime that I am unaware of? Christian theology will justify this scenario in the following way:

All of us are sinners before God. We were created to be in relationship with God. All of us have chosen to reject God and live our lives our way. (somehow we all did this in the same moment of Adam and Eve as we were in the 'bowels of Adam') We are now in a fallen state of sin and are separated from God. God has given us the opportunity to be reunited with him by sending his son Jesus to die for us. If we accept this grace of God then we are saved from eternal damnation. But we are all just as guilty as each other. The fact that a Christian is blessed by God is not because he is better than others but simply because he is covered by the Grace of God. 

Ok. So this logic kind of works (kind of) as long as it remains in black and white and on paper. But the more you think about it, the more it really does not make sense. To take us back to the little girl in the above scenario, this philosophy says that she is guilty in the eyes of God because somehow (in some mystical action in which she was not really present) she has rejected God and chosen to live her life without him. Therefore she deserves all of her current misery and not only her current suffering but when the vultures are done with her body she will also suffer an eternity of perpetual misery! The Christian philosophy believes this despite the fact that this little girl has never heard of Jesus or the grace of God. Now there are other streams of belief within Christianity, some of which believe that children are innocents and will go straight to Heaven and others which believe that if some one has not heard the Gospel than they can not have rejected it. I do not have time to debunk the irrational nature of these beliefs as well in my current discussion. I merely wish to acknowledge my awareness that not every Christian will take the same position on these matters. However, the Bible clearly confirms the theology I have described above and nowhere does it mention the innocence of children, babies and the ignorant going to heaven. I believe that these are simply theories made up by the Church over the course of time to make them feel better about the actual harshness of what the Bible really says. 

This brings me back to my original point and that is that the other side of the coin to the belief that 'all good things come from God' means that he gives to some and not to others. No matter what rational or theological babble Christians try to cover it up with, this is the cold truth. When Christians argue that God has given a way out for all humanity and therefore can not be blamed if they do not take it, I then ask them to explain why the Bible specifically states that some are chosen to be God's children and some are NOT chosen! 

For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I RAISED YOU UP, TO DEMONSTRATE MY POWER IN YOU, AND THAT MY NAME MIGHT BE PROCLAIMED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE EARTH." So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?" On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing moulded will not say to the moulder, "Why did you make me like this," will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honourable use and another for common use?… Romans 9:17-21

So there it is! God has chosen some people to be his blessed children and he has specifically created others to be 'common'. What is the purpose then of the common vessels? To make the honourable vessels feel special and chosen! Just as Pharaoh was created simply to give God glory and show Israel how wonderful God was and how lucky they were to be chosen, so too are some people created merely for the purpose of contrast!

I know many Christians who struggle with this passage. They are the honest ones! Many others simply refuse to believe it is there. But there is a third kind of Christian in regards to this teaching and this is the one that really scares me. Many Christians I know, and the Christians that I grew up with as a child, understand perfectly what this verse is saying and think that it is all fair and reasonable. They believe that since God created all of us then he does indeed have authority over us. And since all of us have sinned against God and are doomed for destruction, then the fact that he has chosen to save some of us actually shows that he is incredibly merciful and compassionate. I mean, he could have let us all perish but he didn't. Now this is another one of those Christian arguments that very rarely gets followed through to its inevitable conclusion. This teaching indicates that God has the power to save everyone but chooses not to! This is where the 'it is not God's fault if people choose not to accept him and save themselves' argument simply falls apart. The New Testament specifically states that not all are chosen. Jesus says that

I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. John 14:6

But he also says that:

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. John 6:44

So Jesus is the only way to God but you can only find it if his Father calls you and if he does not call you then you still deserve Hell because you're a sinner. Does anyone else see the flaw in this logic?

There is one more major problem that I see in this teaching of predestination. Jesus describes God as being a Father and says that     

For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him! Matthew 7:7-10

Jesus himself says that God is far superior to any good earthly parent. And yet...we are told that God the loving Father has chosen to send some of his children to Eternal punishment. He could save them all but he only chose to save a few. Even if some Christians do not believe in predestination they still believe that God will send children that he loves so much he sacrificed his own son, to an Eternity of suffering. What earthly parent would do that? It seems to me that, based on this analogy, God is far inferior to 'sinful' parents on earth. As a mother, I know that there is nothing I would not do for my children. Yes we do see some horrible atrocities committed against children by their parents but society as a whole condemns these acts as among the most heinous committed by humanity. And yet, in the Christian philosophy this behaviour on the part of God is accepted and legitimised because he's God! We can't question him! His ways are not our ways nor his thoughts our thoughts. My response to this is that God opened himself right up for questioning when he likened himself to earthly parents and then committed acts against his own children that no normal human parent could ever condone.

After struggling for years with the constant uneasiness that this teaching gave me, I finally had to accept that it was cold, cruel and horrific! I knew that I could not say that I was a Christian and yet pick and choose which teachings I was going to accept. To me, that was simply hypocritical! I could not accept this fundamental teaching of the Christian faith and so I had to leave that faith behind.

There is one final thought that I would like to leave you with...

Christians speak of the Grace of the God and how the fact that they have been chosen out of all others shows God's incredible mercy to them. They say that it makes them realise how underserving they are of the gift of grace and keeps them humble. I beg to differ. I believe that this theology of 'predestination' that states some are chosen and some are not simply leads to arrogance and self-righteousness. Christians may say that it gives them humility but in reality it leads to a sense of self-righteousness, a feeling that they are in the 'it club' and that they are somehow better than the rest of the world. Christian theories may sound wonderful on paper but they very rarely work in the real world. I would love to believe that I had a benefactor who was watching over me, guiding my life and pouring his loving blessings out one me but not if the other side of that belief implies that others are being excluded from that favour. That little girl in Africa is not sinful. She is not rejected or 'unchosen.' She is simply unlucky. She has been born into a country riddled with poverty, violence, famine and starvation. It is a simple case of cause and effect. And instead of trying to justify her situation based on ridiculously complicated theological arguments that make no sense, maybe we should do something ourselves about these horrible things in the world???? The future is in our hands...not in the hands of some mystical deity in the sky. Our hands are not tied by things unseen. We tie our own hands and hide behind the supernatural. Lets face the truth that the world is not always fair nor kind and do whatever is in our power to change it and make it a better place for those yet to come.

Until next time,

Peace and Happiness

Amber

Unfaithful or Abandoned?

Hi again! Thanks for joining me once more as I search for greater clarity in understanding this new path I am walking...

So last time I spoke about my background with Christianity and how I eventually came to question the beliefs that I had always had. This time I would like to discuss a very difficult aspect of the whole 'leaving the faith' issue. Am I unfaithful? or Was I abandoned?

I am sure that everyone (even those not involved in the religious world) would have heard the phrase 'fallen from grace.' This phrase has now become a well-known idiom used in everyday speech that simply means 'to fall from a position of high esteem.' It's origin, however, is a biblical one. Galatians 5:4 reads:

You who want to be justified by the law have cut yourselves off from Christ; you have fallen away from Grace. (NRSV translation)

This verse is reaffirming the Christian belief that our salvation rests solely upon our faith in Christ and not upon any good deeds or works that we can accomplish through the upholding of the Jewish law. The Grace of God was given freely and our redemption rests upon that free gift and not upon anything we can achieve for ourselves. To even attempt this is to fall from Grace. Based upon this Christian understanding of the phrase, it is now very obvious that it would be quite applicable to me as I am no longer relying on Christ as my Saviour. The reason that this is such a difficult issue for me is due to several reasons which I will now detail more fully.

I still have many Christian friends and acquaintances (not to mention my own family), many of which I have not yet informed of my current religious stand. This is mostly because I cannot bear to see the disappointment that I know will register in their expressions nor can I bear to see the pity and distress I will see in their eyes. Why would this bother me, you may ask? Let me explain.

I am not ashamed of the fact that I no longer believe in God nor that I see myself as my own Saviour rather than relying on an external religious structure to move me along in life. However, having been entirely immersed within the Christian perspective for most of my life, I understand exactly how my departure from the faith will be viewed. I will be seen as some one who was not worthy of the gift of grace that was bestowed upon me. I will be seen as some one who is more to be pitied than one who had never heard the call of God. For since I heard the call of God and then walked away, my rejection of God will be seen as even more reprehensible. I will be seen as someone who was not faithful, someone who was not true to the one who loved me more than anything. Because, I can understand this perspective so clearly (having felt it myself for others who had walked away from the faith) it hurts to know that my friends would be feeling this about me. Obviously I still want my Christian friends in my life, but will the fact that they think this about me damage that friendship? Can I still be open and honest with them when I know they believe I am going to hell?

Only my very close friends know that I am not religious. I have not yet acquired the courage to tell my parents. As I have already said, I am not ashamed of what I now believe. I just can't bear the thought of hurting those closest to me. My parents will be devastated. They will not understand why and how can I explain it to them? I know that one question that will be asked by more than one person is 'What about all the things that God has done in your life. What of all the blessings and all the answers to prayer that you have experienced? Are you forgetting them? Are you ignoring them? Are you pretending that they never happened? My answer to all of these questions is no. I have not forgotten. I will never pretend that these experiences did not happen. How I now interpret those experiences is simply different now. The lens through which I see the world has changed and nothing is viewed the same way it once was.

But this brings me to the second reason why it will hurt so much to be viewed as unfaithful. I actually feel that rather than being unfaithful to God, I was abandoned by him. I must explain here as a means of preventing confusion, that I am not speaking literally as I do not actually believe in God's existence. I am speaking in metaphor based on the deep emotions that have resulted from this parting of the ways.

You see, Jesus and I were best friends. From my earliest memories, he was there. I can still see him in my mind now just as my three-year old imagination saw him. A long white robe, long hair, the most joyful smile you could possibly imagine, and eyes that gazed on me with so much love that I felt warm and safe and protected. I have always known Jesus to be like this. He was my protector, my safe refuge. He was the one that I poured my heart out to through all the lonely days of my childhood when I was teased and bullied at school, through all the lunch hours reading by myself, through all the moments of silent tears when I was too afraid to let others see what I was feeling. Jesus was the one who stood by me through everything and words can not describe how much I loved him. Passionate, fervent, unwavering...even these are inadequate. I truly believed him to be my Saviour. I truly believed that I was a sinner destined to an Eternity of hell and that Jesus saved me from that. I truly believed that Jesus experienced an agonising death for me...just for me so that I could spend eternity with him. When I was about six or seven, I saw a scene from the 'Jesus' movie where Jesus was tormented by soldiers shortly before his death. I remember going into my room and thanking Jesus from the depths of my heart for everything he had gone through for me and how much I loved him for it. He was so real to me. So when I say that I left my religion it needs to be understood that I really left a relationship...and I feel like I've lost my best friend, imaginary though he may be.

Over the years, there have been many times of doubt and unrest. I have experienced many episodes of what Catholics call 'the dark night of the soul.' These are the moments when we feel, hear and see nothing from God and simply need to walk in faith despite this. Through all of these moments, I held on to my belief in Jesus, in the knowledge that he had a plan for me and that there was a reason for the darkness until of course logic overcame the deep-seated indoctrination and I was able to walk away entirely from this mindset. But though I walked away, that does not indicate ease or comfort. Another part of the reason I haven't spoken to many people about this is because I couldn't face being made to feel unfaithful when I literally felt abandoned. I have felt like my heart has been ripped out, like the one person who was supposed to be with me no matter what had just walked out of my life. There have been so many moments where I wish I could go back to believing just like I used to. I miss that comfort, that sense of peace that believing in something outside of yourself can bring. But I know that going back is simply not possible nor do I really wish it.

I mentioned last time that I still keep my picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus because of all that it represents for me and now hopefully you will understand this a little more. It is like keeping a photo of a lover who is no longer in your life but who left an indelible mark upon it that can never be removed. I originally thought that I would need to get rid of all remnants of my past religious life but when I tried to give away the picture the tears began to well up in my eyes. My beautiful and wonderful friend Jae whom I was giving it to, very wisely suggested that I needed to keep it for a while longer and she was right. I  will need to keep it for the rest of my life, I think.

Ultimately when I let go of my faith, it actually resembled more of a desperate plunge off a cliff than a calm decision at a crossroads to go a different way. I held on to the edge of that rock for so long, desperately trying to pull myself back over the ledge but in the end I simply couldn't hold on any longer and I fell...I fell from grace.

So please dear friends, when I share my heart with you, be kind. For me it is and has never been a debate about theology and to reduce it to that would not only be hurtful to me but also a denial of what Christianity itself claims to be, a relationship with God. Understand that my heart is still recovering from the betrayal of a once beloved friend. He claimed that he would always be there for me but he wasn't. He claimed that he would protect me from the harshness of this life but he didn't. He claimed that he was everything but he turned out to be nothing.

Thanks again for sharing this journey with me. Until next time.

Peace and Happiness
Amber

Where to begin?...

So where to even begin? Besides having an orange and vodka that is...

So I thought maybe I should write about my background as relates to religion. I am nearly 33 years old and for 31 of those years I have been immersed in the Christian faith. I was brought up in a protestant denomination called 'Churches of Christ' which is not to be confused with 'The Sydney Church of Christ.' The denomination I was involved in is very similar to the Baptist denomination. The particular church that I grew up in, however, was rather more fundamental than most.

I grew up believing the obvious Christian doctrines:

-We are all sinners and in need of God's grace, forgiveness and redemption.
-Jesus procured this for us by his death and resurrection on the Cross
-Those of us who believed in the name of Jesus had been specifically chosen to be his children and were destined to spend an Eternity of bliss with him.
-Those who did not believe in the name of Jesus were destined to eternal suffering in Hell.
-We should endeavour to live our lives according to the word of God which was the manual to good living.

Up until very recently, I believed all of this to be true. This is not to say that I never questioned my faith or that I never disagreed with things that I was taught. Being a rather outspoken person as well as one who needs to understand why I believe the things that I do, I was never comfortable with simply accepting things to be so because I was told to. In retrospect though, I can see that there was a myriad of beliefs that I didn't even realise I had accepted without question due to the fact that they were so deeply ingrained into my thinking.

When I was 23 I committed the 'unthinkable' according to my family! I became Catholic. After suffering great depression and anxiety, I found the Catholic expression of faith to be extremely beautiful and comforting. It was a very meditative religion and happy to rely on the knowledge that God was 'mystery'. Coming from the very black and white, fundamental, Protestant approach, I found this to be a welcome relief. The physical expressions of faith, such as the icons and statues, I found to be very appealing to my imaginative spirit. I still have extremely fond memories of my time in the Catholic church and I am very grateful for the comfort and peace that the Catholic faith gave me during some very difficult times in my life. Yet it was inevitable that eventually even this faith would be brought into question.

As the years passed by, I began to question more and more church teachings with the ultimate result being that I had to reject them entirely. Some of these teachings were:

-The prohibition of contraception
-The belief that homosexuality was a sexual perversion
-The acceptance that the God of the Old Testament was the same God of the New Testament and therefore was justified in condoning all the atrocities recorded there.

And this is only to mention a few!
I began to feel uncomfortable with being associated with the Church in general as I must confess to being rather embarrassed by it. I used to frequently say that while I was 'unashamedly Christian' out of all people that annoy me Christians annoyed me the most! I often felt rather guilty for feeling like this as I felt that since I was a Christian I should be supporting them. The fact that I wasn't made me feel a little uneasy. The truth of the matter was that I had already left my faith behind me...I just hadn't realised it yet.

The moment of clarity came when I began my Master of History. I had previously completed a Bachelor of Nursing and a Bachelor of Music. After working as a nurse for close to ten years, I finally realised that, due to my anxiety, it was not a good environment for me to work in and I let my registration lapse. My music had always been mostly a hobby and didn't look likely to develop into anything more than that. But when I began my history studies, I felt everything within me come to life. I had always loved history but never thought it was something serious I should pursue. But every word I read made my mind feel that rain was falling after an incredibly long drought. And knowledge...my mind soaked up knowledge like it had been waiting for it all my life. I was studying Ancient History and my very first subject was 'Pagan religions of ancient Greece and Roman.' That subject literally changed my life.

 As I began to study past religions I realised that my religion was nothing new. I had always been led to believe that Jesus brought something new, something novel to the world that it had never heard before. Well I realised now that this simply wasn't true. The themes of Christianity were most likely as old as humanity itself but they had been encountered through many different faiths and under the names of many different deities. There truly was 'nothing new under the sun' to quote the writer of Ecclesiastes. I realised that had I been born 3000 years ago, I would have believed that Zeus, Hercules and Aphrodite (to mention only a few) were real deities and (according to Christian teaching) for no fault other than ignorance, I would have been condemned to an eternity of Hell for not knowing Jesus Christ. Although not all Christians take this stance, just the existence of similar religious structures before mine had even been heard of was all I needed to take a step back for a second and look in on my belief system like an outside observer. And that was when I realised that my belief system was no longer what I thought it was! And that was that! Almost overnight, I realised that I had been walking along a different path without even knowing it.

About a year has now passed. Needless to say, that though the moment of realisation may have been filled with clarity and simplicity, nothing else on the journey since then has been. Life has been a constant mishmash of confusion, re-evaluation and redefinition. I am slowly starting to rebuild my belief system but it is so hard sometimes to know where I begin and my beliefs leave off as so much of who I am has been formed on a religious framework. I have come to realise that this will always be the case. Religion is a part of who I am and in order to embrace the future, I do not need to discard the past. If history has taught me anything, it is that it can lead us into new and amazing realms of experience and understanding if we only acknowledge and pay attention to it. For me to discard every element of religion from my life would be to discard 31 years of my life and indeed to also rip out pieces of my soul and throw them away. So I have kept my picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus because of all that it represents for me. A sacred heart, purity, unconditional love. These are things of beauty that I wish all the world to see. Though I no longer believe that Jesus is a deity, what his story represents remains real and beautiful for me.

So I take the next step into a future full of swirling unknowns. But my past is secure behind me and my present is bathed in the light of hope and precious dreams. Thankyou for walking this journey with me!

Until next time.
Peace and Happiness
Amber

So much pain in my heart
Slowly dying within
As I fall from the comfort
Of all I have been.
No idea where to go now
No clue what to do
No framework of knowledge
Or thoughts of what's true.

My soul is adrift
In an ocean so wide
Yet in all of this space
There is no where to hide
From the fear I encounter
The despair that I feel
As I'm desperately searching
For something that's real.

Is there anyone out there?
A place I can rest?
Lay down my head
And feel peace in my breast?
Won't someone please hear me
Hear the words of my song?
For all that I'm wanting
Is a place to belong.

Copyright August 2014 Amber May Bremner