Faith

I've reached a point in my healing where I am gettinng comfortable enough to tackle religious matters.  

Like many, I experienced a good deal of religious abuse.  Some from the inherently damaging dogmas of my childhood church.  But more so in how my mentally ill parents interpretted those dogmas onto oppressive tortures of mind, body, and conscience.

Like so many, I feel that loss of faith.  I might as well admit I have it.  In my deeper moments, I have plaguging suspicions there isn't anything beyond this life.  See for me, being so drilled in apologetics, and subsequently applying that same dilligence to my questions, I have not fallen off the wagon at the points so many do: How a good God could let this happen.  How the dogmas are to protect the abusers.  Even I'm fine the way I am.  These all seem ignorant cop outs to me.

I'm not fine the way I am, I'm a wreck and I hurt people. That's why I'm doing this therapy!

Because bad people manipulate teachings to their advantage doesn't make them less true.  They also use gravity to their advantage.  Plus there are many other teachings that are protective. The abusers just choose to ignore those.

And how can I see what is good.  For a long time, I thought my parents were good and I was the problem. Obviously, my sense of good and bad are no standard to follow.

So I stayed on a lot longer.  I'm not off now.  I'm just having trouble finding who is really driving this cart.  Or if the cart is moving at all.  See for me, it comes down to two possibilities.  Either there is nothing, in which case this life has no meaning and I go back to the cold empty embrace of nihilism and eat the bullets it feeds me. 

Or there is, in which case I don't know what or how, good, bad, indifferent. Are the buddhists right that there is no deity, only consciousness?  Well this is hard to swallow since most native buddhists believe in a heaven and pray to their version of saints and gods. Though perhaps true to original writings, that atman is brahman teaching only really exists in western imports.  Sorry, nice idea, but I'm not swapping one myth for another.  I need facts here.

So without going through the decades of the search, I'll skip ahead and talk about where that leaves me.

Jesus.  The central figure of my faith.  I just can't let go of this guy.  He historically existed.  We know that.  His teachings are widely attested.  Hotly debated, yes, but well documented across ages and languages and cultures.  This guy brings tears flooding to my eyes instantly.  Why?  Because I want that life.  I want him.  I want to BE him.

 If I were toive my life the way he did and then die a torturous death like he did and find there was nothing else, it would not have been a waste.

While I could never endure my skin being peeled off alive rather than recant the 3 spiritual laws, I would scream from the burning stake that each lonely child is worthy of love, deserves to feel safe, and that I do in fact see them.  They should boldly set about making that world a reality and militantly hope nothing that meets those primal needs in another is in vain.

And if Jesus were to knock on my door or ride over the crest on a bike (see previous posts), my reaction would be, "Oh thank God you're true!"

So for this and no other reason am I a Christian, a disciple of this man.  And if he truly is one with God, as he says, I'm all in for it.

Forgiving Abusive Parents

I am writing this because I have been searching for something that makes sense. I keep finding crap and I know I am not alone in this search. I don't claim to have the absolute answers. I just want you to know there is a way forward. I am also a survivor. I am also a Christian. I also have a hard time coming to terms with what forgiveness means in this context.

We were hurt unreasonably. Damaged in a way that is illegal and unjust. It is something that wracks us for years. But as Christians we can't ignore forgiveness. So what does this mean for us? Is there a resolution? If God is worth the title, our faith can't possibly require that we chip away yet more of our soul to pretend at something we can't obtain. This is simply more abuse. Are we forced then, like so many, to abandon our faith? To pretend God isn't a presence in our lives? To toss out the beautiful, teachings of Jesus over this?  No we are not, though the vast majority of Christian press on the subject would lead you to believe otherwise.

If you were abused by your parents and are looking for a Christian perspective on foregiveness, you have likely found two camps.

One from modern psychology frames foregiveness as an internal process of moving past bitterness. It has little to do with the abuser. It's all about me healing and letting go. This is great.  But it doesn't fit the Biblical or even common notion of forgiveness being about the other person.  If we loan money to a friend who never pays us back, and we decide it isn't worth fighting over...if we forgive the debt in the truest sense, that is entirely about the other party.  Sure I have decided not to be bothered by it, but I could just as easily have gone to small claims court or smashed his car window and decided not to be bothered by that either.

This forgiveness of the other person's debt is exactly the meaning of the Greek word used in the New Testament.  So we can't really ignore that aspect.  Which leads us to the other camp.  This camp says that we have to forgive in that sense.  They dance around how hard it may be in various ways and to give them credit, few say we have to endure more abuse.  But for all the explicating, they essentially come down to, "sucks, but you were forgiven, so gotta do it."  The worst versions blame the victim and attempt to guilt us into it, citing verses about us not being forgiven if we don't forgive.  Newsflash this is exactly what my abusive parents said to gaslight me into thinking I deserved to eat my own vomit.  In case you still don't get it, this is categorically and absolutely the wrong move.  If you are one of those authors and you think you can use this approach with us, you are sadly mistaken.  Might as well lock the church door in our face.  You must have never experienced what we did (thank God for that) but then you have ZERO room to tell us anything.  Nope, just shut it.  Seriously, I want to rip your smug lips off your mouth...that's only half an exaggeration, unfortunately...welcome to hell buddy, it's where my parents dumped me.

If, on the other hand, you are writing that SH** because you have suffered and are deluding yourself by trying to convince others, I'm truly sorry more abuse has been heaped on you, and I hope you find a path to freedom by reading on.

So where can we go?  I have found pieces of a solution, at least enough to serve as indicators of a forgotten path, in the writings of George MacDonald.  Seriously, thank God for him.  I'm going to paraphrase as best I can because 19th century Scottish English is not the easiest thing for most people to read.  But if you can, go to the source.  First, let's understand God.  If this being exists, he has to be the highest form of whatever we can conceive, right?  We can't be more or better than anything worth the name God, so if we can conceive of something better, God must encompass that to an infinite degree.

We know that love is better than hate.  That peace is better than stress.  God must too.  So when God compares faith to being childlike, it must be because God is himself childlike.  Imagine what that means.  And if you can't, go hang out with a few healthy children and see.  They exist in the moment.  They love easily.  They forgive readily.  Empathize naturally.  But they also perceive wicked intent almost instantly and once harmed, are shy to return to it.  God is no less, and infinitely more!  He's not a cruel task master and nothing at all like the warped parents that ruined us.

If God is also all-knowing, he must know our hearts and our struggles.  He isn't going to be harsh or demanding.  He will understand our limitations and scars better than we ourselves can.  So if we can't bring ourselves to anything, He will accept it, sympathize, and gently work us toward healing, if it takes millenia.

He is not rushed for time.  In fact, time does not even bind him.  I'm not saying simply that he can go back and forward in time.  That's a mistaken understanding of time in the first place, like saying a shadow can poke you.  God exists outside of the linear construct we understand as time.  And since he is all-powerful, his purpose can not be thwarted.  It will be accomplished.  And he desires that none will perish.  That's it, done deal.  So give yourself time, all the time in the universe, and beyond.  God will be right beside you no matter how long it takes, because in reality, neither the past nor future exist.  One is only memory.  The other expectation.  The pure reality that quantum physicists can attest to is that the only state that exists is an ever present state of NOW!  

Of course, this will no doubt lead us to think, why did we have to suffer in the first place.  This is a valid question and one that Uncle George can also help us with.  But let's save that one and stay on track.  For our current purposes, we can just know that God is just.  This scary word is what I would argue to be the single biggest hangup for most Christians.  But only because we have such a bent understanding of justice.  It isn't just for God to allow evil to continue.  It isn't just for God to let the guilty go free.  It isn't just to punish an innocent for the wrongs of others, no matter how willingly that innocent may argue to take the punishment.  All of that substitutionary BS is exactly that.

God is just, and that justice demands that no wrong goes unrighted.  Again, we can get to why the wrongs exist in the first place later.  For now, we know they do.  But knowing a just God won't let them go is extremely freeing for abuse victims like us.  God says vengence is his.  Not that he's going to let them go scott free.  No, they will pay, every penny.  Remember the story of the debtors?  The one who doesn't do right is required to pay the last penny of what he owes.  Why?  Because if God is perfect, we must also be.  Rest assured, there is a perfect plan in place to not only bring absolute justice to the wrongs done to us, but to do it in such a way that those very abusers will come to us of their own free will and beg to be allowed to make it right.  I'm not saying that will happen in this life here on this earth.  But it WILL happen.  It IS happening.  It MUST because God is perfectly just and perfectly loving.

Now if you've done any soul searching enough to be reading this, you know yourself that you struggle to avoid perpetuating the wrongs that were done to you.  Abused become abusers to a large degree.  And if not that, at very least, you've screwed up many things due to your damage.  You wouldn't be a Christian if you didn't know this to be true.  So think of what this means.  We also have to be made perfect.  But in that innocent childlike way.  So do our abusers.  They were likely abused, right?  That in NO WAY excuses what they did.  But it does EXPLAIN some of it.  They are wrecked too.

And here is where we can reach a true forgiveness.  Simply acknowledging that they are wrecked and that God will give us all both justice and fair play.  I think it's that simple.

Not that I have come anywherre near achieving it.  But I am starting to see it, like the hazy outline of the coast viewed from the top of cloud-covered mountain.  It's out there in the distance and if I can follow this trickle, it will likely lead to a stream, and then a river, and eventually float me out to that open ocean of freedom.

So as for that trickle, what does it look like?  I honestly don't know.  It might be different for each of us.  I know that it can't in any way be helpful for me to ignore the wrong done to me.  Pretending I'm not hurt, or that it's fine in any way does an injustice to the abuser and to myself.  That isn't love, it's enabling.  So I won't be going anywhere near them.  Because, yeah, they make me effing enraged and sick to my stomach and anxious and tearful, and all that stuff you know as well.  But also because they need to feel that thorn prick deep from what they did.  It might be the very thing that leads to their salvation.  And if not, it's one more wound they made for themselves.

I do sincerely hope they will come to justice and healing, not for themselves, but so I can rest knowing the harm was not in vain.  I will do my best to bear up and absorb the wrong, like Jesus did.  Like him, I may cry hard, I may not understand.  But I'm on this path for a reason.  I see myself in him and him in me.  I didn't deserve what happened to me.  It hurt.  It was evil and it messed me up.  But it ends here.  I will not replicate it.  I will not be consumed by bitterness.  If Jesus can beat death, then I can beat this.  I will keep working on my therapy and prove that this doesn't own me.  They don't own me.  They don't own you.  We are so much more than the pain.  Every last drop of that pain is being transformed into something stronger than adamantium, purer than crystal clear glass.  It's something most people can't even see.  But we can see it in each other.  And God can tell.  You are his honored and loved child.  You will be perfected, no matter what was done to you and no matter what you can or can't do because of it.  That's no threat.  It's a promise.  

And I do really hope my abusers will be perfected as well.  That their wrong will be erased in all the sorrow and shame and pain they feel because of it.  Like Jonah, I hope they end up being such a force for good inspite of their best efforts to mess stuff up.  What better payback is there?  Then the debt will be paid!  Not in some get out of jail free card or hokey self-delusion that I don't care anymore, but in true repentance and humble restitution.  This is the path I think forgiveness lies on.

Gentle

Warning, this post is raw and may be triggering.

My world growing up was harsh and craggy. There was no tolerance for fear or tears or failure, apart from being the plaything of my mom who would make a doll-like show of "loving" us when we were not happy, and then as quickly drop it and move on when she felt it was over. It felt like being a living doll for a self-centered child. While what she did is inexcusable, I don't really blame her. She was abused and living out of the flawed coping skills she had developed in a culture that doesn't recognize the existence of mental illness. She would just as easily scare me by pretending to be someone else and laugh at my terror or throw something at me with all her force. Only to then expect us to all sit pretty to fit the scene of domestic bliss she had in her fantasy for the moment.

On the other end was a dad who was disengaged most of the time. He'd try sometimes, but mostly spend all his free time staring vacantly at the TV. But he'd sure come out of that slump to discipline. I had to tow the line in everything from waking up, to eating, to dressing. And lest you think this is merely strictness, as I believed until middle-age, the difference is that to disobey was a mark of your rebellion against God himself and the punishment was fierce and severe. Having to stand and not flinch for spanking, on top of being jerked around and maybe grounded too. Sleep past 7am on a Saturday morning? He'd grab my ankle and drag me to the floor or throw ice water on me. While berating me as lazy and rebellious. Don't want to eat the hunk of grissle my mom thought was a prime steak? Well I was going to, and in the next ten minutes while a grizzly of a man glowered over me and threatened. And don't even think of gagging on it. Throw it up and you'll eat it again!

Why? Because this was love. God disciplines those ue loves, spare the rod and spoil the child, afterall. God tolerates no sin, no disobedience and refusal to submit in total meant I was bound for hell. Better not die before getting it sorted because then, oops, eternal torment, sorry. Because love demands justice, which includes wearing the belt approved by your father as necessary and approrpriate, you miscreant. Better be stricter in future to quell that.

I understand his abuse too and give him his due that when that anger was turned outward for my protection there was no safer place to be.

But how could I learn what love is in this environment? How could I learn the nature of God? Yet somehow, I did hear him. I know I had nothing to do with it. Because in the midst of my self-destruction, stress illness, and self-hate, I had experiences that literally kept me alive. It would be years before I would seek treatment because I knew it was my own unworthiness that brought me so low.

Eventually much of this was repressed and I thought I had moved on. But now I'm learning to heal. I am trying so hard to see God's gentle nature. To be wrapped in his perfect comforting arms and held truly safe, to be understood for who I am and not told what I am thinking, even though nothing of the kind is in my mind. Which incidentally will make you doubt your own sanity.

Like Picard hanging by the wrists naked in front of the Cardassian torturer who will free him to a life of comfort if he will only stop lying and confess that there are three lights when he sees clearly there are four.

This is NOT God. This and all such voices are the very sprew of satan. God will not bruise a reed, he will bind up and secure and seek our good. He knows our fears and gently assuages them. He washes our tears gently and cries, himself, at our suffering. And even the lies we tell ourselves, this voice of trauma and conditioning, he gently brushes aside. Where I would raze the entire city of my upbringing, He is not threatened and will make all things right.

This is the God that rescued me. This is the God that I want to know better.

Fear

I started to write something entirely different from this, but find this topic needs addressing more. My last post was about fear. And while tyat fear has quieted somewhat, I started therapy again and my new counselor seems more active than my previous. I'm getting similar things, but this one seems more active, challenging. This may be good for me.

Right away he's pushed me to face things that are hard. I have so much anger and I avoid it. Try to keep it locked down. But he says this makes it worse. After a week rough week of things boiling to the surface, I am finally starting to feel a little settled again. What do I know. Maybe it's a false sense caused by distance from the acute experience.

What I have found in trying to comfort this interior wounded person is that when the anger fades, I am afraid. Sad and afraid. I can put on masks that are confident and even talk a good game of balanced psychology about it. But feeling it is another thing. Deep down I suspect many of my actions, good and bad, are really motivated by protecting this arrested and frightened child in me.

But what else could I do? I didn't know how to survive. My world was full of dangers and only bad advice if any was available. But i still feel judged for it. Ignorance is no excuse. Nothing short of perfection is accepted. There is always something I should have known or some better.  These are lies.