What is church for?

What is church for?

If for worship of God..... how about nature instead?

If for self-education.... how about documentaries, books, field trips, and community lectures instead? 

If for value-building.... how about social justice pursuits and charitable giving?

If for community.... how about seeking out people with shared values and common interests?  What are those?

I, for one, value global citizenship and environmental stewardship, as well as home education and individual liberty.  I enjoy music, especially singing, but also dancing, drumming, and poetic martial art movement (aka QiGong and Taiji).  I enjoy Eastern spirituality/philosophy as well as Pagan nature/magic.  I love to read and watch documentaries, as well as go on silent or guided retreats in nature.  I enjoy people watching and good food (especially chocolate).  I like to think and write.  I enjoy learning mindfullness through meditation and learning a new skill, like sign language or playing an instrument or painting or knitting or baking.  I want to BE in the world, and be aware of being in the world.  

My faith died a natural death

I am not only deconstructing my faith anymore; I'm officially deconverting.  It's as if a fog has gently been lifting from having surrounded me all my life.  Whenever I wanted to convert to yet another religion, it was when I felt the fog start to lift and desperately clung to anything resembling it - smog, clouds, steam.  But for whatever reason, this time it was different.  This time, my faith simply and gently... passed away.  I knew that what I believed wasn't "true" as in "factual", but I still felt that I could reasonably believe it on a symbolic level.  The faith was still useful to me as a metaphor.  But as time went on, I realized that actually, while it may have been a good transition, it wasn't a place I could permanently reside.  Faith of any level still entailed church attendance and thereby association with a community of believers with whom I did not agree about the ultimate reality of things, nor the resulting set of values that emerge from certain religious beliefs.  Faith meant reciting certain prayers that I felt were not only untrue, but now unhelpful and distracting at best and downright counterproductive at worst.  Most telling of all was that faith was giving my children explanations that I no longer believed in myself.  And that is where I had to draw the line.  I could not - would not - lie to my children.

And so now I'm left with the empty shell of religious observance minus religious faith, and I'm trying to figure out a way to rid myself of the unnecessary remnants.  My husband, bless his heart, has always followed me into whatever church I wanted our family to attend, even though he never fully embraced any organized religious world view.  He simply held his private beliefs and felt no need for external validation by a community of like-minded believers.  He just liked the fellowship.  And now I'm trying to pull him out altogether and I don't know how to proceed.

What's more, after spending the first decade of parenting doing all I could to help my children embrace our Catholic religion, specifically going on a two year journey of church shopping for the most reverent Mass experience in order to surround them with people who "took their faith seriously", I now find myself no longer taking our faith seriously.  I go through the motions because it's familiar, and there are certainly parts I enjoy.  But I feel the need to dechurch a bit, shake off the internalized guilt-inducing sense of "Sunday obligation".  

I know that moving to the UK in a few months will provide a natural transition, so perhaps all I have to do is wait it out.  The Universe has been gracious like this to me before. 

We finally found a reverent, beautiful church that allowed my son to receive Communion without having to wait for an arbitrary age... and New Year's Eve 2023 he impromptu began serving at the altar and hasn't looked back.  He loves it!  And we have enjoyed seeing him bond with other alter servers, most of whom are grown men, in an all-boys type environment.  But the flip side of that is.... now that we're in a church that embraces my son without discriminating against him by age.... we're also in a church that discriminates against my daughter on account of her sex/gender.  Not when it comes to reception of Communion, but still.  

In spite of the reverence and beauty and small community, my daughter is no more a believer than she was at the onset.  And now I've joined her.  She believes certain things - like the existence of God, without details about that, and has theories about life after death, but nothing that requires church or organized religion.  But my son seems to be hooked!  He's recently asked if, when we return from the UK, we can return to this church. Of course, a lot can change in 3 years, I hope.

I've spoken to my husband about finding a Sunday alternative in the UK where we can go as a family and enjoy community with others, some singing, some sort of ritual (my son likes "holding things" and "processions") and making a contribution to the gathering/community (my daughter liked helping to make the Prosphora bread that was then used for Communion during Sunday services).  We alreayd know we won't be going to another Byzentine church in the UK as the nearest one is 4 hours away.  So for now we're letting my son enjoy his time serving at the altar while he can.  

Maybe the whole thing will die a natural death after all through this move.  Maybe we'll find Sunday family nature hikes to be much more replenishing for our souls and our family.  Maybe we'll plug into some other communities, built around common interests and/or values instead of presumed common beliefs. That is my wish for us on this next leg of our journey.

Previous Reasons for my Faith

Always be ready to give an account for the reason of your faith.

I doubted off and on many times, for many years. I tried to uncover the truth on my own. I leaned on my own understanding. It led me to propositions that would end in confusion, contradiction, and despair.

I realized that many of those who question the Gospel likewise are not persuaded by scientific facts or reality (abortion, binary gender), so there's no reason to use their tactics in approaching truth, as they have been proven to be faulty.

Others who doubt the faith nonetheless do not live by any alternative that would be convincing to it's efficacy: they lack inner peace & joy; they're anxious about many things. What good would it do me to follow in their footsteps? We could wallow together in misery, but why if there's a better way?

I decided that I - and everyone for that matter - want to be happy. So I began to reflect on what brings lasting happiness. It's not material goods. It's not prestige. It's not control or power. It's not even perfect health and creature comforts. All these things come and go.

But when I considered the approach provided by the gospel of Jesus, it all fell into place. God made me for a specific purpose: to know, love, and serve Him, *so that* I can spend eternity in heaven with Him. In other words, God's purpose for my life is my lasting happiness!

The way to this happiness is through discerning and abiding by natural laws and principles that are outlined in the Bible, specifically in the Gospels (especially the Beatitudes and the entire Sermon on the Mount) and Proverbs and the 10 Commandments. These have been tried and true. Those who do not follow these do not experience lasting joy and peace.

I also discovered that faith is both a grace and a choice. If I consciously choose to believe and ignore the temptations of the world (to trust my own intellect, for instance), then God will reward me with a strengthened and ongoing faith. Therefore I choose to believe in the Nicene Creed. Since I say this is a choice, no appeal to my pride will shake my faith because it isn't based on my own understanding. It is based on grace and will.

Having a certain faith has proven to be especially grounding and centering as our society - both culture and politics - has continued to deteriorate into utter chaos. In this environment, if one doesn't stand for something - something solid and everlasting - then one will fall for anything, and any number of things.

I thank God for my autistic brain, which does not allow me to tolerate nonsense. Things must make sense to me for me to accept them, and in a Catholic-Christian world-view, they do. The world makes sense. The chaos makes sense. The desires of my heart make sense. The trials we face make sense. And if all these things line up, I'd be a fool to refuse to extend this sense-making to the belief in eternal life, salvation, and heaven with God.

I believe because it makes me happy. I believe because the alternative is utter despair. I believe because I choose to believe, and in turn, God blesses me with faith. I believe because it makes better sense than not believing. Amen.

What if the Transgender Movement is just what our society needs right now?

I identify with my biological sex.  My gender identity is the same as my biological sex.  That happens to be what's considered normal in the place and time I live.  I also come from another culture, which has given me insight into "doing femininity" in a variety of ways.  I don't feel constrained by strict gendered stereotypes.  It doesn't phase me to have been a tomboy, or to read that my autistic brain is more "masculine".  These things don't cause me to question my femaleness nor my femininity.  I believe I am feminine enough.  I do not do feminine things that make me uncomfortable.  Like high heels or waxing body hair. 

But there is another aspect of myself that I do not identify with nearly as strongly as seems to be traditionally expected of me: my marital status.  I grew up hearing (and resisting) that once married, "two become one" essentially means "both become him".  I did not drop my "maiden" name.  

In fact, I doubled down and used the opportunity to switch from my father's to my mother's surname.  And my husband and I arranged to both hyphenate each other's names.  So while I did add his to mine, he likewise added mine to his. What's more, I have never felt comfortable using the social title "Mrs." I simply saw no reason why my marital status should affect any social interaction I have with anyone.   

It caused me great anguish every time I was referred to not only by my husband's surname, but by his first name as well.  I once pointed this out to a lady who pointed to the "Mrs." on an envelope with what was supposed to be both our names and said "there you are". (I have used "Ms" before and after getting married.)

So maybe this is what it's like to be transgender.  Maybe a trans person simply does not put as much weight on their biological sex or level of masculinity/femininity.  Maybe a trans person doesn't think their adherence to sex stereotypes or gender roles (or lack thereof) should determine how they interact with the world around them.  Maybe their identity is much more basic, more generic, more universally human?

I was once "misgendered" when a boy in my middle school math class called me an "it" on account of my not being particularly stereotypically feminine.  I was offended by this, and I assumed everyone would be offended by being referred to by a non-gendered pronoun (like "it" or "they").  But I was assuming everyone identified as strongly with their sex and gender as I do.  What if other people experience the world differently from us?  What if other people place more or less value on things than we do?  What if we're having a mass knee-jerk reaction to the transgender community becoming more vocal and assertive on account of our own insecurities?

I remember discerning where I fell on the same-sex marriage issue before Obama made it legal nation-wide.  I listened to the conservative arguments against it, and I simply did not buy it.  I did not see how same-sex marriage in any way threatened MY marriage, or heterosexual marriage as an institution.  In fact, what I saw as the greatest threat to marriage (of any kind) was two-fold: promiscuity and no-fault divorce.  

When gay people started demanding access to the same family rights as straight people, society could've done one of two things.  One - it could've redefined their terminology without compromising their values (while they still had them), saying OK, you can marry, but we're holding firm on no sex before/outside of marriage.  Or two - it could've resisted kicking and screaming all the way, forcing gay people into generations of extramarital sexual relations on account of having no other socially acceptable alternative outside of celibacy.  And to my Catholic and Orthodox Christian friends I say - celibacy is indeed a calling, but certainly not a simple solution to all of life's problems.  There is way too much focus on sexuality in our society.  From both sides.  Too promiscuous on the secular side, and too prudish on the religious side.

At any rate, now that trans people are making similar demands as gay people before them, again society has a chance to respond in one of two ways.  One - we can redefine terms and continue on our merry way, holding fast to a continued need for both femininity and masculinity in society, without accusing either of toxicity.  Or two - we can resist kicking and screaming all the way, forcing trans people to eventuall erode any gendered expression from public life at all.

Will this happen?  I don't know.  Could this happen?  Why not?  If they're going to be told over and over and over again that they do not get to identify as a woman or man because their sex doesn't match their identity, they will do what they need to do to meet their psychological needs.  They will go after gendered stereotypes as a whole, eradicating them so that there is no more gendered difference among people, and therefore their personal identities would become a moot point.

I don't know about ya'll, but I for one want to maintain my freedom to embrace certain feminine stereotyped roles, appearances, presentation.  I don't want skirts or makeup to become illegal any more than losing the freedom to choose to stay home to raise my children and not have to worry about being drafted into military service.  

My being a woman, my being a female, my being feminine.... these are not inherently threatened by biological males wanting to present like me, nor by biological females not wanting to present like me.  There are already many women (more so than men due to the homophobic stigma against effeminate men until quite recently) who do not identify as trans and yet would be tricky to pick out of a line up as being female, due to their androgenous or even masculine appearance.

Now, that doesn't mean there aren't certian issues of equality that present a conflict of interest.  Women's sports is one thing that comes to mind.  Forcing terminology onto people (people with uteruses or ciswomen come to mind).  While I may in fact be a person with a uterus, that is not how I identify.  To me, my uterus means something.  Much like some women's marital status means something more to them than it did to me, and they insist on being referred to as "Mrs."  To each their own.  I have no problem calling a woman "Mrs." if that's what she wants (I would stop short of ever using a woman's husband's given name to refer to her, though. I just can't.)  So if a biological female identifies as a man, I say let him.  And then, indeed, this newly expanded definition of "man/him" would in fact mean that new concepts are now possible: menstruating men, pregnant men, lactating men.  

Is it comfortable for me?  No.  You know what it is?  It feels like I'm being robbed.  These things used to be uniquely woman's territory.  Now they aren't anymore.  And that's a loss that we have to grieve societely.

Dare I compare this to the integration of Black women into the feminist movement?  Or the civil rights movement?  Black men had been emasculated by the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.  They were fighting to be Black MEN, to be recognized on an equal footing with white MEN.  So for them, to include Black women felt like it was taking away from what they were fighting for.  Similarly for white women.  White women were trying to establish their equality with white men, who had the right to vote.  They wanted to be associated with those who already had privileges and status in society, not with Black women, who had less privileges and status.  Both white women and Black men worried about losing their proximity to the desired privileged status of white men, to the detriment of Black women who had to fight both sexism and racism simultaneously.

Are we biological women doing the same thing now to our fellow trans citizens?  Are we afraid of losing our proximity to the privileged status that is still associated with white men in a lot of corners of our country?  We don't want to share.  There's an element of priding ourselves on our "victim" role as the "second sex" (Simone de Beauvoir).  Poor us.  We are physically weaker, therefore we need our own sports, locker rooms, bathrooms.  Woe is us.  We are cursed with menstruation and the reproductive burden, so we want special consideration in other areas of life, since we don't get the respect we deserve for our feminine contributions.

What if it will be thanks to trans women that all women finally become truly equal?  What if it'll be thanks to trans women that there will be no need to physically separate women from men in locker rooms and bathrooms because there will be sufficient infastructure, technology, and peer pressure to simply treat other people with dignity and respect simply for being human, not because they're "the weaker sex"?  

Notice the public debate is not about trans men.  No one seems to mind too much that trans men are doing all the same things as trans women.  There's an understanding in our society that biological men are still top dog.  Therefore, biological men are not threatened by the presence of biological women, and on account of there being a history of women seeking to infiltrate traditional men's spaces (workforce, military, clergy; pants, short hair), trans men in men's spaces isn't met with the same level of resistance as trans women in women's spaces.

Yes, there are precautions that must be in place.  There certainly are biological differences that make it problematic for a male body to be in the vicinity of female bodies under certain circumstances.  Maybe that second amendment controversy needs to come to the forefront here.  What if every woman armed herself with a handgun and training in how to use it?  What if then everyone knew that if you try anything in a women's locker room or bathroom, you will find yourself staring down the barrel of all those women's new besties?  What if we step up security in all public spaces to ensure sexual assault is not a temptation?  

What if biological women were to welcome trans women instead of fearing that they're taking something from us?  What if we were to take on the role of showing them the ropes?  What if we teach them what it means to be a woman, so they don't just get their information off the internet?  What if we use our feminine charm and nurturing to help trans women become better women?  What if we take on the role of setting the standards and calling the shots, rather than allowing ourselves to be on the defensive?  What if we stand firm in our confidence about what it means to be a woman?  What if allowing one other "type" of woman into the fold actually strengthened our "cause"?  What if it may not be a bad idea to have women with biologically male bodies "on our side", "on the inside"?  What if the emergence of transwomen into communities of women is precisely what will finally even the playing field between the binary sexes in society?

And what if the price we have to pay for that comes in the realm of sports?  What if we reenvision sports?  What if we stop separating sports by sex and start separating it by weight or size, like in martial arts?  What if we have different tiers of runners, say tier A for those who can run up to X speed, and tier B for those who can run above X speed?  What if integrating sports between the sexes is what will finally raise women's sports in the consciousness of sports fans everywhere?  What if women athletes end up getting paid the same as men because of this integration?  

What if the future can be nothing like what we've previously experienced and everything we can possibly imagine?  What if it only takes a little bit of labor pains to iron out the details, but if we're just willing to let go of the past and embrace the future, we can all evolve as human beings?

What have I lost faith in?

Why would someone who WANTS to believe.... not belive?  I have always had religions and spirituality as special interests of mine.  It has long confused for me what I "ought" to believe on account of my "salvation", which was based on the idea that Truth with a capital T is found in the literal interpretation of religion, and it's only a matter of me figuring out WHICH religion is the actual, true one.  What I finally figured out is that there is SOME truth in all the religions, so if I choose to focus on those truths, I get tunnel vision and start to feel convinced that I ought to convert because "I have found the truth!"  But after several of such experiences back and forth, taking into consideration the whole of each religion and realizing that none of them are totally true, I finally became OK with the idea and started to imagine what life would be like if indeed none of the religions were true.

1) So the first reason I've lost my faith (this time around) is that I've given myself permission not to force beliefs onto myself if reason and gut instinct don't let me.

Simultaneously I have been reading up on Taoism and that world view absolutely resonates with me 100% and there are no doubts at all in my mind regarding what the philosophy teaches.  I can observe the world for myself and come up with the exact same conclusions as the Tao Te Ching.  I don't need faith.  I don't need to put my trust in a book, place of worship, nor prophet to arrive at the truth.  I can get there directly myself.  

2) So the second reason I've lost my faith (this time around) is that I've found an alternative world view that actually makes a lot of sense and with which I am very comfortable and have no lingering doubts about.

In the last couple of years of my spiritual journey, I have tried the usual suggestions of surrounding myself with people of faith and hoping that their faith would rub off on me.  I took my family on a church hopping journey to find a church where I felt the people were reverent "enough" for my taste.  I sought out spiritual direction and retreat leaders.  I sought out Bible studies.  None came to fruition.  One priest never responded to my inquire about spiritual direction.  I met with another twice, but he never followed up with me after I stopped coming without notice.  I asked an older friend in the faith to serve as my spiritual mentor, but she discerned that it was not for her to take on such a role.  I inquired about doing a Bible study with a new friend and her husband, but after what amounted to a couples date via videochat that must've been a vetting interview, she pushed me to attend her church instead of meeting with us 1:1 to study the Bible together.  My husband and I attended for several months a small group of people from one of our previous churches to discuss matters of faith (not a Bible study per se).  It ended, a new baby was born, and we stopped meeting.  When one of them reached out to us after noticing we weren't at their church anymore, I responded with my honest reasons (which were faith-based), and I never heard from her again. 

3) So another reason I have lost my faith (this time around) has been that my efforts to draw closer to God via surrounding myself with faith-filled people has shown me that people either don't really believe what they claim, or they don't think it's important enough to share with me.  Maybe they saw my genuine questions and concerns as proof that I was beyond help and they didn't want to waste their evangelism on me.  But it showed me that if these people actually represented "the truth", then my efforts would've been welcomed and met with some measure of success.

I also have come to realize that I have a bit of an obsessive personality.  I was technically diagnosed with mild OCD, and I personally think (if at all) that it was specifically scrupulosity.  As such, I have tried to keep my obsessive compulsions under control by talking myself through the urges to "do" more intense religious stuff.

4) This is another reason that I have lost my faith (this time around); perhaps my "faith" was never actually faith but rather an obsession all along?  Or merely an autistic special interest, that could easily be replaced with some other interest that doesn't claim to have my eternal life in its hands.

Turns out that my "loss of faith" is NOT based on any anger I have towards God.  I love God.  God is awesome.  I don't really understand God, which I think is the most authentic and honest commentary on God there is.  I'm still trying to figure out what it means to believe in God without religion.  There are no neat pre-packaged rules or dogmas that come in tow.  It's just that - God is, as God is purported to have said in the Hebrew Bible.  We can't know God the way we know another person, and that's OK.  God can still be "personified" or talked about "as if" God were a mere person, because God is "supra-personal" - personality is included in God's being, but it is not sufficient to describe God.

I'm certainly not "faithless" due to a recent loss.  My dad passed away nearly a year and a half ago.  It was sudden and unexpected, but it was also bitter sweet on account of his having been mentally distraught with his quality of life for a long time, along other issues.  So I'm grateful that my dad is "in a better place" now.

Speaking of gratitude, I hear that's another reason people lose their faith - they forget to have a gratitude practice.  Well, that's not me, either.  Every evening during family prayers, we go around thanking God for something we're grateful for.  Sometimes we pick a theme.  And every morning, I read the prayers I have written both expressing my thanks and interceding for my closest loved ones (another thing often said to be a reason for losing faith - being too focused on self and not enough on others).

So I believe in God.  I love God.  I'm grateful to God.  The only think left that I can think of is forgetting God's prior work in my life.  If I take the time to reflect, I remember how God has walked hand-in-hand with me my entire life.  I have often said that I lead a charmed life.  That's not to say that it's been a life without challenges, or even at times suffering.  

God saved me and my mom from carbon monoxide poisoning.

God sent my dad abroad and convinced my mom to join him and bring me.

God safely landed our plane when we were experiencing an emergency.

God protected my father when he'd fall asleep behind the wheel coming home from working overtime.

God did allow my dad's motorcycle accident to result in permanent, irreversible brain damage... but God did save his life.  God did return his mobility when doctors thought he'd never walk again.  God did give us 23 more years with him after his accident, which opened up countless other life lessons.

God helped me find my husband early in life (at age 20).

God kept me safe in the Army.  God kept my husband safe in the Army.

God answered our prayer for children....eventually.  Again, the long wait and heartache served to teach priceless life lessons that we can only understand with the gift of hindsight.  But the bottom line was: God did bless us with two wonderful children!

God kept my daughter safe in spite of her having an undiagnosed velamentous umbilical cord insertion, and her cord having been wrapped twice around her, bolero style.

God even soothed my anxiety by providing me with an official autism diagnosis that has helped me to better undersand (and therefore) accept myself.

God has been active in my life, as you can see.  God is not in question.  So what do I mean when I say I feel like I've lost my faith?

I've associated my faith with an organized religion, and it's been difficult to let go of the neat albeit limiting belief system that provided all the answers and prevented me from ever having to do much discernment.  It fed into my codependent need for external validation.  I didn't know a thing was true or right until I knew others thought so.  God has peeled that crutch away from me, forcing me to stand on my own two feet of faith, if you will.

So maybe this lack of faith is actually just another thing to add to my list of things I'm grateful to God for?!  Maybe instead of saying "I lack faith", I start saying that I "lack religion".  That's not quite right, though, because I'm still a religious person, in that I still attend church and include other Catholic/Orthodox/Christian-generic practices in my spirituality.  But I don't have faith in my religion.  I don't practice my religion because I believe it's literally true.  I practice because it's such an ingrained part of my life.  It brings me comfort.  That's probably the autism talking.  I like knowing just what to expect from a liturgical form of worship and pre-written prayers.

But I actually experience God outside of the context of religion.  I experience God in nature, in silence, in solitude.  I experience God late at night, with a spiritual book and journal in hand.  Or on a retreat where I look around and notice the symbolism of everyday objects and occurrences.  Or when I catch myself living in the moment, mindful only of the joy found in the here and now.  

So why do I say that I "lack" faith, when clearly it's all around me?  It's only a matter of picking it up on a regular basis.  I have to make the time to sit still and meditate.  I have to make time to go away on retreat.  I have to make time to read and journal my thoughts.  I have to make time to be in nature in an unhurried way.  I have to make time to surround myself with beautiful, uplifting music or poetry.  I get a little hint of it at our Byzentine Catholic church.  The interior is fantastically beautiful.  It's warm and pleasant and I love bathing my sight with the red/brown/gold tones that surround me during liturgy.  I love that we sing, even if the singing is superior at the Orthodox church where we go for homeschooling co-op.  When I go there, I easily slip into the role of Orthodox Chrisitan woman, even though I'm not.  I wear a headscarf like many of the women there.  I wholeheartedly perform the metanoias to venerate icons or express physically what the spoken/sung words of our corporal prayer say.  Sometimes I get distracted with the disappointing thought: "I wish I believed what they believe".  But why?

What difference does it make if we all believe the same things?  Shouldn't what matters be that we all value the same things?  The same virtues?  

Yet even here, I know we diverge at times.  I lean conservative, for sure.  Which is why I've never been able to feel comfortable in a Unitarian Universalist church or with unprogrammed Quakers, both of whom tend to be quite politically active.... on the left.  Yet I can't say that I agree 100% with my conservative Christian friends who disagree about marriage between same-sex couples, or divorce, or birth control.  Most recently, transgender issues have arrived on my horizon (the fact that my children were finally at an age where they didn't require as much of my attention as before allowed me to really tune in during the pandemic to the trans grievences and all the issues that came with it).  I recoiled because the idea of stepping outside of a gender binary was so completely foreign and thus uncomfortable for me that I sought solace in a community where not only we agreed there were women and men, but we also knew which was which.

But now that I've had three years to process the idea, I'm slowly coming around to the idea and drawing comparisons between identifying with the opposite sex, or with both, or with neither, and my own experience identifying with the "Ms" social title in spite of being a married woman (and thus a "Mrs.")  Or with my neither feeling fully Polish nor fully American.  Or even - full circle - belonging to any of the religions that I've so desparately tried to fit in with.  

Maybe the point is that life isn't as black and white as I thought, and this is what I'm experiencing.  This is what I need to mourn - that certainty that used to come from a religious worldview.  

I am good, and so are you

People usually say that everyone wants to "be happy".  I don't think this is exactly right.  I think everyone wants inner tranquility, a sense of all being right with the world and within oneself.  I think this comes from the subtle recognition of our true nature.  Tranquility and inner peace makes me think of stillness, joy, acceptance, awe, beauty, observation, reception, breathing, embracing, free-flowing and unrestrained movement (say, dance), being in a state of flow, living in the moment...

That said, if we want inner tranquility, there must be something that interferes with this when we start to base our sense of self-worth on the validation of others.  Sometime in our early childhood development, we must have been taught that to live in that inner tranquility, there are certain pre-conditions that must be met first.  Often, these are quite literally the approval of others, especially our parents.  We are taught to respond to compliments of our being.  If we are told we are "good", it's generally in relation to something we are doing.  Therefore, we learn that to be at peace means to be "good", and to be "good", we must do X.  

Once that false notion is established and internalized, we start to pursue that external validation as a constant affirmation of our being OK.  And of course, it is not other people's job to always affirm us, especially since they're often busy trying to do the same thing for themselves.  And so since we're hyper aware of other's responses to us, we notice right away anything that veers even minutely away from 100% validation, and we immediately sound the alarm that something is not right, that we are not "good" (enough), and therefore CANNOT be at peace with ourselves UNLESS and UNTIL we DO something - please someone, change ourselves. 

This never-ending cycle feeds on itself and will never be satisfied.  The only way out is to get off the looney train.  Stop seeking validation outside of oneself, and recognize that I am already perfectly "good" without having to "do" anything special, and without having anyone affirm that for me.  I must learn to trust myself.  If I tell myself that I am well, then I am well.  Nothing else is needed to prove this to myself, and certainly not to others.  I can choose to be at peace with myself just as I am, even when others disapprove, because their approval is irrelevant to my inner state, unless of course I delegate my responsibility to maintain my mental and emotional equlibrium to others.

How can someone outside of myself ever truly judge me, though?  They will never know the entire thought process that went into my decision-making.  They will never have experienced my life's circumstances in the same way that I have.  They will never have had the same set of experiences in the first place. No one can ever relate 100% to my lived experience, so how can they truly tell me if I'm "good" or not?  Why should I trust them if they offer such a judgment?  It's chaos.  

We must remember that what we're struggling with, they are too.  Why should they be validating us when they ought to be validating themselves?  That's what happens - we start validating others, and forget to validate ourselves.  And then we fill that void by seeking others to validate us.  And then we're resentful of those who don't fully validate us, because we think - we're validing others, why can others validate us?  What if we all stop validating each other and start validating ourselves?

Will I make mistakes?  Yup.  So what?  Who taught me that I shouldn't make mistakes?  It doesn't matter, because they were wrong.  Mistakes are a part of life, just like breathing.  There's better and worse ways of breathing (some lead to hyperventilation, some are context-dependent [like holding one's breath under water]), but as long as we're breathing, we're "good".  We waste precious potential breaths when we think, "oh, no!  I shouldn't have breathed like that!  I should've slowed my breathing down a little.  That would've calmed me down.  I can't believe I did that." 

Mistakes are like breaths.  If the inopportune one happens, we acknowledge it and focus on the next one.  Nothing more, and nothing less. Mistakes are not evidence of our failure as human beings.  And while we're at it, successes (as measured by society's standards) are not evidence of our being exceptional human beings.

If something or someone does not help me circle back to this basic realization, I need to distance myself from it or them.  If my religion tries to make me focus on my mistakes (sin! confession! hell or purgatory!), then it's not leading me closer to my true nature of oneness with God (which is what even Christian scriptures claim to be the end goal of the Christian life, just via often convoluted wording).

If it's not helping, it's harming, and I'm distancing myself from it.

Following the Dao of Jesus

What if Christianity is not only not helping me, but is actually causing harm?  I'm not talking about abuses by Church authority figures, which is its own ironic evil. I'm talking about the way that Christianity is presented and taught in general; what if THAT is what's causing me harm?

Christianity is based on the premise that I am a victim of original sin.  I am sinful without any effort from me.  There's nothing I can do about it.  I'm doomed.  BUT... here's the good news!  If I accept Jesus's sacrificial death on the cross as somehow making it all better for me, then and only then can I rest in the Father's love again.  I intentionally didn't refer to Jesus's "atoning death" because not all Christian traditions see it as a "ransom".  Even in the more .... gentle, shall I say?.... approaches to the purpose of the Cross, nonetheless I NEED it.  I cannot escape the horrific torture of the Man I'm supposed to emulate, and even if we don't call it "payment for my sins", the implication is there.  

The message is clear - I am inherently not good enough.  God went through hell and high water and then some to bring me back, and I owe Him my life.  This is not the sort of gratitude that I find a healthy approach to life.  It's rather a sort of shame-based relief that the wrath of God passed me by. But there's still a wrathful God in the picture, and supposedly this is the God "of love" Who created me in the first place.  It would appear that He did so for His own entertainment, then.  And if that's the case, this sort of God doesn't exactly scream "virtue" and "goodness" and "righteousness".  

It seems that there's the Father, who is the yang, if you will, of the operation, with justice and the ensuing inevitable doom to humanity. And there's Jesus and the HolySpirit Who are the yin or the merciful aspect of God, with forgiveness and love.  Or maybe just Jesus is the yin, and the Holy Spirit is the connection between the two?  At any rate, it seems like the Trinity and Christianity as a whole is a sort of personification of what we read about in the Dao De Jing.

But in the Dao De Jing, the focus is not on sin, shame, guilt, wrath, punishment.  Rather, the focus is on acceptance, balance, inner tranquility, detachment.  The framework is completely different.  All the same aspects of reality are still there, but we are not taught to fear any of them.  We are not running from anything.  Or towards anything, for that matter.  We simple are, just like God introduced Himself to Moses when He said His name is "I AM".  If we are to be like God, then we, too, are supposed to focus our lives on "just being".  

I have known this on some level for a long time, but I've been oscillating between denial and unhealthy attachment.  I could not let go of my image of God.  In spite of my best efforts, I have been breaking the first commandment by creating a certain idol of God based on what other people have erroneaously told me about Him.  God is supposed to be mysterious and beyond definition or description, yet this has never stopped religions from insisting they've got Him figured out anyway, at least to some degree.  And I totally fell for it.  Their assuredness made me assume they were right just bc they believe they are.  

Instead, I am learning to trust myself.  I am learning to listen to that still, small voice of God that doesn't need to be filtered through the lens of religion and therefore someone else's experience or interpretation.  God will tell me whatever I need to know for this journey.  I trust God.  I trust God more than I trust Church.  I trust God completely.  I believe in God in that I believe in God's ability and desire to commune with me directly, to convict me directly of what I need to draw closer to Him, to be more like Him, and therefore to be more like My True Self.

I'm tired of trying to force myself into believing "facts" ABOUT Jesus instead of believing (read: trusting) Jesus based on what He taught.  I can't imagine going down in human history merely for my death, and not for my life, my character, my teachings, my efforts.  To say that we only needed Jesus on the cross, and not on foot among the people is to objectify Him into a token "source of coattails" that we can ride on into heaven.  I don't want to do that anymore.  I want to get to know Jesus for His teachings, and through His teachings, and I want to emulate Him based on His teachings.

And I believe Daoism actually does a better job of that than mainstream Christianity.