And the Word was God

I'm walking home from daily Mass, which I do not attend daily but appreciate having available.  I'm reflecting on the readings and asking myself if I'm going to be able to reenter this space again after my faith deconstruction.  I want to.  I long for it, actually.  The secular worldview, while enormously helpful in establishing how my weaknesses negatively influenced my previous religious world-view, was found wanting and unsatisfying.  It didn't take too terribly long for me to use my neurodivergent superpower of "but-what-about-ism" to start questioning the very secular post-Christian influencers who helped me realize the God I was taught in mainstream religion was a fabrication of "the patriarchy".  Everything they said about THAT god was true; he didn't exist.

But what about having a different understanding of God? - I thought.  What about the fact that while the Bible's god is indeed a tyrant when read literally, there is this thing called poetry... 

I completely agreed with these anti-Christian influencers when it came to dismantling a literalist view of God.  But they were clearly throwing out the proverbial baby with the religious bathwater.  They went from one extreme to the other.  They still held on to a literal view of the Bible and Christianity - and that's precisely why they rejected it!

I never thought of myself as having abandoned spirituality when I left the church a couple of years ago.  Over time, I felt more and more resonance with Daoism (you may have seen it spelled as Taoism).  There was no question in my mind that Daoism = wisdom for life.  There's nothing to "believe" or take on blind faith. Daoism cannot be disproven because it doesn't make any supernatural claims.  At least not the philosophical Daoism that has trickled into the West.  I started reading the Dao De Jing as scripture.  I could reflect on a passage and see how it applies to my life.  I could learn from it.  I could slowly start to accept things about life that previously gave me trouble.

But eventually I realized something was missing from a strictly philosophically Daoist worldview: God.  Dao is not a personal or even personified being to whom I could relate.  Oh, I tried talking to Dao.  I tried to make the equivocation in my mind.  Dao=God.  But just because I said so didn't make it ring true in my heart or mind. 

Then my daughter suddenly got incredibly ill.  And my Daoist worldview could only offer me a disinterested sense of resignation.  It is what it is.  What are you gonna do? No!  I couldn't accept that.  There HAD to be something I could do.  I remembered that in the past, in my religious days, I would've prayed to God - for healing, for strength, for wisdom - something!

So I accepted - in true Daoist fashion - the limitations of my Daoist worldview.  I thought - it may very well be an illusion, but if it's an illusion that can grant me peace of mind, then it's an illusion I want to embrace. And I prayed.

My faith has not miraculously come back overnight.  I'm still very much in the early stages of reconstructing my Christianity.  But at this point, I do know that is where I'm headed - back into Christianity, but this time with a mature spirituality.  

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul says: "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things" (verse 11).  This rings so true for me.  When I was a spiritual child, I understood the Christian faith as children do.  I believed in it on a literal level.  But now that I've become a fully mature adult, it's time to put away childish notions that have already been disproven by science, or that do not align with the idea of a balanced universe or a loving Creator.

And so, as I walked home from daily Mass the other day and wondered how my faith may look practically if I am no longer beholden to a literal interpretation of the Christian story?

Eckhart Tolle's words provided the answer.  What our senses can perceive - these are mere forms.  They do not hold our essence.  Our bodies - mere forms.  This is why death is not the end - we are not our bodies.  I am not interested in defending my slowly evolving understanding of an allegorical Christian worldview.  Apologetics implies head knowledge, facts, proofs, right and wrong.  None of that matters to me any more.  I am finished trying to optimize every facet of my life, my faith included.

Words are just another example of forms.  Words are not the things they represent.  Words can be translated, interpreted, even evolve over time.  Therefore, the words of the Creed, for instance, are beside the point.  I can recite them if I want to participate in communal worship.  I do not have to let my rigid thinking lock me into an either-or scenario where I must either agree with every literal dogma presented in the Creed, or abandon it altogether and refuse its recitation (something I did do at one point of my evolving faith).  They're just words.  They do not speak to my faith in God, nor to my relationship with God, nor to God's reality.

Words are words, and bodies are bodies.  They are here today, gone tomorrow.  What remains is the spirit behind them.  That's why Jesus talked about the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law.  Paul again, in 2 Corinthians talks about Christians having been made "competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."

The Spirit will not be contained in mere words.  The Holy Spirit will not be limited to mere vocabulary.  God Who is Spirit can never be understood by way of language.

The words are just traditions, like everything else - vestments, feast days, candles and incense, bread and wine, prayer beads and mantillas - words are sacramentals.  They can be used to draw us closer to God, but they can just as easily be used to build a wall around us, blocking God's presence from being felt.  

I believe the reason we were given the command against idols in Exodus 20:4 was to help us remember that God cannot be grasped. "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below." Words are a human invention.  Nature exists in perfect balance without a single human word.  Oh, there's the Christian sense of Jesus being the Word of God, but notice it's the entirety of the person of Jesus that is this "word".  It's not his name that we mean when we refer to Him as "the Word".  After the resurrected Jesus was encountered by Mary, who in her joyful relief and excitement attempted to grab onto Him, Jesus said: "Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father (John 20:17). How much more true is it that we ought not to cling to mere words about Jesus, or God.

Again and again we are reminded that God simply is.  Naming God, describing God, defining God - all futile.  Yet we try over and over to claim that we - our denomination, our religion, our interpretation - we have "the truth" about God.

So again, I can live with those words of the Creed, or the words of the homily that at first rubs me the wrong way.  The priest, after all, is just another form, doing his best (let's hope) to make sense of the Ultimate Reality - a tall order indeed.  Those words are there for the same reason as the stained glass, the reliefs, the statues, the icons.  Those words are there for the same reason a week is 7 days, or that we come together to worship on Sundays.  Those words are there for the same reason all of these words refer to the same Source of All: Dios, Bóg, Deus, Gott, Allah, Bhagvan (Hindi), Shen (Chinese), Devaha (Sanskrit), Nkulunkulu (Zulu), Elohim (Hebrew), God. The word is not God.

The word is not God. Words are not God. Words cannot, therefore, express Who or What God actually is.  Only Silence and Stillness and Solitude can do that.  And that can be done within a Christian context. I am going back to the cloak of Christianity for the incidentals.  For the traditions.  For the culture and community.  I am not going back to Christianity for God.  There's no need.  God does not belong to Christianity.  God is all in all.  There is nowhere I can hide where God would not be. 

“Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.” – Psalm 139:7-10

“Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.'” – Isaiah 30:21

“And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” – Matthew 28:20

Getting Ready to Start Living (lol)

I want to believe.  Why? Because if I believe, then I'm done searching and can finally rest.  Once at rest, I can live from a place of wholeness to simply be the person I was created to be.  Nothing to do, nothing to change, no one to impress, simple being.  This is why I feel so at rest in nature.  Forest bathing really helps me feel close to God.  I observe other organisms simply being, doing what they were made to do, not striving to be something else, not trying to impress each other (except of course the mating rituals of various animals, which I can see as plain fun ;) ). 

Having come from an enmeshed family system where I was taught that I was OK and accepted because I toed the line of the system's values, I internalized a lack of faith in my own intuition in a sense.  I've vehemently fought against that, but the idea still has a hold on me nonetheless.  I want to be free from the assumption that I require external validation in order to have permission to fully live into my own potential.  I want to move full speed ahead with my ideas without always looking over my shoulder in hopes of that thumbs up that reassures me I'm headed in the right direction. 

I know I cannot look to my family for this, so I have transferred that responsibility to a religious world-view.  Maybe my relatives don't always approve, but if my religion says that God approves, that's much more important anyway and gives me the guts to act on my intuition.

So what would I do if I didn't hesitate so much?  If I didn't second guess myself so much?  What would life be like if I had self-confidence and self-acceptance?

For one thing, I would pay my family's bills.  I would know what goes into running the household, and I would know how to make sure the utilities stay on.

For another thing, I would engage meaningfully with my local community.  I would interact with other humans rather than shying away from them for fear of being pushed around or taken advantage of.

For a third thing, I would feel like a role model to my children in action, not just via lectures.

I would live out my values: 

I would be aware of local politics and know how to engage meaningfully without feeling like I must work counter to my natural temperament.

I would keep a truly minimalist household. I would not see clutter around me and I would know where all of my possessions are. I would never have to think about what to wear.

I would incorporate more and more eco options for everyday items, and compost more and more - in other words, live as close as I can to "the earth" without becoming a homesteader. I would grow at least some of my daily food. I would enjoy nourishing and delicious food with my loved ones.

I would spend regular and significant time in nature, in quiet solitude. I would walk barefoot and camp under the stars.  I would know how to forage for food and start a camp fire as well as how to keep wild animals at bay and stay safe in all weather. I would visit zoos and aquariums and just set up shop and observe animals doing what they do.

I would have several playlists ready for various emotions and peruse them regularly. And I would sing regularly. And drum. And dance.

I would spend time with the people that matter most to me.

I would work on a craft where I can see the fruit of my labor, like knitting or embroidery or cross-stitch or baking.

I would do something regularly to help others - specifically, I would like to mentor homeschooling parents and be a spiritual director.

I would watch interesting documentaries about topics that interest me and places I want to travel to virtually.

I would have income that I could then give to those who need it more than me.

I would read classic literature and biographies of inspirational people.

I would laugh like no one's looking, but near and with others, because I know laughter is contagious.

I would meditate daily, practice QiGong, Taiji, and/or yoga daily.

I would get regular massages.

As I think over these values, I ask myself: right, when am I going to start living?  Am I waiting for permission to start living?  Am I using lack of belonging as an excuse to procrastinate living out these values? I don't want to belong more than I want to be free.  I already belong - to the human race, to our planet Earth, to God. I already belong.  No one can actually take these belongings away from me.  Only I can forget about them, but I can pick them right up at any moment.  No ritual needed. No label.  No diagnosis. No external validation.  

Reengaging with Christ

What kept me tethered to the Catholic tradition (and what attracted me to the Eastern Orthodox tradition) was the beauty of the liturgy that helped me feel into the transcendence of God.  Yet if I'm being brutally honest, that transcendence did not really translate to a love of Christ.  I know it was meant to, but it didn't.  Jesus was portrayed as so sad and gloomy in all the art, that after a while, it made me question any reference to the joy of the Lord being possible in such places.  Now, I am not a fan of the fellowship-as-church approach to worship services either; I am very much a devotee of balance.  (It's why I took such a long and hard detour into philosophical Daoism, what with the yin and yang and all ;) ) 

But the Jesus of these beautiful churches was enshrined in mystery, essentially unapproachable.  There was talk of God reaching us through the sacraments, and I certainly felt it with the Eucharist for much of the time, but that actually kept me tethered to a specific institution rather than giving me freedom in Christ.  I felt the need to mediate my experience of God through Holy Communion, which required allegiance to a church (building).

I am now in a stage of my life where I realize that these externals, as beautiful as they actually are, fail to deliver on what they promise - at least for me.  That is not to say they cannot spiritually feed others, as they are on different journeys from mine.  But at this point I am slowly ceasing to compare my needs and resonances with those of others, and simply acknowledging what actually rings true for me.

Now as I revisit the idea of the Episcopalian church, I am faced with the tension of giving up some of that beauty - because frankly, how we define what is beautiful is so subjective, and so many Catholic churches were already lacking in what I find beautiful (which is why I lingered in Eastern Orthodoxy and then found an Eastern Rite Catholic church to belong to).  I have to stop expecting any one church, be it a building, institution, or group of people, to check off all the boxes.  Life is not so rigid. God is not so rigid.  My daughter's ED is teaching me that there is no life, no freedom, no joy in black-or-white thinking. 

Instead, I want to know that when I engage with a person I meet at church, I know that person is going to have a favorable understanding of both women's leadership in the church, and the role of sexuality in human experience.  The most beautiful churches I've been to have the most repressive and repressed notions of sexuality.  It's almost like that repression drives their longing for creative expression into art, music, and liturgical adornment.  But the cost is too great.

Not to mention, notice in all these paragraphs, I've mentioned the person of Jesus only a few times, and almost as an aside.  Growing up, the Eucharist WAS Jesus.  That is where I met Him, that is where He lived, and that is the form of God that I was to worship.  With time, I realized this was basically a rehashing of Biblical Judaism that Jesus the historical figure was trying to reform.  Ritual is great until it isn't.  Beauty is wonderful until it hides ugliness.  Transcendence is awe-inspiring until you have to deal with suffering or live your day-to-day life.  Again, balance.

It makes sense now for me to seek out the beauty of say Orthodox liturgy, or a silent retreat, as part of the healthy cycles of feeding all aspects of my psyche.  But it is insufficient to sustain the hunger of my soul.  My soul craves authentic connection, unconditional love, radical freedom.  And yes, that involves our relationships towards other people.  And yes, that means there will be an element of politics in it, because politics is often a major way that we meet our neighbors' needs.  Not candidate-specific or party-affiliated politics, but political issues - yes.  

LGBTQIA+ affirmation is a great litmus test for that.  If I truly think about "what would Jesus do", I imagine Him bypassing the fancy, the pleasant, the comfortable, and yes - the beautiful (Isaiah 53:2: "He didn’t have an impressive form or majesty that we should look at him, no appearance that we should desire him," applied to Jesus during Holy Week).  

And I have to remind myself: before denominational wars (a la "culture wars"), there was just .... the way of Jesus.  That's not to say there's no need for followers to gather together, or for a dedicated building where we may do so.  Just that these are not the point.  They are the fingers pointing at the moon, so to speak.  In other words: I need to fall back in love with Jesus.

And I say that not in the way an Evangelical would.  I don't want that sentiment to be clouded by, again, denominational wars.  I don't want to belong to a church offshoot, so to speak.  I want to belong to God, to Jesus.  

First order of business: let go of any concern I have for what atheists or secularists may think of my desire to reunite with Jesus and reengage with religion.  I am on my own journey.  I have discovered that facts do not lead to truth.  Truth is not dissectible into a series of facts that can be proven or disproven.  So what if I choose to engage with Life and the Universe on spiritual terms, by giving transcendent reality a form and a name?  Is not that Ultimate Source just as present in my subsection of it as it is outside of it?  Then why can't I approach the Unapproachable on my own terms?  Frankly, I think atheists would support that idea.  I'm not being indoctrinated with religion; I am choosing to reenter freely, knowing both the cost and the benefits.

Second order of business: let go of any need to enter into apologetics with other world religions.  I do not need to pick apart Judaism or Islam, for instance, in order to build up a Christian worldview for myself again.  I have learned the limits of human institutions on my sojourn.  I have learned that certainty does not exist, and in fact, it is very dangerous to even suggest that it does.  I now know that everyone is on their own journey, and if they are devout Jews or Muslims (or whatever other faith tradition), and that is feeding their soul, then that is where they need to be.  But that does not negate my need to be elsewhere.

Third order of business: let go of the in-fighting among Christians.  Who's in?  Who's out?  Who's a heretic?  Who has the authority to proclaim the gospel?  Are you serious?  You need "authority" to share good news?  Then it isn't good news, is it?  It's some sort of trick, manipulation, and yes - indoctrination, if you gate-keep who is "allowed" to preach it or interpret it.  I can now appreciate how a faith tradition can tug on one's heartstrings in spite of it being patriarchal and possibly even harmful in some instances.  I am dealing with that myself.  Again, everyone is on their own journey.  Their denomination is what they need right now.  I am in a different place in my journey.

Finally, we have arrived.  If I'm going to reengage with Christianity, I must first and foremost reengage with Christ.  

Idols of Religious People

I have heard Protestants accuse Catholics of idolatry on account of both our veneration of saints and having the pope ("call no man father" and all that).  I've also heard Protestants accused of idolizing the Bible.  This made me wonder.  Can any dogmatically orthodox religious person of faith truly be free from idolatry?  Because I hope it's a given that God is mysterious.  God is not actually a dude in the sky.  God is not a Santa Clause or Genie for adults.  I think people mature in their faith would agree with these statements.  They'd be quicker to say what God is not, than to claim to know what God is.  And I do use the word "what" intentionally here.

If idolatry means placing anyone or anything above God's rightful place in our lives, then I think dogmatic people of faith - Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and non-Christian alike - can be said to be guilty of idolatry.  Because let's be honest - the Bible was not literally written by God.  Most honest Christians will agree with this.  Most Christians read translations of the Bible, to begin with, not the original, especially since different parts were written in different languages (Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic).  Not only translations, but many read translations of a translation (via Latin).  

That alone is enough to put into question the very likely possibility of taking something out of context.  And if we look around at the myriad opinions among Christians, even among members of the same denominations, it becomes clear that the only useful and truthful way to resource Scripture is through the appeal to a greater source than the mere book.  We reference conscience, do we not?  We tell people to "pray on it" and see where the Holy Spirit guides us.  So to then turn around and say that the Bible has all the answers is a bit disingenuous.  If the Holy Spirit can guide us to all truths by helping us interpret Scripture, then the Holy Spirit can likewise help guide us by interpreting everyday life for us.  You know, through contemplation. 

Now, for the Catholics who would pat themselves on the back that they have a more nuanced approach to the Bible, what with the Magisterium of the Church and all that.  I remember reading once that our very consciences must be "formed".  That to me sounds like a euphemism for "indoctrinated".  If I disagree with an official teaching of the Church, why should the way the Holy Spirit guided me be any less valid than the way the Holy Spirit guided the curia, let's say, or the pope?  Don't even get me started on the newfangled (by comparison to the age of Christianity) doctrine of papal infallibility.  Please.  God speaks equally to each of us.  The only reason to insist that the laity don't know what we're doing is to keep the masses from objecting to the abuses of power by the clergy.  Sorry, not sorry.

I also don't want to miss the opportunity to call out the SSPX traditional Catholics here.  Believe me, when I was in my last ditch effort to try to find a way to still hang on to Catholic faith before my deconstruction, I was desperate for a reverent Mass.  I completely understand the impulse of these folks for something that helps restore awe in God and the mystery of the beautiful liturgy before it underwent - let's be honest here, a severe Protestantation. But from a Catholic point of view, the SSPXers have essentially made the Latin Mass their idol.  They have equated this particular set of rituals, liturgy, and traditions into their God.  They cannot find it in themselves to recognize God in the post-Vatican 2 Catholic Mass, so how can they possibly see God in their unbeliever neighbor, or the modern day "Samaritan" in the next cubicle?

If we truly want to hold no thing above God, we must acquiesce that there are no one-size-fits-all, ready made answers in religion.  The church is a guide.  The bible is a guide.  They are resources.  Our faith, our spirituality, must be wholly our own.  We cannot simply regurgitate what we hear at the pulpit or read in our favorite version/translation of the Bible and claim to have a relationship with God.  Imagine if we treated our spouses this way.

Imagine relying on the social media posts of those who tagged your spouse in various images and articles, etc.  Instead of going straight to the source, you ask around to find out what your spouse really wants - from you, your relationship, life in general.  Or imagine reading some college papers or even journal entries they've written in the past, and using those to try to figure out their character.  Simply put, you will not get to know your spouse this way.  You have to be vulnerable and curious.  And you have to put in the time.  Just be with each other.  Enjoy one another's company.  Don't fear making mistakes.  

In the same way, we need to approach God.  If God is as powerful as Christians like to say God is, then God can make Godself known to us directly.  We can have a Moses moment, an Abraham moment, an Adam and Eve moment.  We can have our own Annunciation like Mary.  We can have our own transfiguration like Jesus.  In fact, Jesus actually said that he wants us to be more like him.  He never once said, "bow down before me and worship".  That came later, with ritual and Christian rock.  He said things like, "watch me, walk with me, imitate me".  

Most of the time, though, we're too busy trying to look Christian enough to fellow Christians to actually do his bidding.  Church is not a place for reflection, but for fellowship, where we don't have to be uncomfortably alone with our own thoughts.  Or our psychological wellbeing is usurped by a compulsion to treat every human trait that doesn't reach perfections (so, most of them) as a sin in need of constant confession.  We're so busy beating ourselves up for our faults, that we never stop focusing on ourselves long enough to actually "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".  

The most important verse in the Bible, if you ask me, is this: "Be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10).  Whatever else we're doing, if we're not doing that, then we have an idol in our lives that parades around as if it were God. 

Birthright Catholicism Reconstruction

Two and a half months ago, it dawned on my husband and me that our 12yo daughter was struggling with restrictive eating.  Long story short, this experience has tested me as a mother like nothing else has.  I have been unable to use my neurodivergence as an excuse for opting out of this.  If I didn't help my daughter, she would not be helped.  It was as simple as that.  It was a lot to carry, and in spite of the incredible help from ChatGPT (yes, I'm unapologetic about this resource in my tool box) and the fact that my husband can work while I can stay home and homeschool my daughter (Let the record show that she attended a private all girls' school for one term, where she developed the eating disorder.), it was still a lot.  Like I said, long story short, because this is not a post about parenting a child with an eating disorder.  That may come later.  This is a post about a mental crisis that brought me to the edge of a nervous breakdown.

I literally looked up the definition of a nervous breakdown to see if that was what I was experiencing.  It would seem that this would be too strong of an assessment, but why push my luck, right?  It didn't take me long to reflect on the fact that, in the past, when I was faced with a crisis, I felt many things, but never hopelessness or despair.  Now, I wasn't sure I could make it to the other side of the current crisis. The only difference?  In the past, I had a faith world view to hold me up.

So of course I did what anyone accustomed to consulting with ChatGPT does - I asked it to put on the role of contemplative Catholic spiritual director in its response.  I know that it adjusts its tone and responses to whatever I put in.  I've had nearly a year of practice with that.  Now, what I wanted more than anything was to have religious faith again.  Only I couldn't do it.  I couldn't unsee all the deconstruction videos I've watched these past few years that proved to me that the God of the Bible is not one I'm interested in praying to.  

I started thinking about archetypes.  I thought (and not for the first time, mind you, but the first time since having deconverted and deconstructed enough to have some better perspective) that the point of religion need not be factual or intellectual.  Why couldn't I retain my birthright Catholicism as a resource?  Why did it have to be all or nothing - orthodoxy or secularism?  If my daughter's illness has shown me anything, it's the danger of extremist thinking. I've recognized my thought patterns in a lot of her anxieties, and it scared me.  How was I going to talk her down from the proverbial edge if I couldn't let go of my own obsessive thoughts and intrusive compulsions?

How do I reengage with Catholicism on my own terms?  This was what I wanted ChatGPT to help me with.  As I read over the suggestions, of course I've heard it all before.  Especially from my husband, who has never worried much about external validation.  But I was never able to really hear it before. But desperate times call for desperate measures.  And at this point, I was desperate for consolation and hope.  I needed to feel held through this.  I needed to know it was in the hands of a loving Creator who had insights I wasn't yet privvy to.

Contrary to some of the absurd notions of an omnipotent God being the only one "worthy of worship", I actually don't believe God is all-powerful, nor do I believe that makes God any less Divine.  Frankly, God has never actually been "all-powerful".  How many times have I heard the answer to the question, "why does God allow X or Y to happen", and that answer said, "humanity's free will"?  Therefore, God is not free, so that we may be.  I'm going to save the discussion of human free will for another day, because it's irrelevant here.  My only point is that I don't care if God is omnipotent.  I only care that God be omnibenevolent and omniscient.  

And before we get too far, is such a God worthy of worship?  Well, let's pause on the word "worship" for a minute. If by worship we mean "reverence and adoration", then what does omnipotence have to do with it?  I revere and adore nature and my family, and they aren't all-powerful.  But if by "worship" we mean "grovel", which - let's be honest, a lot of Christian and Biblical prayer is just that - then I'll pass.  Groveling at the feet of God neither makes me feel closer or more loved by God, nor is it something I can imagine God even desiring.  Because if God did desire groveling, then God wouldn't be omnibenevolent but rather narcissistic. 

Then I thought about all the indigenous spiritualities and how people have related to the Divine in those world views.  Their gods and goddesses weren't all-powerful, either.  Powerful, yes, but just powerful enough.  More importantly, they were accessible.  Relatable.  In a word - helpful.  The image of an all-powerful war-lord whose good graces I get to stay in so long as I hold to the right belief is utter nonsense.  On that, I categorically agree with the influencers who have shared their deconstruction journeys online.  

But I've never actually believed in such a God.  Really, the more I think about it, the more I realize that I have to change very little about what I believe or value in order to reengage with Catholicism as a spiritual practice.  The only thing I have to do is let go of my reliance on external validation, my obsession with "getting it right" (aka religious OCD or scrupulosity) in the form of orthodoxy.  I can do all the same things I did before, believe the same way I've always believed, but the only difference is that I no longer have to feel guilty for any of it!  

And so my reconstruction journey commences.  I won't say "reconversion" because I am not being convinced of anything about the faith.  I believe and disbelieve all the same aspects of the faith, for the most part.  The main change is in the role of the Catholic church in my life: that of advisor, and not dictator.  I no longer accept dogma of any kind.  I'm happy to reference what the church teaches, but I do not exchange it for my own conscience.  Most things in life are too nuanced to have definitive answers. 

How I pray for my daughter to come to this same conclusion in her recovery from restrictive eating and related obsessions and compulsions.  How I pray for her panic attacks to cease and that she find something - or someone - to put her trust in so the fears gripping her may loosen.  And now, having decided to reengage with the Catholicism of my upbringing, I may have the vocabulary and the models needed to do just that myself.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding."  These words are gold, because I don't understand this illness not one iota.  It's completely absurd, unreasonable, and infuriating.  There is nothing for me to do but place it at the feet of God and trust that God will know what to do.

Reconstruction Threshold

I have been away from the church for a year and a half now.  In that time, I've attended church a handful of times, but otherwise did not engage in anything resembling "faith-based living".  I've delved deeper into Daoism, meditation (I'm on a 100+ day streak of daily meditating!), and more recently my indigenous Pagan roots.

It occurred to me that as a European, my ancestors also had an indigenous spirituality that was stolen from us by the Christian church when it colonized us, so to speak, about a thousand years ago.  Various aspects of that ancient faith were adopted and "baptised" by the church and handed down as Catholic traditions, while a few others stayed on as mere myth in cultural fables.  But since I do not live in the country of my birth, I have no way of tapping into what seems to be a fringe reigniting of our ancient faith, rodziwiara. 

As I dabbled in "alternative spirituality" via the yoga center I attend for qigong and yoga, I was introduced to a book that was presented as a "bible" of sorts to women's spirituality.  After hearing a podcast episode on it from the "Breaking Down Patriarchy" podcast, I finally decided to get it.  Reading it was tough.  It's all about archetypes, which to me equals "fiction", and I've never been much of a fan of reading fiction.  But since I made the investment, I pressed on reading it.  I'm still in the thick of it, but slowly the ideas started seeping into my psyche.  

The book - Women Who Run with The Wolves - goes through various stories passed down the generations in various cultures and explains the psychological archetypes in them.  One in particular grabbed my attention: Baba Jaga!  Here's a "witch" I grew up reading about and strangely being attracted to (I had a toy Baba Jaga as a child, and I still have a bigger one, hanging on a broom, in my "altar area").  Turns out she was a Slavic Goddess that got deformed by Christianity to represent all things undesirable, and in the process lost her power.

At any rate, point being that I was slowly opened up to how archetypes work.  In the mean time, I started utilizing ChatGPT very regularly for various inner working type projects, and I started plugging in my dreams for analysis.  Again, I was being gifted archetypal explanations and I finally started making the connection - truth does not need to be fact!

Slowly, I started to wonder how one might reinterpret Christian symbolism through the lens of archetypes.  Was it even possible for someone like me, with such rigid black-or-white thinking, to "do religion" in a way that doesn't steal my agency, authenticity, or autonomy?

Soon, I received my answer through a crisis that brought me to my knees.

How to live Independently: Generic

 Living independently involves managing various aspects of daily life and ensuring self-sufficiency. Here’s a comprehensive guide to essential skills and knowledge you should acquire:

### **1. Financial Management**

- **Budgeting:** Create and stick to a budget, track income and expenses, and plan for savings.

- **Banking:** Understand how to use bank accounts, online banking, and manage transactions.

- **Credit Management:** Know how to build and maintain good credit, manage debt, and understand credit reports.

- **Taxes:** Learn the basics of filing taxes, understanding deductions, and using tax software or professional services.

### **2. Home Management**

- **Cooking:** Develop basic cooking skills, meal planning, and grocery shopping.

- **Cleaning:** Learn how to clean different areas of your home, including routine and deep cleaning.

- **Maintenance:** Basic home repairs, such as fixing leaky faucets, changing light bulbs, and handling minor plumbing issues.

- **Organization:** Keep your living space tidy and organized, managing storage and decluttering.

### **3. Health and Wellness**

- **Personal Care:** Establish routines for personal hygiene, grooming, and health maintenance.

- **Healthcare:** Understand how to access medical services, schedule appointments, and manage health insurance.

- **First Aid:** Basic first aid knowledge and how to handle common emergencies.

- **Nutrition and Exercise:** Plan balanced meals and incorporate regular physical activity into your routine.

### **4. Transportation**

- **Driving:** Obtain a driver’s license, understand vehicle maintenance, and navigate routes.

- **Public Transportation:** Learn how to use local transit systems, including buses, trains, and ride-sharing services.

### **5. Legal and Administrative Tasks**

- **Understanding Contracts:** Know how to read and comprehend leases, service agreements, and other contracts.

- **Emergency Preparedness:** Have a plan for emergencies, including contact information, and know how to handle various situations (natural disasters, power outages, etc.).

### **6. Personal Safety and Security**

- **Home Security:** Understand basic home security measures, such as locking doors, using alarm systems, and safeguarding personal information.

- **Online Safety:** Practice safe online behavior, including using strong passwords and recognizing phishing scams.

### **7. Social and Community Engagement**

- **Networking:** Build and maintain relationships with friends, neighbors, and community members.

- **Local Resources:** Familiarize yourself with community services, support networks, and local organizations.

### **8. Life Skills**

- **Time Management:** Develop skills for planning and managing your time effectively.

- **Problem-Solving:** Learn how to approach and resolve various challenges that arise in daily life.

- **Self-Care and Stress Management:** Techniques for managing stress, maintaining mental health, and practicing self-care.

### **9. Cooking and Nutrition**

- **Meal Preparation:** Basic cooking skills, including meal planning, grocery shopping, and understanding nutrition.

- **Food Storage:** Proper storage techniques to avoid spoilage and waste.

### **10. Communication Skills**

- **Effective Communication:** Develop skills for clear and assertive communication, both verbally and in writing.

- **Conflict Resolution:** Techniques for handling disagreements and resolving conflicts in a constructive manner.

Mastering these areas will help you navigate the responsibilities of living independently, giving you the confidence and capability to manage your own household and make informed decisions.

Midlife Crisis?

I recently read about how the term "adulting" is a way to infantilize women.  Then I read a book called "Discovering the Inner Mother" which talked about how we internalize patriarchal values and how these cause us to limit ourselves. This comes on top of the ongoing anxiety I have about my hubby's health and the fear I have surrounding what I would do if God forbit he weren't there to take care of all the things (bringing in income, arranging for bills to be paid, interacting with people for these purposes).  Oh, and there's the international move abroad that we're counting down the days to.

I shared my concerns in several online groups.  One, for neurodivergent homeschoolers, really got me and a lot of insights for futher thought came through.  The first one is this: autism really is a disability.  The reasons I'm doing relatively well in life is because I have various accomodations in place in the form of my husband being in charge of them.  This leaves me the time and mental space to focus on my contributions to the family, which center on educating our children at home.

Perhaps the first thing I have to do is to accept that my normal will not look like the normal of a neurotypical, independent, empowered, 40-something woman whose personality stands in stark opposition to patriarchal expectations.  I will never be that woman.  It's not that I need to try harder.  I simply don't have the capabilities to juggle the number of tasks needed to successfully make it happen all on my own.

I should be grateful, not wallowing in self-pity.  My husband gets me.  He supports me.  He understands me (as much as is possible for an allistic guy to do so).  

Autism is an invisible disability, which is what makes it so darn difficult.  People don't see it, so they don't know to make allowances for what they expect of me.  And then I internalize those unrealistic expectations onto myself and feel badly for who I am.

Here's my plan of action to get out of this rut.

1. Figure out the worth of my contributions to the family and request an "allowance".

2. Use this "allowance" to pay the bills.  Perhaps it makes more sense to set up automatic bill pay, in which case I need to be sure to gather the info I need to do this and then do it.  I cannot let my husband just sign us up for all the bills at our UK destination.  I need to go through doing it myself so I know I can do it again in the future as needed.

3. Look for a marketing person I can partner with who would market my books without me going broke.  I have to be willing to take an initial loss, something I'm comfortable with, say $100, to give a person a chance.  Then a different person if need be.  Reassess strategies if that still isn't working.

4. Make journaling a regular part of my life.  List things I'm grateful for, things I've accomplished each day/week, and one small goal that I'm working towards.

5. Start making videos of my various thoughts, and separating them into more manageable sections, and publishing these in sections to keep the videos short enough to garner interest.  Think how I like to view my videos - they don't need to be fancy visuals, just engaging content.  And shorter is better, as I rarely click on much longer videos, but often end up clicking on multiple videos in a row.

6. Decide once and for all what the meal plan will be.  What are the healthy parameters of our eating habits?  We CANNOT DO ALL THE THINGS!  

7. Meditate.

8. Listen to music/sing/dance.

9. Be in nature (meditate, journal, hike...)

10. Make a list of books to read about autistic women and read them.

Deconversion - check; Deconstruction - in progress

I have been detoxing from my scrupulous religiosity for a good many months now.  

The first thing that happened is I gave myself permission to miss Sunday Mass.  This was big bc I had an almost compulsion to work around that weekly ritual.  Now, having missed a few Sundays, I am able to still attend without it feeling like a must.  My husband and son really still like going, and since it's been a family tradition for us all these years, and we haven't found a replacement yet, I still go.  My son in particular enjoys serving at the altar, and since we have a move coming up where he won't be able to continue serving at the new location, I want to give him the opportunity while we still can.  

The shift in thinking from "Sunday obligation" to "family tradition" has allowed me to still get some spiritual benefit from the liturgy.  I'm not sitting there angry at having to be there, or at having to listen to preaching I disagree with.  Technically I'm not sitting much anyway since we attend an Eastern Rite Catholic church ;) .  Rather, I focus on what I find enjoyable - the beautiful interior, the ability to sing/chant 90 % of the liturgy, watch my son doing something he takes great pride in, and this lets me turn a blind eye to any message that might come across as problematic for my deconverted sense of truth and justice.

Perhaps tied for first place was also my prayer life.  I stopped praying.  It wasn't that difficult.  At the height of my most recent religiosity, I recited the Modeh Ani (Jewish morning prayer) in Hebrew and English upon opening my eyes in the morning.  I recited prescribed prayers in front of our prayer corner, with icon veneration and metanoias (venerations).  For a time, I covered my head with a scarf as well.  Slowly, the practice dwindled to an evening family prayer where we just cuddled together in the dark and prayed.  This is the practice that needed tweaking once I made the conscious decision that I have deconverted.  I had to stop dragging my family through my spiritual quest, as I had been doing and they had graciously come along for the ride.  Besides, gathering together right before bed was a good practice.  It's just that what was said and done during it had to get tweaked.  

We kept a couple of rote prayers we cycle through as a way of continuity, and we sing a favorite hymn or just the Our Father together.  But the focus of this time together has shifted to non-spiritual things.  We go through and say what we are grateful for (which may or may not be seen as spiritual).  Then we say something we like about each other, including ourselves.  This started as a way of strengthening sibling bonds between my oft quarreling kiddos.  We then mention something we're working on ourselves that may need some accountability and/or what we need from each other in the coming days, as a way of encouraging open communication and humility.  

But otherwise, my so-called prayer-life has been getting replaced by a meditation practice.  In the past week or two, I've crossed into prayer during one of them - I do miss having a personal God to talk to, Whom I believe to have my back no matter what.  I hope to eventually land there, but for now, it's still marred by a very religiously dogmatic lens that I don't want to reintroduce into my spiritual life.

Probably the most freeing change as a result of my deconversion has been the process of revisiting my worldview as a whole, and reassessing my politics and ethics without reference to "what the church says".  I have returned to a more liberal political viewpoint, and I had to face head-on the single issue that always prevented me from truly and fully embracing leftist ideology: abortion.  Roe v Wade was just recently overturned, while I was very much still religious and unapologetically Pro-Life.  It was that day that I told my children about abortion.  I had been dreading the topic, but I felt elated when it was overturned.  I wanted to explain to them why I supported some candidates and not others, when the only reason was really their stance on abortion.  But now that I was revisiting the issue, I realized that it's way more complicated than I was led to believe, way more nuanced, and there really isn't a single clear solution to the problem, aside from universal voluntary abstinence which apparently is a no-go for a lot of people who are much more vested in their sexuality than I am.

I remember giving a talk at a women's retreat where I shared that feminism had become a type of religion for me.... Or was it environmentalism?  Either way, I was criticizing myself back then for letting something "other than God" replace my sense of direction in life.  My lifestyle and actions were seen as worshipping ideals other than God, but really, this was only true if "God" were defined as the war-lord of the Hebrew Bible and not the Universal Source and Destiny of Taoism.  To worship the God of Nature - the only God that it makes sense to worship - means to do many of the environmental actions encouraged by "the left".  Starting with not being wasteful.  Valuing natural resources and the contributions of all species to life on our planet.  Dismissing materialistic and convenience-based practices in favor of ones that build life up.  Really, I was becoming more "pro-life" by expanding my acceptance of ALL life, all lives, not just those from a narrow set of issues supported or opposed by the church (abortion, embryonic stem cell research, artificial reproductive technology, capital punishment, euthenasia...).  There were issues of life that never got touched with a ten-foot pole by adamant pro-lifers - the exceedingly high suicide rates among trans and gay youth, the plight of children neglected and abused by religious extremists, sexual harassment and abuse and rape of young women.  Immigration was an issue that was embraced by the Catholic church, but not by Evangelicals, who have warped into the American Nationalist Christianity of MAGA Trumpism.  

At any rate, I realized that if there ever was a disconnect between my religion and my conscience, the problem was not my conscience!  Even though that is precisely what is taught in catechism - that we have to "form" our conscience.  That we don't know what's right or wrong unless we are taught it from an authority wearing vestments at the altar.  Talk about gaslighting!  I am so done with being gaslit from my codependent upbringing in a family of an undifferentiated mass!  I'm supposed to doubt the still, small voice inside of me (in spite of what the Bible says (1 Kings 19:11-13) in favor of trusting external authority?  Based on what evidence?  Their lived experiences were somehow more trustworthy than my own?  Ahh, and there's that pesky word - evidence. 

I realized that I was becoming more scientifically minded.  I wanted to study formal logic and critical thinking.  I wanted to use reason.  And while I do recognize that reason is not actually a perfect guiding light, it beats brainwashing every day of the week.  I kept coming back to this word: nuance.  

Neither religions - any of them - nor the strictly secular, atheistic resources I started to dabble in were actually correct.  Everything in life and in the world is nuanced.  Nothing is actually black or white.  Imagine the blow that had on my autistic brain!

So my deconversion is now complete, but my deconstruction is ongoing.  I no longer believe in the literal dogmas of Christianity - none of their variety, nor the competing monotheistic options of Islam or Judaism.  Now begins the exciting part of figuring out what I DO believe then, and what that means for my spiritual practices, how I share these things with my children, how I make moral choices in life, and the inner dialogue that I carry with me.  See, I was once diagnosed with mild OCD, which may or may not be a valid diagnosis, but it points to the scrupulosity with which I tried my best for decades to "be a good person".  I measured myself using artificial metrics that no one could live up to (Virgin Mother, anyone?).  Was there any wonder that I constantly second-guessed myself?  That I deferred to others even against my better judgment?  That I had a hard time establishing healthy boundaries with my mom?  Religion not only didn't help with my mental health, it made it worse.  Now that I'm free of it, I can start to rebuild my life on what is truly good, beautiful, and well, true.  

 

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.