What to do about God?

A few months ago I read a book, some of you may know it - its called "Blue Like Jazz", and its written by a man who has been searching for a true relationship with God for the majority of his life. It's actually a miracle that I ever even opened the book, it was a gift from my mom who over the years has given me numerous 'christian' books, many of which I have not read. For some reason though I began to read this book, probably because of its description as "non-religious thoughts on christian spirituality". It took me three days to finish it - one of those "couldn't put it down" books, you know. It wasn't that the book was particularly inspirational or thrilling, rather it gripped me because it felt like I was reading my own journal. I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders as the realization came that there was someone else out there who felt the same way I did....

I'll explain.

I grew up in a very strong Christian family, full of daily devotionals, church picnics and family prayer time. Looking back I see the blessing in this; however, for majority of my life I saw it more as a curse. I felt that Christianity was forced upon me, just as I was forced to go to youth group on Friday nights and church on Sunday mornings. I never felt close to God, nor did I ever really understand what He was or how He could be a part of my life. There were times where I felt the presence of God - going to Camp Tulahead every summer was probably the only 'churchy' thing I enjoyed and it was only there that at times I could see some sense in the whole Christianity thing. However, I would return to "the bubble" (my hometown) and that fire never failed to go out when school started again and things began to take importance over my relationship with God, namely, ME!

I remember sitting in church time and time again listening to the pastor preach about following God's calling, and living by what God tells us in the Bible. Well, for me I subconsiously viewed this as basically doing whatever my parents wanted me to do. Because Christanity and God was so closely connected to my parents, as well as the rift in our relationship during my teenage years, I was unable to separate the two; therefore, God got lumped into the big bucket of authoritarian adults whose sole purpose in life was to judge me, scold me and ruin my life. Subsquently, the moment I left home, I also left God. To be honest it was a freedom I had never experienced before, partly because I think I also left behind my conscience, but I felt that I finally I could be who I wanted to be. I could make my own decisions, I could 'hang-out' with whoever I wanted to hang-out with, I could behave and dress and talk however I wanted to. It was my long-lost independence returned and it felt wonderful!

I think a part of it too though, was that I never felt I belonged in Church. It's hard to explain and when I was younger I certainly didn't understand it, but it just didn't seem to fit with me. I don't know, there was something about going to a building every Sunday morning, having to get dressed up just to listen to someone lecture on how to be good, just bothered me. Probably because it made me feel bad. It created this belief in me that you were either good or bad and other people around you were either good or bad and if you didn't go to church and if you liked to hang-out in friends' basements and if you liked the taste of beer and if you used a swear word when you were angry, you were bad. I didn't like that cuz I didn't think I was bad, I just thought I was different. When I back-packed across Europe I was introduced to the world outside of "the bubble", and I instantly felt like I was lied to. The world wasn't full of bad people and evil religions, they were just different, like me, and that made me feel really good, like it was o.k. that I was different because the rest of world was different too.

Over the next few years when I went to university I began to think that it was Christianity that was bad. When I began learning about how many indigenous peoples around the world have been abused, their cultures torn apart, their languages beaten out of them all in the name of God, the Christian God, I became angry. When I saw Campus Crusade for Christ showing pictures of aborted fetuses and calling it genocide and murder and then handing out pamphlets about how Jesus loves you - I got very angry. When I heard students from Trinity Western University say to news reporters they are opposed to same-sex marriage because they think its 'disgusting' - I got even more mad! When I read that the states that have continued the practice of capital punishment are predominantly right-wing conservative Christians - I became bitter. When George W. Bush asked his fellow Christians to pray for the U.S. the night the 'shock and awe' campaign began in Iraq and as bombs began to fall on the innocent civilians of Baghdad- I cried.

A year ago I went to visit a family that had sort of adopted me on a reserve island called Kuper Island, off the coast of Vancouver Island. This experience rocked me truly to the core of who I was and what I thought about the world. On this island I was surrounded by an entire community wrought with violence, addiction, sexual abuse and incest - their language had been lost generations before, their culture barely hanging on to the threads of their Grandmothers memories, their homes dirty and decrepit, and their children struggling with the lasting effects of the trauma their elders had experienced. But what tore me up the most was the church that still stood on the highest hill of this island, this church that represented the genocide, the abuse, the separation of families and the loss of culture remained intact, while everything else around it reaked of death and destruction. I remember my sisters holding me as I sobbed in their arms, barely able to get the words of "I'm sorry" out. I felt personally responsible for what happened to that community- what happened to my sisters and their sisters and their sisters - how do you apologize for something like that? How do you apologize for the actions of so many who raped and beat and sodomized so many young children, all in the name of God, when all they should have done is love.

Regardless of whether or not I have lived as a righteous and holy christian, I do know that something has been lost in the Christian faith; and that is love!

I remember a few years ago I became good friends with a woman who practices Wicca, a practice that I was always told was the work of the devil. Regardless of how you feel about Wicca there was an incredible sense of irony when she became the first person to point out aspects of my life that resembled that of Jesus' life. She told me that Jesus was an outreach worker, a prison volunteer, a social activist and really, the first true dirty-hippy! A revelation this was in my life as I and my life always came under-fire when in conversation with my family members. Always the question: "how do you reconcile the way you live with God, Carley?"

I have never fit into a box, a square, or even a circle for that matter, and I suppose I saw the Christian religion as a steel cage. It didn't allow for individuality or difference of opinion . There was always a certain way to pray, a certain way to worship, a certain way to be in the presence of God, and none of these led me to feel like God even existed. A year or so ago I sat in a sweat lodge in the middle of the woods, with my toes deep in the earth, my skin wet with sweat from the heat and my heart surrounded by the love and acceptance of my brothers and sisters who sat with me - it was here that I felt a closeness to God I had never experienced before.

Last summer I went through some really tough stuff, none of which needs to be shared here (I do have a limit on self-disclosure), but it kinda' shook up my life and forced me to re-evaluate so to speak. I didn't like what I saw when I looked in the mirror- so I shaved my head. I didn't like the things I was doing in my life - so I walked away. I knew something was missing, but I didn't know what - so I prayed. Then my mom gave me the book "Blue Like Jazz" and the things that were shared in that book felt like the author was able to take everything I felt about God and christianity and religion and write it down. For the first time, I felt like I could have a relationship with God and still be me and that would be o.k.

I listened to Donald Miller speak this morning, author of "Blue Like Jazz", and he said that we should see God as a being to have a relationship with, much like we have with our earthly fathers, rather than a slot machine or a computer that has certain rules and practices to follow in order to get what you want. This made me really happy, because, like many of you know, i really suck at following rules and being respectful of authority but I do know how to be in a relationship with others. I'd be lying if I said that now I have a strong faith in God, or I'm on fire for the Lord or however people describe it, because I really don't, but I think I'm working on it. My independence really gets in the way at the best of times and my issues with the Christian religion still gnaw away in my head.

And I fully realize that to some of you I am a hypocrite because I judge the Christian religion the same way christians judge others, but thats exactly it. I detest the christian religion- it has a bloody, hateful and venegeful history; the christian faith, or spirituality, is very different. And thats precisely what this man wrote in his book "Blue Like Jazz". He spoke about how we have forgotten the message that Jesus wanted us to know, understand and practice - and that is the message of love. I may not think that homosexuality is wrong; I may love the taste of beer, swear every once in awhile, and I may not like evangilism but I do believe I know how to love.

I've been hearing a lot of about lent the past few days, and I'd be lying if I said I understood what it meant, but I do know that you're supposed to give up something that you really like and that sacrifice will bring you closer to God. Well at this point I don't think there's anything I'm willing to give up for forty-days (except maybe my thesis), but I do know there's something I could DO that would bring me closer to God and that's talk to him, sit down and have a chat, see what He has to say. I may just learn a thing or two, we shall see.

To all of those in my life who have never stopped praying for me I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Autumn