Goodbye Christian

So hard to believe I wrote that last journal entry only two days ago. Things move so fast. The recent past seems so distant. Caught up in a whirlwind of mild intensity, it’s perhaps time now for a break from it all…

What happened next? Thursday I worked till 3.30ish, then went straight from there to a game of tennis with another of the housemates and got my first right royal whumping of the summer. 1-6 2-6 1-6. Not that I was bothered. He was much better than me. No shame in that.

Then I had an appointment to talk to one of the young Christians. I thought he’d left town but he said he was back for a little while and wanted to see me. I’ve briefly mentioned him once before but can’t remember when or what I wrote. Interesting chap: no privileged and loving middle-class upbringing for him. A deeply troubled youth. Many questions in his mind. And a fairly recent convert: the newly ‘saved’. We’d had some good connections and some less good too. He’s of an antagonistic nature at times. But I’d done fairly well at taking it in my stride, not making it personal. Remembering the times I hated my teachers too. And the ways they reflected it back on me and made me own it.

We ate samosas and drank jasmine tea. Then went upstairs to the prayer room to be alone and to talk. He told me he’d been thinking about me and some of the things I’d said. Tried to work them out in his head and tried to dismiss me as crazy or evil, maybe a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Said he just wasn’t able to succeed and googled me and bought a copy of my book and read it in three days. And became more troubled still. But knew there was truth in it and in me.

He prayed about it lots and then got a phone call bringing him back to Leeds for a bit of work and knew he had to see me. He poured it all out and I listened. And then he talked about his relationship with the church, the people there, that holy/curséd book.

What could I say? He wanted to know. He wanted truth more than community and popularity and that treasured sense of belonging and not thinking. It’s not an enviable position to be in. What they have, these young Christians, is comforting. Tons of friends and they’re fun friends too. All believing the same thing. All pointing in the same direction. But is it truth? I’ve considered it and I think not. And I guess he’d come to the same conclusion.

Still, I’m reluctant to play much of a part in that. I tell him there’s a lot of good in what he has, that the way to truth can be lonely and difficult and maddening. I don’t want to make any bones about it. But, at the same time, it has its own reward, and peace and joy certainly make the journey worthwhile. The tricky bit is that, being young, there’s a tendency to want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, to leap to extremes of belief. Why not the middle ground? No necessity that just because one discovers The Bible isn’t “the infallible word of God” to dismiss the whole tome. All scripture and teachings and life are like the fruit from a tree. Pick them over and see whether they’re good or bad. Taste them. And make up your own mind. Much as I’m an anti-Christian – for all extremes must create their polar opposites – I find good and useful fruit in their Bible. But I have no problem with picking and choosing those words which suit my digestive system and leaving the rest. I guess if you think you’ll be banished to hell for doing that it might present something of a problem. I feel sad for these young Christians, believing their myths and their indoctrination. Someone’s pulled the wool over their eyes and it’s screwing them up and making it unpleasant for the rest of us too. Some of the literature I’ve read in recent weeks is downright frightening. Especially when you consider ‘The Great Commission’. Such egoism and ignorance.

In any case, I do my best to help this guy. Answer his questions and speak the words I feel necessary to speak. The human part of me wants to do something to make him happy but the larger part of me thinks that’s not really what’s required. Troubles bring longing. Longing brings experience. God rarely comes knocking on the door of those who are happy with their lot and know everything already.

And it all feels somehow meant to be…

…

I was off work yesterday and didn’t do much beyond fix three bike punctures, have a lovely long nap, and get in a bit of shopping for the evening tapas party. Oh, and spend a few hours online reading various interesting things about Christianity. Like how the branch of belief I’ve found myself currently investigating is one labelled ‘neocharismatic’ – which certainly helps me understand why I’ve come to see those around me as somewhat ‘extreme’.

Basically, it’s weird, and troubling, and full of ego and fear, despite how lovely and fun and good to play sports with they might be. I just can’t believe that intelligent young people would go around with these ideas in their heads. I mean, love everyone and love God – that’s fine. But what about all this stuff about hell and theirs is the only way and everybody else – every Buddhist and Hindu and Taoist and Sikh – is destined for God’s punishment, no matter how they might live their lives. There are even pages on the internet written by Christians explaining why someone like Amma is hell-bound and needs to come to Christ. Their understanding is so mixed-up and limited. They haven’t a clue. It’s so frustrating to see in people that you like and love. And makes being their friend an eventual impossibility, because sooner or later they’re going to have to exclude you. Perhaps in my case it’s even worse. It’s not like I’m an atheist or a ‘sinner’ who they can work on and try to ‘save’, I’m a theist and a believer who some openly acknowledge as having more experience and knowledge and ‘power’ and that’s a pretty threatening thing. How to deal with that except push it away and forget about it and belittle? And, if unable to rationally explain and justify, simply attribute it all to the cunningness of the devil?

Still, what am I going to do? It’s good to understand these things and help out when I can – but is there really any need to change any particular person’s way of thinking? Too many of them and so few of me. And plenty of books speaking of much larger pictures of God for them to find when the time is right. Maybe this lifetime, maybe next. But what my role in it?

It’s funny; I was just flicking through a Christian book – The Purpose Driven Life; seems like it has some good fruit in it – and near the end there it talks about the responsibility of saving people from their “evil.” Mainly what that made me think about was trying to open these young Christian minds up to the fallacies of their own religion. To stop converting and haranguing people. To try and see the bigger picture about God. To read beyond their own extremely limited canon. To love and embrace all and understand that we’re all children of the one Father/Mother and all are making the journey home, whether we know it or not. It sickens me a little to hear those stories of how someone goes out and ‘saves someone’ when I know what is in their heart and how little true caring there is for that other’s wellbeing. It’s just another notch in the bedpost. Another little buzz for the ego. And one less soul in the world who disagrees with what they believe.

The Christian faith – this particular branch of Christian faith (Jesus as the only way; him dying for our sins; belief in him and The Bible the most important thing and all non-believers condemned to eternal hellfire or annihilation) – is, in my opinion, built on pretty shaky ground, and I think somewhere deep down the believers know this. It’s a doctrine that ignores all evidence. That requires absurd logic. That necessitates the application of a particularly closed mind and narrow view of God and life. Blinkers. Ignorance. Refusal to open up to the wider picture. All, probably, symptoms of a fearful ego seeking to make sense of a daunting world. And so how best to manage this? That, I guess, is the question that many of these Christians are asking themselves, whether they know it or not. And the answer, as far as I’m concerned, makes perfect sense.

How to make sure one’s faith isn’t questioned? Simple: just get everyone else to believe the same thing you do. That, I think, is the driving force behind ‘The Great Commission’. Nothing to do with spreading God’s love to all people or ‘saving their souls’; it’s merely taking away the possibility of argument. Imagine a world where every single person in it believed Jesus was the only son of God and the only person to have ever healed and raised from the dead and all that other groovy stuff. Then you’d be happy…

Of course, that’s not to say all Christianity is like that; and, in fact, I’d like to believe it’s just a certain strain of it, and that there are many more enlightened branches out there somewhere. It’s always the extremists and the ones who make the most noise of any given clique – whether Muslims or students or football supporters or teenagers – who tend to come to define the whole in the eyes of others, and very rarely in ways that are seen as positive or beneficial. But not all students are drunks in fancy dress, and not all teenagers are obnoxious and out of control, it’s just that those who are are a good deal more visible than the ones who sit at home painting watercolours or reading Emily Brontë or thinking about how to better themselves and the world they live in. Something I’d do well to remember. The world isn’t quite so bad as the media and our own bias of perspective might have us believe.

So why Christianity? Why do I still persevere with it and look at it so? In simple terms, I guess I seek a place to belong. In days gone by, travelling in America, things were more simple. We’re all Hindus and New Agers at heart, and though the words we use to define and express things of the divine might differ, we know we’re all on the same page, more or less. Jesus was enlightened and Krishnawas a Christ. Meditation and yoga is prayer. The path to Buddhahood is the path to oneness is the path to God. Many lifetimes and many masters. God made manifest in the world through synchronicities and coincidences. The Universe provides; look at the lilies in their fields. Nothing is exclusive, save certain participants in this one branch of this one religion – and religion is a manmade and ego-driven thing anyway, as we all understand – unless we don’t.

Yet into this religion – in a country that practises this religion, at least – I was born. And perhaps there’s a reason for that, and now that I’m firmly back in England it’s a reason that I’m looking to figure out. And more than that too: for there were those times on my path – in amongst all the Hindu saints and Taoist masters and Buddhist meditations and Sikh yogis – when Judeo-Christianity reared its head most mightily. When Jesus appeared in the mirror. When I heard “Yahweh” on my 28-day solo. When I felt the crown of thorns. When I saw the Star of David. When I adopted Momma’s 23rd Psalm as my go-to prayer for healings and cleansings. Right back to the very first moment I knew “there is a God” in a Mexican Catholic prayer circle. All that intrigues me. I…

I feel like I’m losing the thread here. The point is, it would be nice to be amongst others who sought and understood God in the way that I do, and who I could speak freely with and know that we’re more or less on the same page. There was a moment a week or two ago where I felt I really wanted to say to Christian, look man, let’s forget all this theology and just be two seekers of God: I feel you’re sincere, and I figure I am, so let’s just do it and stop arguing about pointless things we’ll never prove anyway. But to him and those like him, I guess, it’s not as easy as that; not so easy to be spirit buddies and “brothers in Christ” (whatever one takes that to mean) without all that weird stuff about needing everyone in the world to agree that one or two verses from the Gospel of John constitute the entire truth of God’s message to the human race. Such a poor God they believe in! That in the thousands of years of human civilisation those handful of words, supposedly said, supposedly written down sixty or seventy years later, are all we’ve got to go on.

But again, I digress. All I really wanted to say is that it would be nice to find a place where I could practise my spirituality among likeminded people and get to know them on a week-by-week basis rather than always moving around and starting afresh. I’m not averse to that being within the general framework of Christianity, but I am averse to exclusionary and ego-driven sects and people. It just gets boring after a while. I’ve had a decent long look at this particular style of Christianity and, while I’ve gotten much out of it in terms of sorting out my self-destructive obsession with sex and perhaps becoming a little less solitary and a little more giving, I know it’s not for me. And, more than that, it’s probably not for anyone who truly wants to know God. How can you see God if your eyes are closed to the larger part of life? Isn’t it true that if you cannot see God in all you cannot see God at all? Separation and ego are the opposites of unity and God. And, in any case, the evidence far from supports this strand of Christianity also – for where are the saints? Where are the clairvoyants and prophets? Where are the healers and Messiahs and beacons of light? If they think it’s all about the next life and nothing to do with what one can achieve in this one, alas, they’re sadly mistaken.

Still, in a nutshell that’s all to say it’s not for me. Next up, I’m going to look at Unitarianism. I mean, I’ve read the wikipedia entry and it seems all good to me [he smiles and winks]. Might as well. It’s either that or starting a religion of my own. ;-)

…

It’s time to move on now. Everybody’s leaving because it’s the end of the year. Strange to be around this artificially constructed calendar called ‘summer holidays’ and ‘term-time’. All my friends are students and they’re all talking about what they’re going to do next, where they’re going to go, moving house and country and beginning something completely new. Me, I ought to be a normal person, just continuing with the life I have – my job, etc – but since it’s become so wrapped up with theirs I don’t really have much choice. The house’ll be gone in about a week. The life I’ve been living. And a whole new world again for me too. I imagine that’s probably a good thing. Been a bit full-on lately and probably want some time to take stock and assimilate and rest. Decide what I want to do next. Though if it wasn’t for the job I know what that’d be: to gad.

But what am I talking about? To gad? What about the wife? Lol. What about career? What about…

Yep, I finally did it. Yesterday I remembered that I was supposed to have had several epiphanies during my supposéd mid-life crisis, mostly culminating in the need to do something proper with the rest of my time. And then I got distracted by all the fun and games of the past two months and my time with these guys. And also healed from the symptoms of the broken heart and frazzled mind that tend to send one on frenzied missions to change and fix all parts of one’s life, for better or for worse. In any case, I’ve kept thinking about that idea I had to study to be a psychotherapist (or something) and yesterday I did an I Ching about it and got Chapter 1: Great Power, with no changing lines. All very positive and encouraging. And so I guess I’m going to apply.

That’ll be the next four years of life taken care of then. :-)

…

Finally, Christian and I talk late last night, way after all the tapas and fireside songs are finished and everyone else is in bed. He wants to resume where we left off – wants to know why I’m there (questioning, attacking) but I cut him off and say I feel he’s leaving me. He acknowledges it. Says he knows he’s doing it and isn’t sure whether it’s good or bad or what but it’s happening anyway. Says he fell in love with me too hard, too quick. An honesty and turn of phrase that surprises me. To hear another man talk of love for you. I guess it comes natural to them. But it’s something new to me.

We reach a point of harmony. I tell him that thing earlier about wanting to forget the theology, just to seek the truth together. Tell him I feel he is “my brother in Christ.” A sincere soul with a sincere heart and a desire to see God. And he talks about not having had the same experiences that I’ve had, seeing himself very much as “the younger brother, then”. And yet, even with all that, the theology remains, and once more rears its head, much to my dismay. To him, it’s all about Jesus and his death on the cross and how he understands that. To him, it makes no sense that someone could be a lover of God and yet believe something totally different about the reasons for Jesus’s death, let alone his life and the writings on that, and other beliefs and religions.

But why does he presume to then teach me on matters divine, when he acknowledges me as his older brother and therefore, I imagine, his guide? I want to say I just don’t get it but I guess I do – and I guess anything else would be overly idealistic and non-understanding of the complexities of the psychology of the human mind. Which is something I’m pretty keen to learn about.

Fear. Habit. The necessity of self-affirmation and self-image. How can one give up a belief so intrinsic to the makeup of the personality without first finding something even better and more rewarding to replace it? That takes bravery and balls. That takes…

Experience.

Oh, how I wish I could transplant the experience of the indescribable bliss of the soul into another and have them see it for themselves. How cool would that be?

…

But, doubly finally, just as I’m typing the sentence above in walks Christian to say goodbye just before he heads off for the summer. He puts his head near my hand and I put my hand on his hair. Feels so natural and good to do that. Brotherly love.

“I don’t think you’re evil,” he says sheepishly. “I took a picture of you off your hard drive, to remember you by.”

He talks a little about the good times we’ve shared. He’s a hilarious and wonderful man, with a generous and sensitive heart. All of everything else is forgotten in a moment like that; he brought me a cheese sandwich too.

I go downstairs and we laugh and joke in the kitchen with three of the others guys. Make affectionate fun of the speech he gave last night. Make sure he’s got all his stuff and then have big, heartfelt hugs in the front hallway and wave him away from the door.

“You’re my brother, man,” I say, as we hugged not more than thirty minutes ago.

All I feel is love. Where does everything I’ve said above come into it?

It’s all but so much straw.