Written Saturday Night
Tomorrow we are going to church. Not just any old church, but Cun-tree Chur-urch. I was raised in a strict (but not legalistic or fundamentalist) Baptist family and it's been a blessing and a curse. I didn't/don't always like what I was taught to believe but I can’t believe anything else. No matter how much soul searching, religious researching, or faith questioning I do- I just can't really believe in something different. Does that make sense? Even during the times when I "believed" or thought I believed different things, in the back of my mind I couldn't escape or quiet that little voice who was screaming "this is WRONG."
Which brings me to my current situation in my faith. What do you do when you don't like what you believe? I mean, I have a daughter out of wedlock, which is not exactly smiled upon. And I have gay friends, which is most definitely not smiled upon. And I drink wine, which there seems to be some wiggle room on, but still... And I like to dance, go to the movies, vampires, Santa Claus, I don't think Hurricane Katrina was a result of the Lord's wrath for the city's sins, and I often fall asleep while saying my prayers. How do I reconcile all of that with what I was taught? With what I believe? If I do and believe all of that, how can I still actually believe what I believe?
Maybe it's that I remember how I used to be and how I used to feel. I lived in a mostly black and white world and now I only see shades of gray. I guess it could have something to do with that "back then" I had a much stricter moral compass. Although I wouldn't say my moral compass isn't strict now, it's just stricter in some areas and more lenient in others; it's been re-calibrated. But knowing what I know now, who I am now, and everything else that's happened, I just don't know if it's possible for me to ever get back that without a shadow of a doubt faith I used to have. And don't think I've forgotten that God spits out lukewarm Christians like dog vomit. Which then makes me want to be icy cold, because at least then I'll be a little bit more safe. Right? No, I know that's not "right," and the whole thing starts all over again, getting me back to where I am now; stuck in this self-perpetuating cycle of doubt.
It's not a good place to be. I hate seeing that look in the eyes of the very righteous that I’m the Whore of Babylon. It’s a strange look of “I’m not judging you because Jesus wouldn’t like that, you loose, loose woman.” But I'm not really even talking about the people at my church, because they've been unbelievably supportive of me and Spencer. I just know that it's impossible to not see me as "that girl" now. Mostly because that's how I often see myself.
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