Tag: deconstruction

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All You Need is Love. (No, really.)

So, I deconstructed my whole world view over the last fifteen years, no biggie. (Actually, very big biggie.) It has also taken me that long to put myself out there and try to make sure that all of the people I care about and that care about me, now know the real me. Old friends, new friends, childhood friends, family, all of them.

My truth (my experience and POV) is that organized religion serves to separate people and pit them against one another (much like political divisiveness.) Not God-bashing or even faith bashing, just religion bashing a little, I guess. Because it teaches an unreachable perfectionism. Because you only see people in terms of if they’re in or out and all you wanna do is get them IN at all costs, then feel better about yourself. It’s Us vs Them in its most basic form and its archaic.

It claims unconditional love while giving you lists of conditions. Saying “Love the sinner, not the sin” is simply going around calling everyone sinners. People are simply people. Real. With feelings. Capable of great love and good and also great evil and bad. Period. After coming out of the church, I have found more unconditional love than ever, and also hurting and broken people that have been chewed up and spit out and taught that they should both be perfect and also that they never will be and it screws people up. Perfectionism. Very conditional love. Jumping through hoops.

I believe religions were started thousands of years ago (and many have come and gone over the years) to try to rally people together with a common goal and to be able to sort of herd the sheep, control the masses. Teach them of a scary wrathful God and keep them in line. Otherwise, they cannot be trusted.

If you haven’t loved someone completely different from yourself, you will never get what love really is. We’ve got to stop dismissing people because they do not look the same, dress the same, have a different sexual orientation, see politics differently.

Have you ever sat with someone across the table and looked in their eyes and just listened? Not with an ear to tell them how it ought to be but just really tried to understand them? Someone totally different than you. Have you ever felt yourself loving them without trying to change them?  If not, then you’ve never truly grasped what love is.

To love is to meet someone exactly where they are, and to accept them there as well. Not try to talk them into being more like you, no, but just trying to give them the freedom to be themselves. To stand up for them against all comers, even if you don’t necessarily agree with everything they do. All humans should have basic dignity and respect. All. Not just the ones in Your group, Your race, Your tax bracket, (or whatever).

It’s a new and different world from 1,000 years ago, from fifty years ago, from ten. If we can’t grow along with the world, we’re screwed. It was once all about nationalism and Us vs Them and the world can never truly change under that, there will never be peace, (and of course religion teaches that peace is an unreachable goal, blah blah) because they don’t want anything to change. Those in control will always want to remain in control. Control your thinking, your actions, your very feelings. Which is why I am always banging on about reading, learning, growing, and thinking for yourself. If you’re the exact same person you were twenty years ago, you haven’t grown at all.

All we need is love, to quote a famous musician, and he was called a hippie and so am I but we’re not wrong. But first we must tear down the old things that do not know and understand real love. Sometimes those things are deep within ourselves.

Peace Out, peeps.

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Deconstruction or Annihilation

One of the first “Jenga bricks” to be pulled out for me, was realizing that I had no special protection for being a Christian. I’d heard and read this theology of “umbrella of protection” that basically teaches that if I’m really good and behave myself I will be protected from all harm. Once that brick was pulled the rest of the demolition was easy. It all fell apart.

The 2nd biggie was realizing that I really, deep down, once I really stepped back and examined things, canNOT in good conscience believe that the bible is literal. There’s just too much batshit stuff in there. Zooming out helped me come to the conclusion that a lot of it was the time/culture/ignorance they were living in combined with patriarchal beliefs and that need for control that men have had from the beginning. I believe there is a lot of good stuff in there, but also a lot of nonsense, capped off with what is basically a voodoo curse in the back. (Even though we also should not suffer a witch to live.) So use magics when and how I say, is what they were thinking. Patriarchy. Control. The boot on the neck. Yeah.

Ya wanna talk magics? Raising the dead is dark magic according to anyone who says anything about magic, so… that’s weird. Healing, walking on water, all magic.

So, for me, there are such things as miracles and gifts, but they are not intrinsically good or evil. Just like a gun or knife or fork or ax isn’t good or evil, it’s about who wields the power and how they use it. Many of the recorded “miracles” happened to people who were not even people of faith, so that was telling. Many so-called angelic sightings or NDE’s, same. (Near-death Experiences)

My conclusions then, (and I am not totally done concluding and never will be) is that there is a TON of crap none of us really understand or are even really capable of understanding. Which can be disconcerting and feel like annihilation. The earth moves under our feet. Plagues and pandemics are real. I believe there is life on other planets and we have likely already made first contact, only the powers that be feel we are not able to handle it yet, and they would be right.

I mean FFS. Look at how we have just been behaving about science and medicine and fact.

So. What does this mean for the person who feels the way I do? How do we cope? We learn One Day at a Time. We struggle, we enjoy every moment we possibly can. We accept that there is much we cannot understand or control. We fight to survive.

Peace Out, peeps!

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Coming Out of Religion, Finding Me (AKA The Art of Deconstruction)

End November Blog: Coming Out of Religion, Finding Me

(AKA The Art of Deconstruction)

11-19-2019

 

I was thinking back on my childhood this morning and realized how un-self-aware I was. For so many years, even into adulthood, I had no real sense of ME, of who I was, what came naturally and what didn’t, all of it. When you looked at me it was as if I was covered in mirror tiles so that you would only see yourself reflected back.

I’ve been called a chameleon because I learned from all of that, to get along with a lot of different kinds of people.

I became a people pleaser, though, and that was not so good.

Over the years from every angle I always felt I was being told who and how to be and it took me way too many years to come to understand that I have intrinsic value, I have my own unique set of gifts, my own personality.

For me, religion played into it with a constant (in my mind-warped) message that I was zero, I was nothing, I should never aspire to be anything other than a reflection of this Christ I was told about. That played right into low self-esteem for me.

Not everyone has such an experience with faith/religion I suppose but having stepped out of that culture I now more clearly see how much it damaged me.

As with all things there was good and bad for me. I learned a lot in a lot of areas but I never found me.

Religion teaches “die to self.” Thoughts of one’s self are selfish, bad, wrong. Self-care is wrong and becoming or at least appearing humble and obedient became gods or idols, things you must do to be accepted in the church.

Scripture about being perfect as God is, was pounded into us weekly.

I died to self, all right, but not in any kind of good or positive way. Yeah, this made me a horrible perfectionist… or maybe a perfect perfectionist.

Growing up as nothing more than a person who wanted to please my parents, my brothers, my friends and then ultimately the church (and as I viewed it, God) was not an easy way to be. Don’t get me wrong, I know how lucky/fortunate/blessed I was to have parents who dearly loved me, and as fallible as they were, tried their very best to raise us right. I got something many people in this world never got… I knew I had parents that loved me (and they still do).

I suppose something I never felt though, and maybe it was just my broken self’s fault, I never got the sense of being good enough. I never got self-esteem (not until I was in my 30s and 40s and it was barely trickling in then. In my 50s I can finally say I have it, in spades.)

This is what I know to be true NOW: (This is me speaking MY truth)

Any God worthy of my devotion would have to want people to be whole, to care for themselves first, so that they have strength to care for others and themselves.

We are not perfect and were never meant to be. I firmly believe that scripture is inherently flawed by nature of it being written and interpreted by flawed humans. I do not, cannot believe in any God that expects me to be perfect. Nope.

I could never believe in a God that doesn’t want the absolute best for me, which includes health, knowing myself and having self-esteem, knowledge of all of my own gifts and talents and not being afraid to use them, for fear of being thought less than humble.

If there is such a God who loves me like this, then he must want me walking in the fullest of all that I was created to be. He doesn’t want mini-me’s. If he created me with a writing talent then he must want me to use that talent to the absolute fullest of my ability, etc.

If he made me funny and sarcastic then, by god, that’s who I am.

I think we’ve done our children a great disservice if all we teach them is absolute and utter obedience. I interpreted that to mean that all others came before me, which meant that any other – may do anything they wanted to me and I had no voice. I wish I’d been taught how to stand up for me and what I, personally, believed in. That I matter, my thoughts matter, my opinions matter, and that I have a voice. I can say NO. I can say “You may come this far and no further.” I know that now but I fought hard and paid a heavy price for this knowledge. Boundaries. They are a powerful, necessary thing. I hope you have them. You’re in for a super hard ride if you don’t.

Over the years of being used, stepped on, discarded, raped, molested, called names, disrespected, well, let’s just say something my parents gave me in my genes combined with something I believe was given to me by my Creator, rose up in me. I began to realize that all that I had been told and taught by the world, religion, the people around me, was not necessarily true. I learned that there are a lot of lies being perpetrated on people disguised as truth. I learned that I, ME, only myself, could dig out truth and what that actually meant to me and for me. (Think of Frodo with the ring, it was ONLY his burden to carry). My life, who I am ultimately, is only my burden to carry.

I studied many religions and found a common thread in most of them, common lessons that were being taught. This to me said that who ever “God” is, He or she or they have been trying for millennia to get certain truths into our hearts and minds. I also truly believe that humans glom onto it and add and take away and distort at every opportunity over the last multiple thousands of years. For their own agendas. There is always an agenda.

So, yes, I believe there are absolute truths, it’s just that my list of those may be different than yours. (Why I call it My truth, because I have fought hard to find it and excavate it out of all the BS we are surrounded by and by everyone else’s versions of truth.)

There are things I bought into 20 years ago that I just do not and cannot believe anymore because my own life and experiences (and I believe, my Creator) have taught me to know better. Others don’t accept that. Bully for them. Be blessed and go find your own truth. Just please, make sure it IS your own truth and not a line of bull you’ve been sold just because it’s popular and widely perceived as truth.

All good things in life, all truth is hard won. If it came to you in a hand- me -down package, it isn’t yours. Find your own. Do the work for yourself.

If, at this stage of my life, I have any message to share with the world, it is this, these words written in this blog post.

You are worthy. I am worthy. We were each created unique and fabulous in our own way. Stop trying to be a carbon copy of anyone. Stop trying to please everyone or really, anyone (except maybe your boss at work, because, ugh, life.)

Whatever you’re given to do, do it with all of your might. Be the kind of person that can hold your head high because you know and love yourself and can choose for YOU who you are meant to be. (Hint: if you have a natural talent for something, that’s part of who you were meant to be! Find those things and fan those flames.)

If you find that you’ve poked your head up out of the forest and you’ve been chopping down the wrong trees, heading in the wrong direction, it is NEVER too late to change course.

Truth is, love yourself.

Truth is, love your neighbor, even when they don’t look or act like you.

Truth is, NEVER give your power away to an organization, religion, or political affiliation and allow them to do your thinking for you or replace your own conscience. Truth is dug out, never ever adopted.

And so, this is my story and this is my song. This is my message to the world.

We are created to love and care for one another. And if you can’t do that, don’t do any harm to anyone. (If I have a religion, this is it.)

I don’t share because I need you to like me. I share because I WANT you to understand me IF you choose to be in my life.

Be free, friends. Find Truth. Live your best life NOW.

(I’ve started a Facebook Group called The Art of Deconstructing for anyone who has left or is leaving organized religion. If this is you, look it up and join!)

Pammy

 

 

 

 

 

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Social/philosophical commentary # 1332 (blog 6/28/2018)

 

If you don’t know me already, let me introduce myself. I’m a blogger, poet, philosopher, fiction author, and indie publisher (among many other things, of course) and this is what I do. I deconstruct the world and myself continually. My blogs/articles/rants are my account of some of that. Welcome aboard.

I’ve come out of a very fundamentalist background and have been on an amazing (if horribly painful and trying) spiritual, personal journey. Part of that has been reaching out and connecting with those I never connected with before. I now have friends who are atheists, agnostics, evangelicals, Buddhists, seekers of all kinds and many who feel disenfranchised from all of it, (religion). I’ve found that once we get out of the cocoon of our own little personal worlds and reach out to truly love and connect with other people, find common ground with them, it can be life-changing.

I believe it is a total misinterpretation of scripture to believe that—due to one’s spiritual or religious beliefs, we are to isolate ourselves from “them” and keep ourselves apart. (How can you go into all the world and stay utterly separate at the same time??) My love and compassion for all of mankind has ramped up, in fact, exploded. My mindset is so different now that I find a real disconnect with many of my old church friends. They don’t get it. That’s ok. I’m not here to judge, just sharing my journey. My hope is always to connect with some out there who may need to hear something I have to say or may relate to it in some way… the goal? Peace, unity and more love, understanding and compassion in the world. I often have people telling me to stop explaining myself, but I won’t because it is how I try to make connection with others. I won’t, however, apologize for it.

So, recently I have begun some discussions with people from all over the country and the world about many of these things (love, compassion, peace, how to get there) and it has been very eye-opening, because here’s the thing: when you dare to step out of your comfort zone and reach out to people, NOT with an agenda outside of love and compassion, you begin to realize some crucial, world-view altering things.

1)     Almost everyone everywhere wants to do what is right, please their God if they believe in one, find love, raise a family in a peaceful community and bring about peace on the planet. You absolutely would never think that if you stay in your cocoon and listen only to media coverage.

2)     People are AMAZING! There are some good/great hearts and souls out there, people who are trying to save/change the world. (Yes, there are the other kind, too, but mostly they are broken and hurting people who need help.) Not excusing evil or crime. I DO believe there is evil in this world, but we do not fight it by hiding ourselves away.

3)     People who may have different opinions/beliefs than mine are not necessarily evil. This is a pervasive thought in religious communities. If we continue to write people off as hopeless sinners, this world will never change. Maybe people feel hopeless because nobody ever reaches out to them with love and compassion.

I’ve even spent a good bit of time lately thinking about how the media and politics has done a wonderful job of dividing us all, one from the other. I think about what Jesus would do. What would Jesus say about building walls? Separating children from parents? Refusing to do business with those who do not share our beliefs? And not just that but reviling them and hating them. (If you have God’s love for someone, you WILL NOT behave in a non-loving way, it just doesn’t add up. Reality check.)

There’s been a pervasive and downright evil (in my opinion) leaning in the Christian community over the years that has gotten worse and worse…. If you are different, you are wrong and evil and I cannot talk to you or be around you. I cannot express how deeply this wounds my soul. I will not be a part of it anymore. (Look up Westboro Baptist if you need further insight.)

When I first began my journey, I had to throw out all I thought I knew and start over, just me and my Creator. And for a while I couldn’t believe in one of those either. The great thing about that (as painful as it is) is that I no longer accepted things at face value, I did not “do as I was told” or believe as I was told, I began the arduous process of wrestling it all out on my own. I know why more people don’t do it. It’s very painful and time-consuming. But if you make the time and take the time, I guarantee you will never be the same again (in a GOOD way!!!).

So, to sum up, please think about what you believe and why. If you believe in scripture, as you read each one, ask yourself the deep questions: Is this for today or historical/allegorical? Does this align with the heart of a loving compassionate God? Could this verse warrant further study to discern the original language and intent? Who was it written by and what could their agenda/culture have been about at that time? (I have studied scripture a lot. It became more and more confusing to me which made me dig deeper and deeper.)

Don’t have a hand-me-down belief system, or a system of belief which propagates hate or separatism. I beg of you, don’t. It might be better not to have a religion at all.

Ask the DEEP HARD questions and don’t settle for pat answers. The world needs love, hope, compassion, change. It needs you and me, but at our loving best.

Peace out!