A few months before getting out of the army in 71 I had a spiritual experience and became a believer in Jesus Christ. For the next 17 years this faith was a very vital, foundational part of my personal life, then my marriage, family, work. I would witness, pray, search the Word, and hold faith that I had a personal relationship with God. With this I grew on my own bumpy spiritual path. Towards the end of my faith I was a lay pastor for 12 months in an Eskimo village I was living/working at. Shortly after this experience I began pulling back until I could no longer say I was a Christian. I went around to my pastor, friends, and of course my wife and told them, “I don’t believe enough to still call myself a Christian.” I would always add, that I wasn’t saying it was untrue, it just wasn’t true for me, right now.

The song goes “One way and only one but yet the choice is two. I’m on the right way which way are you?” And that is how they saw me. I had chosen evil. I not only felt lost I was lost. And I couldn’t with clarity say why I didn’t believe.

The human condition: We have dual opposing natures. I like the names ego and self to define them. One moves to be open and merge. The other in fear, and hate isolates. One side gives, the other side desires to possess, or fears it will lose what it does possess. And so forth. (Our ego would be defined by Christians as the sin nature.) Both these natures possess the same body, mind, and utilize the same language. So like the man said, ‘who can deliver me?’

The Christian faith can be a true spiritual path for a person. It offers faith to conquer fear and allow love, with spiritual tools of prayer, belief, worship, & the Word, to help you maintain this faith. I meet many good people in this faith, and even have met a few saints. But for reasons not entirely clear to me for a long time, I could no longer believe and walk this way.

Being lost is a horrible experience, one filled with mucho pain and confusion. When lost you do things, dark or otherwise to try and kill this pain, or perhaps just to express it. I didn’t want to live this way. It’s true, you find what you’re truly looking for: A famous guy once said, ‘believe, mediate, and see.’ I believed enough to try and learn how to mediate, and then I did see. What I did see and come to understand is there are other spiritual paths to take in order to live the ‘truth’. What I ‘saw’ when sitting, and reading from other beliefs was this common thread of agreement that the foundations of this world is love, is personal, and that life in this moment, is good. Does that sound evil to you? I believe this is the bare message cleared of all storyline. (I’m not preaching, am I?)

I attend church with my wife. When we move and change churches I tell the pastor and others that I had been a believer, but wasn’t one now. Generally people try to bring me back to the flock, and when that doesn’t happen they begin to question if I ever believed and suddenly I’m a turd in the swimming pool, at least to some. But like I said, I meet good people in the church. Being in church at first compounded my confusion. As defenses dropped I began seeing the church in a new light. It seems only about half of what all is promised comes through. Also, seeing how they are, people in the church only believe half of it. Two halves don’t make a whole. The faith is only about half true. I remembered the quiet lies I would incorporate into my life to maintain the faith, of how I’d spin matters so as to come out with this one homogenous lump that seemed rational enough to defend. These lies split me into compartmented spaces so as to duck the unblinking stare of God.

For awhile I wondered if Jesus had returned when the early believers expected Him to, that he came down, gathered up the few, looked around, and then got the fuck out of Dodge, leaving behind shadows and crumbs for those remaining to pick up and make a faith of.

Whatever, but something isn’t right with the church. It is mostly fear oriented even though Jesus told them repeatedly not to fear. Fear takes you into the ego nature. They are conservative, calling for blood to whatever seems to be threatening, or claimed to be threatening the country, or people like them. They are isolated from the general population, not really having a grasp and pity for people caught in the wringer of our human condition. They channel the whole of life down to a point of ‘become like me, or go to hell’. And that is how they isolate. They worship strength-like all good conservatives worship a strong leader, and they despise/fear weakness, such as the poor and uninsured. They blush at the thought of saying they love themselves, having no more grasp of our situation than to confuse the obsessions of the ego for its identity, with the honest forgiving love for yourself. What the fuck is that about?! And I hear this from a preacher, a person who supposedly is versed in the spiritual! The church gets behind every war, like Nam, and did any of those church leaders say sorry after it all turned out to be a mistake? If these people were really plugged into God why didn’t they hear, no WMD’s, and the clear message: for god sake, anything but Bush?? They have all the answers written and locked down in black and white, as their fear would so demand. The other half of the truth found in the free flowing open ended paradox was not/is not acceptable.

Well, coherent or not, it is good to put these thoughts down. I think too many ex-believers are hostile towards the church. I sound hostile don’t I? We need to try and get over that.

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