Choose Your Own Title

There were numerous things I could've titled this blog post.

The $25k Nose Ring
The Post That Poses the Risk of My Parents Not Talking to Me For the Next Six Months
Nothing Good Happens After Midnight
My Cosmic Boyfriend

I feel like I should take a vote on which title works best.

Twenty-two year old Lori wearing a really expensive nose ring

Tonight, I'd like to start with a little story. Follow me on this journey back to 1997, when I was 15 years old.

I wanted a nose ring so bad, but I was 15 so my parents justifiably said Not A Chance, You Have Enough Holes In Your Head, that sort of thing. So I bought myself a little magnetic nose ring that looked like a stud on the outside and had a magnetic backing that went inside the nostril. I looked hip AF, y'all.

Until that fateful afternoon, while taking a test in Mrs Norman's AP English class, when I sniffed too hard and sucked the magnetic backing all the way up my nostril. I began to snort and sputter in the middle of a silent testing classroom atmosphere and became the sudden object of everyone's delighted interest. It was certainly more interesting to watch me hyperventilate than to answer essay question's about Young Goodman Brown, but I did not look very hip that day.

I still wanted a nose ring though. I went away to college and met the coolest girl ever one Sunday at church. Her name was (and still is, presumably) Kanyon. She was a year or two older than me and had the most adorable silver hoop in her nose. I knew then that it wasn't a stud I wanted in my nose but a hoop like Kanyon's. (I'm willing to bet Kanyon is probably still one of the coolest girls alive, wherever she is.)

But I was 18 or 19, and my parents said No Way, You'll Look Like a Bull, And Besides, If You Pierce Your Nose We'll Stop Paying For Your College, that sort of thing.

But I still wanted that nose ring. One afternoon, my college BFF Amanda and my roommate Jonathan decided they were going to get pierced. Amanda wanted an eyebrow ring and Jonathan wanted a double helix. I accompanied them to get their piercings and was green with envy. I wanted my nose done so badly!

A few days later, just around my 20th birthday, I got to chatting about wanting a nose ring with my friend Amber after our poetry class. (I'll always remember her beautiful poem about artichoke hearts. No seriously, it was beautiful.) She was like, "Let's go do it for your birthday!" and I was like, "Okay let's go do it!" So Amber and I went to get my nose pierced.

I LOVED it.

Guess who didn't love it though? My parents. They said You Look Like a You Got A Fish Hook Stuck In Your Nose and By the Way We Are Going To Stop Paying For Your College Because We Warned You And Now We Have To Be Consistent Because That's What Good Parents Do.

And y'all, they did.

(Are you starting to catch on to some of my potential titles now? The $25k Nose Ring.)

That was my sophomore year of college. The following two years were suddenly entirely up to me to finance. So I did. I increased my student loans to the max. I got two jobs, one working at JR's Lightbulb Club and Dickson Theater as the door girl and one working for the University of Arkansas Development Office.  (It was while working in development that I had my first experience with the professional implications of having a body piercing. I was originally asked to take it out since I'd be interfacing with major gift donors, but after sharing my story with the Vice Chancellor of Development, she agreed that it was indeed a pricey piece of jewelry and settled with me changing it out for a stud.)

Let's journey through the remainder of my 20s and into my mid 30s, back to the present. I've been paying off these student loans for fifteen years, which by the way, is nothing compared to what students only five or so years after me began looking at. The kids who came up behind me have gotten royally screwed on college tuition. Anyway, here I am, 35 years old, still wearing my nose ring and still paying off my student debt.  But there's a happy ending to this story. I looked up my loan repayment plan a few weeks ago and discovered that I only have THREE months left before my student loan is entirely paid off!

By the end of 2017, I will have officially paid off this nose ring. And you know what? I'm still going to wear it. Because I LOVE it. Even if I do Look Like a Bull or a Hooked Fish or a Jezebel or Oh I Don't Know, Rebekah By the Well?

Thirty-five year old Lori still wearing a really expensive nose ring

Okay now. I'm going to get a little more serious now. In telling that nose ring story I had another purpose. One less jovial.

I'll tell another story briefly. Journey with me back to the end of August 2017. (Yeah, like two weeks ago.) On August 29th, I got in a car accident, a hit and run, and my brand new car, only purchased two weeks prior, got smashed on the driver's side, and though I was mostly uninjured, it has caused me a lot of pain and angst over the past week. Meanwhile, Hurricane Harvey was in the process of devastating Houston, Beaumont and many other parts of Texas. I was in the process of raising money for the Red Cross's response to the hurricane, which was the worst hurricane to hit landfall in over a decade, and the largest natural disaster the Red Cross has ever responded to. The car accident was really bad timing, meaning for the week that followed, I was unable to do my job effectively during an extremely crucial time. Yesterday was the first day I felt fairly normal again, despite the pain.

Today, barely a month later, Hurricane Irma swirls and heads for the continental US (and has already decimated small Caribbean islands in its path), and many of us at the Red Cross are gearing up for more disaster deployments, including myself. I've been doing everything possible to get my pain under control and get my work taken care of so I can be ready to go if or when they give me my 24 hour notice. Being a single mom now, that's no easy uncertainty to plan for. (Giving a shout out to Scott and my mom right now for both being extremely flexible with me right now regarding the children!) Amidst all of this though, and after an extremely draining day of work, I witnessed a car accident on my way home this evening right in front of me on the same freeway my accident occurred on just last week. I was one car behind the accident, and the thought of almost being in a second accident within ten days of each other has left me terrified to get behind the wheel again. What is this, Final Destination? Is death following me now?

That's the joke I made to my mom on the phone tonight. But her response wasn't so flippant. "No, this is God trying to get your attention. He's saying, 'I've been wrapping on your door for a long time, and you haven't been listening!'"

Of course I know where she's coming from, and I know she made this comment with the purest of intentions. I know she's only concerned for my eternal security. (And let me say again, she's being so helpful with childcare! This is The Post That Poses the Risk of My Parents Not Talking to Me For Six Months. I'm treading on thin ice here by posting this. I'm cruisin' for a bruisin', I'm itchin' for a switchin'.) But if she's right, does God really have such terrible timing? I mean, car accidents and deployments and devastating natural disasters, oh my! Is all of this necessary to just get my attention?

I mean, I guess he could he have just revealed himself to me six years ago when I begged and pleaded and cried out to him for faith. But maybe that wasn't part of his divine plan.

It's past 1pm now. Hence Nothing Good Happens After Midnight. I have this theory that nothing good happens after midnight, and that goes for blogging. I tend to lose my filter after midnight, tend to make less than prudent decisions, sometimes say or do things I wouldn't do before midnight. So I need to be careful what I say here. I used to feel more free to talk about my lack of faith in any religion or gods, but that was before I realized just how badly being an atheist can damage my credibility or even my career. (However, I continue to be open about my beliefs, or lack thereof, because I just don't see why anyone should have to hide who they are, particularly because of what religion they are or aren't. If other people are allowed to speak freely about their faith, surely the faithless should have the same opportunity to speak freely? But now I've just chased a squirrel. Coming back now.)

Back to the divine plan. I just don't understand this logic at all, of why God would need to send bad things my way in order to get my attention. I don't think I really understood it as a Christian either. Why would God need to use grandiose overtures to entice me back into the fold? Can't he just do it the normal way? I spent three years begging him to restore my faith. Was there any reason he couldn't have done it back then? Maybe there is some kind of super special glory he'll get from refusing to answer my cries for three years, leave me to become an atheist for three years, then suddenly hit me with a car accident (and the threat of another) in order to bring me back to him. In the midst of hurricanes, no less.

I just don't get it. This accident kept me from being able to really do my job well during the most critical week of my professional career thus far, and more importantly, during a time when thousands of people are hurting and really need as much relief and support as possible and would benefit from me and all the rest of the Red Cross family being at our best for them. Just seems kind of --- mean.


So I'll assume for a moment the existence of God - the Christian God - is a given. And that he is trying to get my attention so he can save my soul. Because he loves me, right?

But wait, did he not love me six years ago? When I was in a place of being open and receptive to his existence and influence? Why wait until now? For whatever reason though, he loves me now and only wants to save my soul from eternal damnation.

Which he designed.

As punishment for not having faith in him.

Faith which he alone gives or withholds.

He wants to put me in dangerous and precarious situations in order to scare me into faith so he can save me from the punishment he designed for me should I not get scared enough to find faith in him that only he can give anyway. I just don't get it.

Let me take you on one last journey. This is into a hypothetical, nonexistent time in my past. Maybe it's an alternate reality. Anyway, in this parallel, not-real universe, I was dating this guy who really, really loved me. But he had this propensity for constantly testing my love for him in return. He would tell me bad things about myself but remind me that he loved me so much, he could fix those bad things and make me better. I knew he was right; I was pretty shitty, but wow, the way he could fix all those shitty things about me was inspiring! He would also sometimes put me in danger - but never real danger, because he was looking after me the whole time - to see if I could really trust him enough to take care of me. And every time he did that, I really did come out safe in the end, and he really did use that to prove how much he loved me and would always save me from harm.  I was so in love with this guy, and he was so in love with me back.

There were some hard times. He often gave me the silent treatment. I was never entirely sure if it was because of something I'd done wrong or if he was just trying to test my love again. Most of the time he'd eventually break the silence, but not until after I'd begged and cried and pleaded with him with all my might. Then he would soften, lift me up off my knees, and hold me. It made everything okay again when he did that. I knew he loved me. This guy, y'all, was the most loving, perfect boyfriend I've ever had. His name was Jesus, and he was My Cosmic Boyfriend.

Oh, did I say this was a nonexistent, hypothetical scenario? I apologize. It wasn't.

My Cosmic Boyfriend ultimately wanted to save me from eternal ruin. He always knew what was best for me, despite my own petty desires. Kind of like when I was 15, and my parents understandably felt that getting a nose ring was not appropriate for me at that time. My Cosmic Boyfriend threatened me with hell if I didn't obey him. My parents threatened me with no more college tuition. My Cosmic Boyfriend needed to be consistent with his word, just like my good old mom and dad. He had threatened me with hell, so he kind of had to go through with it at that point, since he'd already said it and all. Consistency is key.

The story of my nose ring and my parents is kind of funny to me, in a OMG I Still Can't Believe They Actually Went Through With It kind of way. It's funny to me in a This Is A Great Story To Tell At Parties kind of way. And though it had some long-standing, less than humorous ramifications - fifteen years of student loan repayment during the brokest years of this millennial's life - it's really in the grand scheme of things not the worst a child should have to endure. A punishment, yes, but nothing serious.

Not like the eternal punishment of hell for not being able to force myself to believe in something I simply could no longer believe in, no matter how hard I tried. We aren't talking fifteen years of faith repayment, but an eternity. In hell of all places.

For all the joking about my parents and the nose ring, I know how much my parents love me. They have always protected me and wanted what's best for me. They went over and above to make things happen for me all through my childhood that they certainly were not required to do, just because they loved me. They provided for me, they kept me out of danger, they played the tricky tightrope of letting me learn from my own mistakes while always being ready to catch my fall. They never tested my love for them, because that would never have even occurred to them. They loved me unconditionally. They have always loved me without reserve, even now, as the atheist daughter, the One That Turned Away, the one that breaks their hearts daily as they fear for my soul. I don't fault my mom at all for how she perceives the events of the past few weeks; she loves me and wants me to see the God she sees and at the end of the day, she only wants to see me there.

My earthly parents get what love is. My Cosmic Boyfriend, not so much. If My Cosmic Boyfriend was a regular human boyfriend, everyone I know would be begging me to leave him and escape our abusive relationship. But since he's Cosmic, his ways are higher than my ways, and trying to get my attention with car accidents and hurricanes is no different than pulling my ponytail and tying my shoe laces together. Harmless boys-will-be-boys pranks. It's all just meant to show me he likes me after all. And it's all just meant to save me from the eternal ruin he has planned for me if I don't return his phone calls or agree to wear his ring. True love, right? The stuff of Disney princesses.

I just don't think that's the kind of love I deserve. I think I deserve better. If my parents know it would be cruel to orchestrate a car accident or a hurricane in order to get me to answer the door, surely an omnipotent, loving God would see the cruelty in that too. It might have been a cute story if he just made me take out a few loans to pay for the sin of disobedience, but the story becomes not quite so cute when you realize the wages of sin is death and his punishment of choice is eternal damnation.

The Power of (the Unbeliever's) Prayer

Prayer used to be as natural to me as breathing. My inner monologue often included Jesus in its conversations. I prayed about everything. Prayers were not mere request forms for things I needed or hoped for. Sure, I asked for health when loved ones were ill, I asked for safety when I was scared, I asked for help when I was in need. I certainly prayed most fervently for salvation of those who were lost. But it was so much more than that. I had long conversations with God, sharing my thoughts, my dreams, my sorrows, my desires. I thanked him for beautiful sunsets and small victories. I analyzed questions and dilemmas with him. I included him in my mental decision-making process. I walked and talked with him on a regular basis.

I never felt I was a good "prayer warrior," but prayer was a normal, natural part of my daily life.

And I believed in the power of prayer. I believed that my prayers were heard and that God would answer them each, though not always in the way I wished. I believed that there was a genuine power in prayer, and that they could move mountains. Without getting too theological, I believed my prayers could make things happen (if they were in line with the preordained ... another topic for another time.)

Losing that belief in prayer, and the belief in a god to address them to, left a hole in my heart. In the early days of my newfound faithlessness, I often felt empty. I had no one to talk to. No one but myself to address in my inner dialogue. No one to call on for help. I was lonely without prayer.

I recalled a conversation I'd had with some friends in a school cafeteria while living in Scotland. It was a charity bake sale at my children's school, and we mothers were sitting around a tiny table with tiny chairs talking about the supernatural - ghosts and what not. I was still a Christian at the time but very ardently a searching one. One of the mothers referred to herself as "spiritual but not religious" and mentioned that she often prayed to the universe.

At the time, that seemed ludicrous. Why would anyone pray to the universe? What can the universe do to answer your prayers? For I believed that the power that lay in prayer was actually the power that lay in God to do something about those prayers.

Now I began to imagine that power differently. What if the power is actually in the prayer itself? What if the power is in ourselves and in the act of praying?

In those lonely days after losing my faith, I recalled the idea of praying to the universe. It still felt wickedly sacrilegious, as I was still adjusting from a lifetime of believing in a God who would strike me from the Book of Life for committing the unforgivable sin of blasphemy. But since I no longer believed in gods, I tried it one day. I had the familiar urge to address God about something, so I went ahead and did it - but I addressed the Universe instead.

I wasn't struck by lightening. But I felt oddly comforted.

A few days later I had a dream. In the dream, I'd been in a terrible car accident with my children. In the dream I found myself starting to cry out to God to save my children, then at the last second, I cried out to the Universe instead. I partly feared this blasphemy would mean death to my kids but even in the dream, I realized that the prayer itself was not going to save them, it was only going to comfort me through the terror of the situation.

I woke up from that dream shaking yet amazed by the epiphany.

I've been praying to the Universe ever since.

Yes, to faithful ears it sounds either despicable or foolish. It's not without pause that I share this. To those who find praying to anyone other than God sheer sacrilege, I understand. To those who believe that my need to pray is a hidden desire placed in my heart by God, I understand. I used to think those things too.

But really, it's just this. Prayer was always my way of sorting through my thoughts. Rather than simply monologuing with myself, I had someone to address those thoughts to. That made it like a real conversation, one that required an aspect of reason, introspection, story arc and conflict resolution. It was an audience for my innermost thoughts. Prayer also gave me a way to thank someone for the good things in my life, the things for which no one on earth could be responsible for. Prayer was my way of figuring things out, working through issues and finding comfort in pain.

Prayer was a powerful tool for me. But the power was in the act of praying itself, not in the one to whom I prayed.

Prayer is still as natural to me as breathing. I don't pray as often as I once did, but perhaps my life is noisier now, with three growing kids, a demanding job, and very little time to reflect in silence. But I still pray often. When I hike, I find myself praying in glowing rapture to the Universe (who now gets a capital letter too) over the beauty of nature. When I am lonely or depressed, I share my painful feelings with the Universe. When I have a tough decision to make, I include the Universe in my inner monologue.

It's not because I believe some nebulous concept of a omnipotent "universe" has replaced a concrete concept of an omnipotent God, but because the act of praying itself is so powerful to me, no matter who it's addressed to, that I feel disoriented without it.

So there you have it. I am an atheist who prays. Fervently even, sometimes. Just another way I'm rationally irrational, I guess. Maybe just way I'm a little "spiritual but not religious" too.

Brokenness: I Write My Way Out

Brokenness, brokenness is what I long for

Brokenness is what I need

Brokenness, brokenness is what you want for me.*

That praise and worship song was usually played with the lights of the sanctuary low, the guitar soft, eyes closed and hands raised. It was often accompanied by tears, salty drops catching in the corner of my mouth, tears of either pain, longing or shame. Either I was broken as I sang or I wasn't broken and I wanted to be. To be broken meant the Lord could work in me, change me, "take my heart and mold it, take my mind and transform it, take my will and conform it" to his. This was my desire.

This is the desire of so many evangelical Christians, and this was my desire my whole life, most specifically through my 20s. Certainly from college to 30, I set my mind hard on Christ, set my heart steadily on loving and serving him and set my will solidly to do whatever he asked of me. I did not always succeed though, so in those times of selfishness and sinfulness, I longed and pleaded for brokenness. 

And I usually found it. As it turns out, I spent at least a decade, a good third of my life, being broken. This was something I believed was good and right and pure. This is something the church, nay, the Bible, taught me.

A Sunday morning in brokenness meant I was truly finding God. I left those services for a Sunday afternoon of renewal, as if leaving those lowered lights into the sunshine was clarity and a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit, powering through me to give me strength needed for the rest of the week. If I could live in a state of brokenness before the Lord, I would be living in the light, becoming more like Jesus, the most broken of us all. 

I spent most of my life in brokenness and wearing it as a heavenly and meek badge of honor. I lived most of my life seeking weakness, for it is in our weakness that he is strong. When I did not feel weak or broken, I was ashamed and cried out to God for it. I could only feel strength if it was Christ's strength in me, not my own. Nothing good could come of me, a depraved human being undeserving of Christ's love and sacrifice. I had nothing of myself to be proud of or to find strength in. Only the strength given to me by God could count as strength I could depend on. These principles were clear in Scripture, and I took them deeply to heart.

And I was happy. I truly felt happy. I was not a sad, pathetic, depressed woman moping around, feeling broken and weak. No, I was clothed in the robes of righteousness, I was empowered by the Holy Spirit, I was made whole by Jesus' sacrifice on the cross! When I did find myself in bouts of depression, I cried out for deliverance, begged for the Holy Spirit to make me whole again. I never believed Marilla's line that to be in the "depths of despair is to turn your back on God" (Anne of Green Gables, LM Montgomery). Rather it was an opportunity to rely on his strength and accept my weakness and turn something bad into something that would make me grow.  Growth is painful, I believed. The growing pains of becoming more like Christ and shedding my earthly flesh is uncomfortable but will be eternally worth it when I approach those pearly gates at the end of my time on this earth.

All of this was the mysterious paradox of Christianity. In our weakness we are made strong. When we empty ourselves, he fills us up.  There is no condemnation, even though we are evil in our innermost being and deserve eternal damnation. In our brokenness, we will be made whole. If we submit ourselves to Christ, we will be free. 

I've been separated from Christianity for about three years now. As the scales fall from my eyes and I dig deeper into who I am, I am finding that a lifetime of brokenness has, well, broken me.

A lifetime of trying to be weak has made me now despise any sign of weakness.

The way I made my religion the sole focus and purpose of my life, with all other things bowing down to it, was not, as I had always believed, a healthy way to live. It was damaging.

Striving so hard for brokenness did not lead to health; it led to illness.

Believing so strongly that I was worthless and my only worth was found in a spiritual being was not salvation; it was destruction.

I am only just beginning to discover my own worth and my own strength. I am only just starting my journey towards healing and wholeness out of brokenness.

And when my prayers to God were met with indifference

I picked up a pen, I wrote my own deliverance.**

I only know how to take this journey through writing.  My words may hurt, sting, offend, break hearts. They may stir the longing in many to correct my understanding, to tell me I went about my faith all wrong, but I didn't. If in your church you sing that brokenness is what you long for, then you know all of this is true. If you have read Scripture, you know that we are considered unworthy, sinful, evil in our hearts, and the only way to find salvation is to submit everything we are and have to God. We are to completely discard our flesh and live in the spirit. We are not of us this world, just living in it. Following the Lord with all our hearts, minds, souls and strength is what is required of us. 

It's taken me years to realize just how much it required of me. It required too much. For too long I surrendered "all of my ambitions, hopes and plans...all I am and ever hope to be"*** to a belief system.  So I write my way out.

Running on empty, there was nothing left in me but doubt

I picked up a pen

And I wrote my way out.****

It won't be all I write about this year, but there is a lot of psychological, emotional and mental unpacking I plan on doing this year. For the first time in my life, I am looking at myself and my own needs and desires to figure out the right way to handle them. I am discovering that having my own ambitions, hopes and plans, finding strength in myself, sometimes putting my needs first, and trusting that I am good in my innermost being is actually a healthy way of seeing myself. And the only way I know how to uncover these truths is through the written word.  So as 2017 unfolds, I plan to write my way out of a broken and damaged spirit. I apologize in advance to anyone who may be hurt or offended. And I reach out now to anyone struggling with the same issues. I believe we can be made whole.

* "Take My Life" - Micah Stampley
** "Hurricane" - Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton
*** "All For Jesus" - Robin Mark

**** "Wrote My Way Out" - Nas, Dave East, Lin-Manuel Miranda & Aloe Blacc, The Hamilton Mixtape

Letters to My Past Self - Part 2

In 2013, I wrote letters to my past self, giving myself the advice I wish I'd been able to give myself when I was 16, 18, 20 (but certainly would have ignored). Mostly it was regarding boys, though some pertained to studying harder and making better financial choices . (Was getting a nose ring and losing your college tuition money from Mom and Dad worth it?) (Yes, kind of.)

I have some more things I'd like to tell past me.

Dear Lori (24),

Don't let anyone tell you to put that baby down more or stop being so obsessive over organic homemade baby food or that using cloth nappies is a waste of your time. This is your time to figure out motherhood on your own, and even though two babies later you will find that putting that baby down more will make life easier and that your baby will still be healthy and thrive if you feed her baby food from a jar* and that cloth nappies are fantastic for the environment and your wallet but holy hell they are a lot of smelly work and it's okay to sometimes reach for the disposable, right now you do exactly what you feel is right and be proud of each decision you make. I stand behind you and all first time mums in all your idealistic and ambitious plans. I'm proud of you.

Love,

Lori (34, mother of three)
*That is, when you don't have time to do baby led weaning, of course. I know you'd hate it if I didn't make that distinction.

******

Dear Lori (29),

Speaking of ambition, let's get one thing straight. You never stopped being ambitious. You never lost yourself. Your brain never turned to mush. You must not keep thinking this about yourself.

You left college with a fantastic job for a recent grad, and at the ripe young age of 22 you went through the entire process of immigration all on your own. You moved abroad. You managed to blag your way into another great job in a field you had no experience in. You kicked serious ass at that job (though your work ethic could probably have been a little better).  You were ambitious, and you knew it.

Then you got pregnant and decided with Scott to become a stay at home mum. And that's where your confidence began to shake.

You stayed out of the traditional workforce for nine years. You believed you had nothing to offer the world other than being a good mum. You believed you were only marginally smart. You stopped believing in yourself. You looked at your friends and saw them as successful, while viewing yourself as barely contributing to society.

STOP THAT.

Girl, let's look at it from my perspective now.

You left the traditional workforce to become the most kick ass mother you could possibly be. You researched every single mothering topic known to womankind. You made conscientious decisions about everything. You did things very differently from what was expected of you, but you did it with confidence, because you were informed and ambitious about mothering.

You were AMBITIOUS about mothering. If you were going to be a stay at home mum, you were going to be the best damn stay at home mum you could be. Ambition isn't just for the workplace. (Shout out to all the ambitious stay at home mums out there. I know for a fact how hard y'all work your asses off.)

Here's something else you may not be realizing.  You weren't just a stay at home mum. You were an entrepreneur, a fundraiser and an active volunteer in your community.

You started four businesses while you were "just a mum". One was successful enough to make a living off of (Wee Honey Bee Childminding), one was as successful as you intended it to be (IntoBento), one scraped by but at least kept breaking even and gave you a lot of joy (TinyTalk), and the one that didn't work (Lori Borealis), you had the sense to drop early.  Ambitious! 

You trained as a breastfeeding peer helper with a national breastfeeding charity. You and your fellow peer helpers started your own local charity and did some really awesome things, including designing a campaign that the NHS of Greater Glasgow and Clyde still uses. You girls started a texting support service for breastfeeding mothers. You had annual general meetings, because you were a real non-profit. You got real speakers in to talk at your AGMs, because you were a real non-profit. You had a non-profit status bank account, because you were a real non-profit. Stop minimizing what you're doing. You and your friends were AMAZING and AMBITIOUS. Mummy brain? Not you ladies. So stop putting yourself down and thinking what you are doing is "nothing special".  Stop thinking you aren't really contributing much to society other than being a pretty good mum. I'd like to retroactively send all of you women a medal of honor. (Honour, rather.)

Um, also, don't forget you wrote and published a book?

Basically, what I'm saying is, stop putting yourself down and thinking you've "lost yourself" and you have "no ambition" and you "aren't smart".  You have always been ambitious in everything you've ever done.  Your priorities changed (and rightly so), but your drive didn't.

And I only JUST realized this very recently myself, so no fault to you for not seeing it whilst in the thick of it.

Love,

Lori (34 and still ambitious)

******

Dear Lori (31),

Your life is about to change in every way. I think you know this. I mean, obviously you know you are leaving your home in Scotland to go back to your home in Arkansas. That's going to change your life drastically. (And I should really go ahead and prep you for this - you won't be moving to Fayetteville when you get there. Scott's going to find a job in Little Rock in a matter of weeks, and you're going to live in Nowheresville for two years. I think it's best I just tell you this now.)  But things are about to change so much more.  Who you are, who you've always seen yourself as, is about to do a complete 180.  You sense this, but you aren't ready to accept it.

You're about to lose your faith.

It's going to destroy you.

I'm not gonna lie about that.

But I swear to you, it's only temporary. That darkness you feel right now is only temporary. I know there's nothing I can say to lighten the load you carry on your shoulders right now. I know there's nothing that can soften the blows you feel every time you pray and hear nothing from God.  I know those tears are going to fall and that they have to fall. Like a mother watching her child go through her first heart break, I feel powerless for you, knowing that things are going to get better but that you can't see that right now. I know this is something you have to go through to get to the other side, but it hurts me to see it and remember it for you.  So I guess all I can say is do everything you can to keep your faith alive. Pray with all your strength. Speak to anyone you trust about this. Write about it, talk about it, paint about it, run and exercise about it.  Because you need to know later that you did everything you could to hold onto that faith, and if God couldn't do the rest, well then, that's that.

The pain of silence and abandonment will pass, and when they do, you will find joy again. Joy unspeakable. Joy in the world as it is, not as it's written to be. You will find strength in yourself you never knew you had even though it was yours all along. You will find love and trust and freedom in ways you never believed could be found in a life without a god. 

But for now, there's no sense in telling you this, because there is no way you can believe it. So just keep doing what you're doing, because you're doing everything right.

I'm sorry you're going through this. Your whole life has been one as a caterpillar, and now you are being torn apart and squished and reshaped and it hurts so incredibly bad. But just wait.

Love,
Lori (34 and you would never believe what I call myself now...)

*****

Dear Lori (32),

Don't be too bummed about the Scottish referendum.  In a couple of years, there will be this thing called "Brexit"...

Love,
Lori (34 with a Scotland tattoo)

Ask An Atheist: Identity Crisis

I was asked another question on Facebook by B.  B. and I have known each other since 9th grade, so she knew me when I was a Christian. She asked:

Why do you think that being an atheist has become such a big part of your self identity?

I think this is a really valid question, one I'm especially interested in writing about. This is something I've thought long and hard on for almost two years, so I'll give these two main reasons.

1. Because my identity HAS completely changed. "My identity is in Christ." How many times have we evangelicals heard or used this phrase? For me, I used it all the time. My significance was found in Christ. My identity was in Christ. My purpose and reason for being was Christ. My whole life, especially my adult life, was centered around Christ. If I ever felt that something else was taking that place, I repented, ashamed. I was nowhere near perfect, I counted myself as one of the worst, most unworthy people to call myself a Christian, but I longed to be like Christ in all I did and all I was. I truly wanted my identity to be in him. I wanted the world to know that I was a follower of Jesus. I normally made it known very early on in a new friendship with someone that I was a Christian. I wanted to shine my light everywhere I went.

I was never asked why my faith was such a big part of my identity.

I'm not making that point to criticize the question; it is a really great, thoughtful, important question. But there is an element in the question that implies it shouldn't be. Atheism shouldn't be that important to me, even though faith absolutely can and should be.

So why has being an atheist become such a big part of my identity? Because it literally altered my entire identity. One thing as small as believing in a god or not quite literally altered my entire sense of self.

That Christian label that I'd worn for as long as I could remember was ripped off. And it left behind almost nothing. Without my faith, I didn't know who I was or who I could even be anymore. Would I become a selfish, terrible, mean, unkind person without God?  What am I, if not a follower of Christ? What is left of me worth salvaging if I don't have my faith anymore?  It wasn't until I had a moment of clarity, when I realized that I didn't have to believe in a god to be the same person I always was, that I started to rediscover myself. I realized that I still was and always had been and always could be a good person. I hadn't been the worthless, sinful, depraved person I'd believed myself to be my whole life; that was what religion had taught me. Religion had taught me I was a sinner in need of a savior; atheism taught me that I have worth, that I create my own destiny, that I am a good person because I choose to be, not because a deity saved me from my evil instincts.  "Luckily I held out long enough to see that everybody really makes their own destiny. It's a beautiful thing, it's just you and me, exactly where we belong, and there's nothing inherently wrong with us." (Quite Company)

*I fully realize that every Christian reading that will think that is a tragically arrogant, "deceived", lie-of-the-devil, heart-breaking thing to say, and no amount of arguing will convince them otherwise. I just have to accept that is what they/you will think. I thought it once too. I know.

I could no longer go around with a lingering Christian label. It wasn't enough to just rip the label off. It had to be replaced with something new. My identity had fundamentally changed. That's a big deal.

2. Because the stigma needs to end. When I finally admitted to myself I no longer believed in God, I was uncomfortable with the term "atheist". It had always been a very negative word to me, one I acquainted with loudmouth, obnoxious jerks who just want to make religious people feel stupid all the time. I tried labeling myself something less offensive: agnostic, humanist, non-religious.  But really, atheist pretty much summed it up.

As I began meeting other atheists and started experiencing life as an atheist in a very Christian society, I began to realize just how toxic the stigma on atheists is. We are the least trusted group in America. A Gallup poll showed that more Americans would vote for a Muslim or a gay person for President than an atheist. Why? What is it about simply not believing in a religion that makes us so threatening and unlikable? All the atheists I was getting to know via a Facebook group for non-believing mothers were extremely kind, thoughtful, generous, and intelligent. So how is it that the term atheist inspires such disgust?

I decided to be one small but audible voice that would speak for atheists.  We are not all disrespectful and militant. I'm aware that my embracing atheism makes many people uncomfortable. I'm not blind to that, and I do hate that it has to be that way. But does it have to be that way? Why should it make people uncomfortable? It shouldn't. If I converted to Catholicism or Mormonism, would my speaking about it cause them the same level of discomfort? Not anywhere near to the same degree. So my atheism has become a part of my identity in part to help end the stigma that comes with the word.  I can be your token atheist friend, if that's what it takes. My generation having had that "token gay friend" is actually a huge reason why LGBT rights have come as far as they have in the past few years. Knowing someone personally is often what changes people's preconceived notions. Maybe the social tide can turn a little if everyone had a token atheist friend. In another generation, maybe just knowing a friendly atheist will bring an end to the stigma.

*I fully expect some people to think, "Well, you aren't that respectful - you sort of shove your atheism down our throats." To that I'd have to ask, "Really? Do I? Or do I just talk about atheism in the same very personal way you talk about your faith?" If simply talking about one's own faith is not shoving it down my throat, then my talking about my lack of faith is not shoving it down anyone else's. If posting Christian articles or praising God on Facebook or writing blogs about how Jesus has changed your life is acceptable, then so should anything else equally non-confrontational. I'd have to challenge the person who thinks I shove my atheism down their throat to recall a time when I've insulted anyone for their faith or tried to turn them into an atheist. (Conversely, I've had plenty of reconversion attempts made on me.) I'm just sayin'. If you don't like what I say, don't read it. I won't be offended, promise.

Final thought. I do sometimes feel uncomfortable with this "identity". I recognize it is not politically or professionally astute. I sometimes worry I could lose my job. I worry about my kids being bullied at school for not going to church and having atheist parents. There is a lot to lose to being an atheist here in the Bible Belt. Quite a staggering number of people have confided in me since my "coming out" that they are closet atheists, unafraid to tell their families, friends, or even spouses, that they do not believe. Somehow that makes it all the more important to me to keep speaking up. Maybe I'll lose my job (I hope not) or my friends or even some family members (I really hope not), but if it also results in a change of opinion or attitude in a some people, then maybe at least some good would come of it. The more of us willing to come out, the more people will accept us, because they will know us.

Ask An Atheist: Pascal's Wager

I've been asked many times before, "But what if you're wrong?" I admit, if I'm wrong, and there is a god, and he is the God of the Bible, then that would really suck.

However. The chances of that are so incredibly slim, I'd be just as safe putting my faith in Ra the sun god or Aslan the lion or the angel Moroni.

Even so, to point a fine theological point on it, if the Bible is true, then the essence of this question isn't about Pascal's Wager (if you're wrong, you lose nothing; if you're right, you gain everything) but the nature of faith. In my book, I wrote a chapter addressing this very topic. Bolding is to emphasize the point here.

Pascal’s Wager Part 2:
Esau I Have Hated

My fear of hell was diminishing. It had mostly disappeared, except that every now and then, fear still momentarily struck my heart. I am literally playing with fire, I’d think. I’d get a sense that I better repent quickly just in case it all turned out to be true after all.

What I will lose if I wager wrongly! There is an eternity of suffering waiting for me should I wager against God and be wrong. What do I lose by following God and there is no God? Very little. What do I lose by not following God should there be a God? Everything. On these little occasions, I panicked about how I had played my cards, as the fear of hell crept back up on me.

Pascal’s Wager almost makes some sense, except the wager overlooks two important issues. First, it assumes that the only God worth wagering on is the Christian God, ignoring the possibility that a different religion might be the right one. Still, that issue aside, the second thing it overlooks is that without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). Yet faith is a gift from God, it is not of ourselves (Ephesians 2:8). Therefore, I cannot please God without faith if he does not choose to give it to me. I could wager that God was real and keep following him as I had been doing for the past three years, but I would not be saved, for anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists (Hebrews 11:6). Pascal’s Wager is useless without faith.

Anyone who believes seriously that the Bible is God's inerrant word would have to agree that "believing" in God solely on the off-chance that he is real is not true faith at all. They would also have to agree that faith cannot be faked.

But they would also have to acknowledge that faith is a gift from God - it does not come from within ourselves. To be saved one must have genuine faith, and to have genuine faith, it must be given to one by God himself. Ergo, if God does not give you faith, you cannot be saved, end of story.

Try to insert "free will" into that wherever you like, but it really can't alter the Biblical "facts". One could try to believe on one's own, but unless God grants you faith, you're up a creek without a paddle, as they say.

"You could at least try, though. God would answer a sincere request for faith." I've heard that too. I believed that once. I hoped for that outcome for three years. Oddly enough, once the innate belief in God started to diminish, God mysteriously stopped answering my sincere request for faith.

So, to conclude my thoughts on the fatal flaws Pascal's Wager, I'll give you the rest of that chapter above.

Sadly, it was fear, not love, that sporadically warned me to reconsider God. God’s love had been gone from my life for a long time. Abandonment and silence echoed in the cavern where love once dwelled. But fear could still make me draw in a sharp breath, as it sliced through my heart like a paper cut. When I paid this fear some attention, it gathered like a thundercloud inside my head and struck my conscience with forks of lightning. I asked myself, Do you really want to bet your life on this and end up languishing in excruciating damnation for your sinful pride, your worldly “wisdom”, your pitiful human understanding, for all eternity?

Fear is a powerful tool. Yet if God’s plan for restoring my faith was fear-mongering, I was even less inclined to believe he was the God of Love I once knew – or thought – him to be. If it were the love of God striking my heart, drawing me to him, there would be something in it worth carefully considering. However, the fact that only the fear remained seemed psychologically obvious. It was neither God himself, nor his Holy Spirit, calling me back, but thirty years of theological manipulation. Hell is the scariest and most effective tool for keeping the righteous in check. Heaven’s promise pales in its alluring.

The revoked love of God in my life and the dubious possibility of heaven were not enough to draw me back to faith. The fear of hell and the almost certainty of God’s wrath, however, left me quaking. With the cards of my still unfinished life lying on the table, I could still change how I placed my bets. Yet if the God of the Bible is the one true God, my bets don’t matter in the slightest. God chooses whom he loves and whom he hates. He chose Jacob but hated Esau (Malachi 1:2-3).The cards on the table were never mine to choose from.

And we call this agape.

Coming Clean: An Unconventional Book Review of a Christian Book By a Non-Christian Reader

Dear Readers,

This is a little early. Normally I save my book reviews for the Reading Challenge monthly round-up, but I feel this particular book deserves its own post. Excerpted from the draft of the upcoming November book reviews, I bring you less of a book review and more of a personal response to Coming Clean.


Coming Clean by Seth Haines (A book that scares you)

Okay. So I'm really having to stretch here. Really. I've struggled with which book to read for this category all year. I don't want to read anything scary. Why would I do that to myself? I haven't enjoyed scaring myself since I was a teenager. I tried to pick up some truly scary books and had to put them down. I'm all for expanding my horizons, but I'm simply not the least bit interested in reading something scary.

So I'm doing a little creative interpretation.

This book wasn't one that scared me, but the thought of reading it did fill me with something close to dread. Maybe it was a little scary in that I wasn't sure I wanted to read it. Yet, I did want to read it, knowing what I know of the background.

I went to college with Seth's wife Amber (also an author). We were in multiple creative writing classes together. I've studied for tests and eaten meals in her house. I've met Seth, even though it was a long time ago. During the time I was in Scotland, I kept up with Amber's blog, so I remember a lot of this happening (from Amber's point of view). Their infant son was failing to thrive, and I wept with them from a million miles away, I prayed for her baby boy who was slipping away. When I heard that Seth had written this memoir - a diary of his first ninety days of sobriety from alcohol - I wanted to read it. I wanted to know his side.

But I also dreaded reading it, and I couldn't figure out why.

I knew I wasn't looking forward to the God slant of it all. Christianese still rubs me the wrong way. But why would that fill me with dread? Was I worried that this book might wrinkle the bedclothes of my finally comfortable atheism? Was I worried that after all this time, God would speak to me? (Too little, too late?) Was I afraid the fear of hell might rise up within me again, threatening me with its red flames and pitchforks, the laughter of Satan as his claws close around my wrists, and the crossed arms of God looking down, head shaking but not moving to rescue me?

As I started reading the book, several realizations took place. The first explanation for my dread came up almost immediately.  It was "too soon". I'm not as far removed from Christianity as I sometimes think I am. Sometimes, it's just too much, too soon, like a horrible break up. You think you're over it until you re-read your old love letters. I'm not far enough away from it yet to give it the disconnected but respectful deference I can give to other religions. If it were a book by a Muslim or a Jew or even a Mormon, I'd be okay. But this was too close to an almost-healed wound that appears scarred over on the surface but is still tender when pressed.

Very early in, I pinpointed another source of my dread. The fear of jealousy. The prickling feeling of "this guy experienced the silence of God, yet by the end of this book, I'm willing to bet God makes himself known to him." Would this book be a re-visitation of the old Why him and not me? Might there be a jealousy lingering deep down that this guy's faith did not get shaken beyond its breaking point? (To it, yes. But not beyond.)

Despite all these reservations I read the entire book and shared a few tears with him as one who's felt similar darkness. I know the silence of God. I know the doubt, the disillusionment, the pain, the need to numb. I've met the same cast of characters - played by different actors but reading from the same script - the "faith-healers" who make promises they can't keep, the churchgoers who place the fault on your faith (or lack thereof), the trite and glib assertions of "sovereignty" and "God's glory" and "never give you more than you can bear". I know the same theologies that grind against simple faith like tectonic plates and the systematic studies that box up life's complexities (sufferings, dichotomies, mysteries) with pretty Scriptural exegesis ribbons.

We are not that different, this Christian writer and this atheist writer. Not that different at all.

I'll admit here that nestled up with the potential jealousy and the dread and the still-tender wounds was a second-guessing, a head cocked to the other side, a furrowed brow. What I really didn't expect to get from this book was a genuine reconsideration of my own experience. Had I given up too soon? Did I commit the ultimate fail - the Give-Up that scores an F and detention in hell, instead of the Keep Going Despite Everything Rational that warrants an A and heavenly applause?

I wondered that with utmost sincerity - and again, dread. I've been through this before. I've gone there. I've questioned all these things to death and back. Is there something to this, after all this time?

I kept reading. I kept wondering. I questioned my (un)faith along with him questioning his (unsure)faith. The story went on, through the first month, second month, third month of his abstinence from alcohol and his doubt and his desperation to hear God and the silence and the anger and the needing to forgive and the "cave" as he called it where all the darkness hides, and I just couldn't help but think:  Why?

If there is a God and he is this God of the Bible, why on earth does he constantly make faith in him so bloody difficult? When Sunday School tells you to "just believe" and you will be saved, and Gospel preachers say, "you only need faith to be saved" and even the theologians insist "it is by grace and nothing of yourselves", then why would God make faith so impossible to achieve? If it's this gift that only God can give, why does he give it so freely to children and then withhold it so tightly from adults?

Why would he make this simple believing such an impossible mountain to climb, one we have to write books about to even remotely comprehend?

What good does it do to make climbing the mountain of faith so utterly difficult that so many of us eventually lose our grip and crash to the rocks below? What is the truth then, that it is by faith we are saved but by surmounting the insurmountable (the silence of God, the problem of pain, the inconsistencies of Scripture) that we finish the race, make the grade? Does that mean we must do more than just believe to be saved, that there is something we must do of ourselves - a desperate striving, perhaps, while a silent God stands back and observes, clipboard and checklist in hand?

I applaud Seth's journey, and I applaud his resolution. I truly mean that. I loved this book; I loved his writing style, his beautiful imagery, his perfect rendering of the ache of the faith crisis. If I'd read this book two or three years ago, would it have changed the direction of my journey? Maybe, maybe not. My dilemma came from the inconsistencies of Scripture, his from the problem of pain. Our dilemmas might not have crossed paths closely enough for his to affect mine. His denoument, though, is beautiful and enlightening, and I am so happy for him that his faith did not ultimately waiver, and that it is getting him through his struggle with alcohol.

I fear that might come across as patronizing, coming from one who decided that faith is an illusion and God a figment of our imagination. How do I explain that my joy for him is not patronizing at all but genuine?

For I believe he is on the right path. I also believe I am on the right path. I believe all of us who are doing our utmost to find truth and goodness and light and love in this brokenest of worlds are on the right path. I'd have dismissed that kind of talk once as highly new-agey and relativistic; I'd have called myself "deceived" with a sunken heart and a sorrowful sigh. I feel almost Buddhist saying it now. Om. 

I truly mean it though. I never rooted for atheism while reading this story. I hoped the truth would set him free. And unexpectedly with each turn of the page, as he baked bread to satisfy the hunger of his readers' doubts, tiny crumbs of respectful deference dropped onto my plate of cynicism towards Christianity. While the loaf in the end was not for me, the crumbs have given me a warm reminder of what it tasted like to live off that bread.

I remember that a person who lives off that bread is not delusional, any more than a person who does not live off it is deceived.

We are all on the same path.  We are all approaching truth, just from different angles. Call it Eastern and new-agey, call it whatever you want, but this is the truth that I found - most surprisingly - in this book.

It is a little scary. Going from an all-or-nothing faith (or unfaith) to something left of center is new to me. It's easy to say "you're wrong and I'm right"; to say "we all have fingers touching on the truth here" is harder and often more easily dismissed by everyone from all sides.

I made a good choice on a book that scared me. It did wrinkle the bedclothes of comfortable atheism, it did briefly rekindle the fear of hellfire, it did spark a moment or two of jealousy, it did reopen the wounds of once perceived silence and abandonment. In the end, however, after tearing through so many layers of doubt and pain and forgiveness and disappointment alongside the author, I kept returning to the conclusion that if God were real - and loving - he wouldn't make it next to impossible to believe in him. He wouldn't make it so difficult that only a select few - the strongest of the strong, the most emotionally intelligent - make it to the end. For people like Seth have emotional intelligence overflowing in buckets, but it's not only people like Seth whose sons fail to thrive or who suffer the silence of God or who question the childhood experiences of faith. Not everyone has the depth of introspection required to dig far enough into their own caves of darkness to find that one tiny seed of doubt and to root it out like a deeply embedded wart. "Childlike faith" shouldn't take a PhD to achieve. Faith shouldn't require books upon books to explain.

However. Just because it is not the path I am on does not mean it is the wrong path. There are many trails to the top of the mountain. To everyone trying to get there, I recommend exploring all of them. Including Seth's.


Love,
an atheist author and reader


P.S. Yes, I capitalize the G in God, just as I do the A in Allah or the Z in Zeus. This is grammatically correct, religiously respectful, and also incurably habitual.

The Four Gift Rule

There's a meme going around about buying only four presents for your kids at Christmas: Something to wear, something to read, something they want and something they need.

My first response to this meme was, "Great. Another source of mompetition." I could imagine moms boasting about how little they spend on their kids at Christmas, how unmaterialistic their families are, how their kids don't EXPECT tons of presents like all the other spoiled brats in the Western Hemisphere.

I also recognized how this could be a great system for families on a budget or for families who genuinely and un-boastfully do practice simplicity and minimalism.

But it still annoyed me.

I even saw one comment that added to the mompetition wars that flaunted how incredibly goodly (and godly) she in particular is:  "We actually add one more category - something spiritual." I could practically hear the slot machine ding-ding-ding as she won that round of supermoming the rest of her opponents.

However.

After my initial annoyance, I started thinking about the basic concept of the meme, and I kind of have to admit - I didn't hate it. In a self-loathing kind of way, I actually sort of liked it. I started thinking a lot about it and dang it, it wasn't a bad idea at all.

And even more self-loathingly, I also didn't hate the concept, albeit fairly pretentious, of "something spiritual". In fact - as I control the gagging - I was a little inspired.

Ugh. I know.

But true.

Since losing all faith in a supreme being, I have definitely "shut down" any spirituality that might have been lurking. For me, religion and spirituality have always been all or nothing. As an evangelical Christian, I believed in One God, One Jesus, One Faith (One Baptism, etc). It was all or nothing. You either believe whole-heartedly that Jesus is the only way to salvation or you are lost. (Hellbound.) God isn't interested in lukewarm believers! He'd rather you be hot or cold.  (Revelation 3:16 - "So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth." ESV) Evangelicalism leaves no room for wishy-washy, fluffy-wuffy, when-it's-convenient faith. So when I went from being hot (a devout follower of Christ), I bypassed the lukewarm and went straight to cold. None of that "I'm spiritual but not religious" mumbo-jumbo could suffice for me.

You're either hot or cold. It's all or nothing. You're one or the other. That's how I was brought up. I became the other. The cold. The nothing.

And truth be told, I'm cool with that. ("Cold" with that, perhaps?) I don't really miss "spirituality". I don't really feel I need it. Right now anyway. I will concede that perhaps that may change in the future.  A belief in a god is unlikely, but a yearning for spirituality, I suppose is within the realm of possibility. Just not any time soon.

My friend Devon asked me about this. If instead of settling into a sort of "liberal" Christianity, one that perhaps doesn't believe in hell or who accepts gays, I retaliated against my faith and went as far to the other extreme as possible. In answer to that, yes. Probably. Christianity has always been all or nothing for me. If one takes the Scriptures literally, those two are the only options. To take Scripture non-literally seems to devalue and discredit the whole thing. (Where does the literal end and the metaphorical begin? At creation? At the virgin birth? At Christ's diety?)  Perhaps if I'd never been so hot about my faith, I might have settled for lukewarm. But that's not really a viable option. (And it hardly matters at this point when I have zero belief in any god anymore anyway.)

But back to Christmas presents. (I kind of chased after a rabbit there for a minute.)

While I personally do not feel a pressing need to reconnect with my spiritual side, that does not mean my kids should be deprived of it. Perhaps "something spiritual" isn't all that pretentious after all.

(No. It's still pretentious.)

The question then is, what is "spiritual"?

If you do a quick Google search for "spiritual", the first several pages gives you all kinds of Christian links. A search for "spiritual gifts", once you sort out the quizzes to find out if you are discerning or a peacemaker, brings up hundreds of Bible retailers, Precious Moments figurines, inspirational Bible verse calendars, Christian jewelry, and home decor crosses.

I just have a hard time understanding what decorative crosses and Precious Moments actually do to bolster one's spirituality.

Spirituality has been very much equated with Christianity in the West, and to buy someone a spiritual gift is basically synonymous with kitschy ornaments and wall hangings that have some sort of vague Biblical reference. Even when I was a Christian, I wanted to know exactly how a pack of Testamints was going to do anything to improve my life other than promise me fresher breath. (In fact, those sort of things deeply offended me, as they should any devout believer. Chocolate crosses at Easter? Seriously?!)

To me, spirituality is about connecting with ones deepest self or connecting with nature or the universe or even a supreme being. If I want to give my kids an opportunity to connect with their spirituality (whether I believe in such a thing or not), I need to first pinpoint what that even looks like.

Choosing something to wear, something to read, something they want and something they need is easy.  A new outfit, a new book (or several - I'm not committed to just four gifts), a glance at their letters to Santa, and new packs of underwear doesn't take a whole lot of contemplation. But something spiritual requires a lot more thought. A lot more introspection too.

What would I consider spiritual? Putting aside my own skepticism, I have to wonder what I think would allow them to connect with themselves or with nature or with the universe or with a supreme being.

Not being a super spiritual person now, that's hard.

But I can think of a few things that could open one up to spirituality.

Art (and the opportunity to create art)
Music (and the opportunity to create music)
Gardening
Nature walks and hikes
A telescope (for exploring the stars and planets)
Poetry
Meditation

Admittedly, packing "poetry" or "meditation" into a cardboard box and wrapping it in festive paper isn't really very practical. And trying to excite a six year old into spiritual rapture with a Mozart sonata or the works of John Donne would probably fail miserably.

But all children can start exploring spirituality with creation. Creating their own art, their own poetry, their own music, their own homegrown nature.

The tools for creation - paints, paper, an instrument - are things one can wrap up and put under the tree. These are a "something spiritual" that can be given to children as a holiday gift. And if choosing something that relates to a supreme being is important to you as well, encouraging your children to use these tools as a means of worship must be more spiritually satisfying to them than buying a white and pink Bible (that they are too young to read) or a gold cross necklace that is simply worn as an accessory.

I mean, if we're going to be so pretentious as to add a "something spiritual" to our list of Christmas presents, let's go all out then, shall we?

READERS: What do YOU consider spirituality to consist of, and what would a "something spiritual" look like under your Christmas tree?

Regarding Artificial Intelligence... And Religion

About a year ago, I wrote the following but never published it. Since I don't have anything new to write about tonight, I'm posting this instead. It breaks one of the NaBloPoMo rules - no pre-written content - but och well. I'm practicing being unperfectionistic.


Last night, my hubby and I went out for a much needed date, just the two of us, no kids. Gotta thank the parents for babysitting! We went on a 'high school' date, aka, cheap and cheerful, Taco Bell for dinner and a dollar movie [dollar cinema now closed!]. We saw Johnny Depp's new(ish) movie, Transcendence.

I'm one of those people who after watching a sci-fi movie, especially on the big screen, comes out of the theater feeling all, well, sci-fi-y. I'm the same with horror; first time I saw Final Destination, I drove home certain that street lights were flickering ominously and death was prowling around me to get its due. So after leaving a film about artificial intelligence, I began imagining my brain was a computer, with an uploadable consciousness.

We put on one of our current favorite albums for the drive home, Quiet Company's We Are All Where We Belong, a brilliant 'coming-out atheist' album. My mind started to wander...

"I know this is going to sound so cheesy, but in a way, it's like our brains really are computers, and all it takes is a little virus to deprogram the whole thing."

My husband, not finding this as cheesy as I feared, agreed. (Which is good, considering my programming knowledge is very old and probably obsolete, not having worked with data and coding in ten years.  In other words, please excuse any errors that may now follow.)  I started talking about the moment I specifically got 'infected' with the virus; the moment it dawned on me that Jesus Christ might not actually ever be coming back. I remember that exact moment so distinctly. And seeing it from a computing point of view, I started to imagine the so-called virus corrupting my original programming, slowly at first but eventually wiping out the system completely.

The moment I first considered that Jesus was not coming back was like opening a corrupted file. Over the following weeks and months, the belief system I'd held my whole life began to fall apart. It all started to unravel, like a computer virus scanning all my files and wiping them out. After three years, the system was completely wiped, gone, deleted. The faith that had been my operating system had been destroyed.

But a virus isn't right. A virus corrupts. I don't feel like what happened to me corrupted me. "What else could it be then," I asked my techie husband. "A factory reset?"

"More like an upgrade," he responded. Our default setting, he argued, IS religion. We from infancy anthropomorphize everything; it's the only way we understand the world. We tend to think that the world thinks like us, that everything has meaning or reason. Our ancient ancestors saw the sun and believed it had a spirit and a will. We believe bad things happen for a reason. We imagine that the universe works in a humanly rational way. We want to make sense of why we are here, so we create divine beings to explain our existence, and we rely on this deity for order. Our factory settings kind of are religious.

It takes an upgrade, or perhaps a patch, to rise above that.

This, of course, is highly debatable, depending on what side of the 'program' you fall on. For religious people of all kinds, saying that religion is a factory setting is right! Of course, because God made us that way. God made us to need him. And as we go through life and discover this need for religion, we are pointed to God (or Ra or Allah or Brahma or whomever). To the religious, atheism (or agnosticism) is definitely a virus in the worst sense. A corruption to the system. Something in an email we don't want to open (so we don't open). We stay far away from viruses of doubt to ensure we keep the programs operating as they should, keep the system clean.

But to a non-believer, it's as I said earlier. It's an upgrade. It's taking a system that had faults to begin with and improving upon it. The original OS had some bugs, but there has been new software released that can improve the system's performance. However, you've got to open up that email with the instructions on how to compile the new or changed files to get the patch.

For me, maybe that moment I first realized Jesus may not be coming back like the Bible said he would, wasn't so much a virus that corrupted my system, but a source code modification. How it got there, I'm not sure (was it an executable file, begging the question, IS there a manufacturer someone releasing patches? Are we all actually existing in a virtual reality like The Matrix?), but however it was executed, I'm glad it was. It has definitely improved my system's performance.

SPSP Book Fair This Weekend

This coming Sunday, I'll be exhibiting my new book (The Last Petal Falling) for the first time. The Arkansas Literary Festival and the Central Arkansas Library Systems (CALS) are hosting a Self-Published & Small Press Book Fair. Registered authors (like me!) and small presses will attend a few mini sessions on things like Income Streams and Copyrights before opening up our book fair to the public. To decorate my stand, I've got a black tablecloth and a few little flowers and vases, << that poster right there on its way from the printers, and a stack of books to sell. (I also ordered a Square reader for taking card payments, which is taking a ridiculously long time to get here. I hope it's here by this weekend.) If I can find the time, I'm also going to make some giveaway bookmarks. If I can find the time. If.

I'm really excited about promoting my book, but I'm also super nervous. It's a sensitive topic, and this is the Bible Belt. Scott asked me today what I'm going to say when people ask me what my book is about. That got me thinking. I really do need to have something polished to say when I'm asked that. Right now, when people ask, I get a little embarrassed and unsure of how to respond. I kind of just want to hand over the book and have them read the back. It would be so much easier that way.

So what's my book about? It's my loss of faith story. It takes the reader back through the religious experiences of my childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood to the broken moment when my faith started to crumble. It tells the story of the three years I spent imploring God to renew my faith as it slowly slipped away, and the pain and despair that accompanied that loss. It's the story of a life built firmly on faith in God razed to the ground. It recounts the aftermath of losing my faith, and how I managed to breathe again as an atheist.

But none of that is really the 15-second attention grabber I need. How do I say briefly what this book is about?

I'll have to spend some time thinking about this. Talking succinctly about it is almost as hard as writing it was. I wish I had someone exhibiting with me to help me out! Someone else's perspective is always more convincing than the author's.

Maybe I can print out my Amazon and Goodreads reviews and have them scattered around the table...

Hmm, that's an idea! In fact, if you've read the book but haven't left a review of it yet, mind doing it this week?! I'll send you a bookmark. (If I make find the time to make them.)

The Difference Between You and Me: Or Is There One?

I mentioned last time that I've had several responses to the Screen Doors post that I wanted to address. One of the ones I really wanted to respond to was my friend Kate's response to Screen Doors.

She responded to my blog on her blog.  It is really good and asks a lot of questions that I am eager to respond to. (Response response response, can you say it five times fast?) I'll post snippets here as I reply, but please go read her entire post afterwards. Whether you are a Christian or not, I think it is very inspiring, honest, and furthers this amazing dialogue that is so rarely seen between believers and non-believers.

I'll begin with this:

“Most of the time I feel as spiritual as a plunger.” I worry perhaps a friend saw my sin, my depression, or my bad parenting and they knew I wasn’t being Christ-like. Did this help them turn away from those teachings we grew up with? ... I feel disappointed in myself and my lack of spiritual fortitude.

She was talking about her childhood friends whom she has seen since leave Christianity.

I can't speak for every single person who has ever left their faith, obviously. I am sure there are plenty of people who have left because of the hypocrisy or failings or bad behavior of believers. However, I can say that in my experience (and at least one or two of the friends she might be referring to), this was not remotely the case.

One thing that I do not miss about Christianity is the guilt. Oh, sorry, I mean "conviction".  If you've read my book, you'll know what I mean when I say I was a spiritual masochist. I turned everything inward, wondering if there was any part of me that was to blame for any undesirable situation. I believed this was cleansing me, making me more like Christ. I could not fathom anyone being a genuine Christian and NOT constantly rooting out the evil within them. I recognized my brokenness too deeply. I was ashamed of my poor witness. I prayed constantly to be made more like Christ, but I failed over and over again. This all basically comes down to me saying I relate all too well with Kate's concern.  I too wondered if my own imperfection was driving people away from God. I'm a crappy parent sometimes, I get depressed, and I never felt I was quite living up to the person God wanted me to be. I could be a hypocrite. As hard as I tried to be righteous, I messed up time and again. And I wondered, "Is my light so dim that no one can see Christ through me?"

The answer, almost certainly, was no.

I left the faith, and many, many others leave the faith, simply because we run out of faith. We started the race like marathon runners, but after the first 26.2 miles and the next 26.2 miles and the next, we started to slow down. We ran out of breath.  We hunched over, panting, trying to keep running. Finally, we collapsed. The faith that we either longed to have (but could never admit was lacking) or the faith that we held unquestioningly somehow just began to run out. Whether the burden of reason grew too great or the allusiveness of God too wearisome, losing faith in a religion is often a highly introspective experience. It's not caused by other people's behavior. It may be, but I'd venture to say a genuine loss of faith is usually very inward-looking.

People who care enough about their faith to worry that their imperfect lives may be causing others to stumble are almost NEVER the people who should have to worry about that. You are usually the best people around. You are empathetic, you are introspective, and you are genuine. You're the good guys.

Let me add before I go on that the greatest joy I feel daily is the lack of guilt and shame and brokenness. I thought I felt whole as a Christian, but now I realize I only felt fixed. It is only now that I feel truly whole, now that I realize I was never broken in the first place.

Another huge issue for me is my own unbelief. All Christians struggle with unbelief or doubt at times. I have gone through seasons of my life -sometimes even years- when I feel disconnected from the Lord and full of doubt. When I have a friend who outs herself as an atheist, a big part of me wonders if she is going through a similar season. And, to be very honest, sometimes you feel like your friendly atheist has made some excellent points and all your doubts coming flooding back to the surface.

Let me repeat the caveat - I can't speak for everyone here. Just myself and several people I know.

Yes, we all have our doubts, Christian or not. Sometimes they are huge and leave us in a pit of despair for far too long. And for some, that faith does return. I followed a blog for a while called Gakeat's Musings, in which the author ruminated on his crisis of faith. He eventually reconciled his belief in Christ (and has sadly stopped blogging - I'd love to hear his thoughts now that he is back on this renewed path!). Some people do go through a season of doubt and come back to their faith.

And some of us are beyond seasons. If you are an evangelical, you likely had some sort of turning-point moment that you could never go back from. I know I did. Whether that was the moment of "salvation" or just the moment where my spiritual journey took off like a rocket, I don't know, but it fundamentally impacted the next decade of my life.

I had that same kind of experience when I de-converted. To go back now seems, well, unthinkable.

For some people, it is only a season of doubt. For others, this is our new (improved) reality.

As for the "friendly atheist [making] some excellent points", that's another, more difficult topic. Do I want to venture into it? Maybe later ... But for now, my goal is not to turn people away from their faith. It's only to share the view from the other side and to keep a dialogue going.

When I found out a friend was no longer a Christian I was full of questions and worries. ... How can this be? ... We cried together, and worshiped together. Or at least I thought we did. Was she lying to me? When did this start? Was she doubting her faith when she was praying for me when I was struggling last year? Was she just acting or bowing to societal pressure this whole time?

I'm not the friend she's referring to, by the way. So I don't know what her friend was going through. But if she HAD been talking about me, here's what I'd have to say.

Those moments you refer to were real, for both of us. For me, those moments were never put on or intentionally deceptive. Growing up (adolescence, young adult years), my faith was solid. I cried and worshiped with hands lifted high.  It was never fake. Christ was my center, my All In All.  When my faith began to waiver, though, I did hide it from most people. I was afraid of being judged. I didn't want anyone to know that this girl who led worship at church, who helped in the Sunday School, who facilitated the Prayer Wall, who had been on mission trips, was now starting to doubt. I didn't know if my doubts were just one of those aforementioned seasons or not, so to share them seemed premature. But I was ashamed. So at that point, I did keep it inside. But I wasn't acting. I was just hiding in fear.

If I'd been praying for a struggling friend during that time, those prayers would probably have been the most heart-felt prayers of my life, because I was living the struggle too. No one can empathize better than the person walking in the exact same shoes.

So much of my identity is wrapped up in my relationship with the Lord. When I found out that Jane had rejected Him, it is shocking because I feel like she is rejecting part of me, and in some cases, her upbringing ... I want to say, “Jane, do you remember that [time] when I went forward and received prayer at church? It was terrible and wonderful at the same time.  I felt so embarrassed when I cried and my nose ran and I was shaking as you and the others were praying for me. I hated for anyone to see me that way. I hated to make myself so vulnerable, but I knew you understood. Do you still understand or do you look back on that time and pity me and revile my weakness?”

Oh, my heart breaks at this point. You can't imagine what feelings reading those words brings up in me. Yes, we still understand. I'm not Jane, remember, but this could easily be asked of me. I have had so many of these moments; the vulnerability, the ugly tears, the weakness, the love and thankfulness I felt for my friends who held me and understood me and prayed for me. I can never forget my own moments like that; how could I ever revile someone else for theirs?

I speak for myself here when I say that even though I often feel embarrassed by the things I said and did as a Christian, and even though I sometimes feel regret and anger and frustration, I also have come to a place where I can give myself a lot of grace. Yes, grace is a word that's been co-opted by Christianity, but it's a good word. It's something we all need, regardless of who gives it to us. I am learning to give it to myself. But I never needed to learn to give it to others; for me that just came naturally. I'm way more forgiving of others than I am of myself. I don't look back at your weak moments and feel embarrassment or pity. Just love and grace.

One other thing to mention here is the use of the word "rejection". It's a commonly used word in this context; the atheist "rejects" God or even "denies his existence".  Yet that is an entirely inaccurate word for most people.  I don't think I know a single atheist or agnostic who feels they have rejected or denied God. We simply don't believe a god exists (or are not sure either way). I don't deny or reject Zeus, nor do I deny or reject Allah. I don't believe either exist. When it comes to our friends, we no longer share that thing we once had in common, true. But we don't reject it or you. However, I can completely see where you're coming from. I don't think that's a crazy way to feel at all. When your faith is your essence, then someone leaving that shared faith can absolutely feel like a rejection. But just please remember that it's not. Again, the loss of faith is highly internal. There certainly must be people who throw out the baby with the bathwater, or in this case the Christians with the Christianity, but I hope those people eventually see that this isn't necessary.  Just as we non-believers long to be loved and accepted by others, we should extend that same love and acceptance to our believing friends. Without judgment, without arrogance.

One close friend told me that he realized his unbelief was a bigger deal for me than it was for him. ... I’m worried about his soul ... but he isn’t.

Yeah. I think this is probably true. For a lot of people, de-converting is fairly uneventful. Especially when it was a largely intellectual affair. For me, it was highly emotional, but this not normally the case. Most of my religious-turned-nonreligious friends had a harder time emotionally with losing friends and family than losing their faith.


Finally, I must address her last thought. This is truly the crux, if you ask me, of the entire subject.

I wonder about my friends who don’t have the Lord in their lives. How do they make it through the day? How do they have the strength to be the mom their children need? How do they stay married? I doubt they would say they have everything figured out or that they are better than me. They are taking it one day at time as well, but I cannot comprehend how they are still functioning. This raises all kinds of confusion within me. I am less a capable woman than them? I am just trained to be dependent on the Holy Spirit because of my upbringing and beliefs? Are they failing miserably and not telling anyone? Am I a horrible person with unfathomable depths of depravity that I need help overcoming while they are just normal functioning people?

My answer cannot be summed up succinctly or in some quaint, quirky, poetic little sentence. Here's the thing: We ALL struggle. Constantly. We are all human.

How do I personally make it through the day? When I was a Christian, I truly believed God was bringing me through. I believed he had his hand on my life and was guiding me, protecting me. When that faith began to disintegrate, I had no idea how I could cope without him.

I'll never forget the day I realized that not only could I go forward on my own, but that I'd ALWAYS been on my own. When you come to realize there is no almighty god guiding you and protecting you, you eventually make the connection that such a god didn't just disappear leaving you in the lurch but never existed in the first place. Therefore all those years before HAD been on my own. And I survived. The feeling of empowerment and strength that moment afforded me is inexplicable.

Wait, I know EXACTLY what you're thinking. How presumptuous of me! How arrogant! I seriously deserve pity now that I've come right out and said "I can do this on my own without god!" Oh boy, am I the classic Kevin Sorbo character atheist now! But hear me out, if you can.

The way I see it, you and I are no different. You and I both struggle. We have bad days, we have bad months, maybe even years. We get depressed, we get angry, we fail miserably. Yet we both find the strength to get out bed (most days) and push on. We both look at our children and think, "You are worth me trying to do better." We look at our marriages and think, "This is worth fighting for."

Your strength rises out of your faith. I admire that. I think that if faith in Jesus Christ gets you out of bed and makes you a better person, then that is awesome. Regardless of whether or not I think your strength actually comes from inside YOU or comes from God, the fact is you are strong, and you are making the world a better place for yourself, your children, and everyone else around you.

I don't have that strength anymore. Not from faith, that is. Nor do I want it. Faith no longer has that rosy fragrance drawing me to it. Now, I have a different strength.  What gets me out of bed in the morning is the realization that life is short, so very short, and I barely have any real time to put my imprint on it. I want to live every moment as a totally alive person, making the short lives of others as meaningful as possible. I want to do better for my kids so they can do better for their kids. I want to fight for my marriage, because life is too short to be alone and sad, and I've been so lucky to find someone I'm desperate to share my short life with. Since realizing that there is no afterlife in which to make up for whatever I missed here on earth, my concept of time has radically changed. Like a heart attack survivor, I've got a new lease on life. To use someone else's words - because they are so much better than mine:

I suddenly felt very deeply that I was alive: Alive with my own particular thoughts, with my own particular story, in this itty-bitty splash of time. And in that splash of time, I get to think about things and do stuff and wonder about the world and love people, and drink my coffee if I want to. And then that's it. -Julia Sweeney, "Letting Go of God"

So, no, back to your original questions, you are not a horrible person who needs God to overcome your failings while the rest of us go on functioning normally. You have tapped into a source of strength. So have I. Many people have not tapped into a source of strength yet, and for those people, I do wonder how they get through life. I hope everyone finds a source of strength, as long as it is not in something destructive. For those who find their strength in faith, I ask only that they do not use it as a weapon also. Same goes for anyone who finds strength anywhere - within themselves or externally. We are all prone to weakness, therefore we all have a responsibility of empathy. We should use our strength to lift the weak up, not beat them down.