Three Days in a Row? Part 3

Embarrassing 

I went for many years without church. 

Instead, the people who sat in a barstool night after night became my family. They were the people who accepted me. They were the people who cared. They were my community. The ones who would give my son quarters to keep him occupied if I had to bring him to work with me on a Saturday afternoon. Who would drive tractors to the bar parking lot to entertain my son. Who paid to fix my cars. Who collected money in a jar to buy me drinks and who crammed into the bar on the night of my 21st birthday, standing room only, to watch me die of embarrassment when the stripper came. They took me to the grocery store when they knew I didn’t have a working car and bought chains for my tires in the snow when I did. They called themselves my dad to keep skeevie guys away and kept a seat for me on the nights that I’d stay after work. 

I learned an important lesson about people during those times. Christianity didn’t make someone a good person. Empathy, fellowship, kindness and love don’t have to come from in between the walls of a church, in fact, I hadn’t found those things in the church when I needed them most. I found them in the hearts of the people sitting on barstools because those people had been through some shit and didn’t feel superior to the guy sitting next to them.

Yes, there was a sense of superiority when sitting in a pew. Yes, walking into a restaurant at 12:15 on a Sunday afternoon ( If the pastor hadn’t gone past his allotted speaking time!! You start glaring at him around 11:45. I’m serious.) in your church clothing has a sense of superiority to it. Being born into my family, a real sense of superiority. 

A bar at 7pm, not so much. At 1am, even less.

My grandparents harped on me to attend church. It’s what I needed since I’d veered off the expected and required standard and had brought profound shame into my family. I too was told to go to California to be on TV and apologize for my sin of having a child out of wedlock. 

I declined.

I didn’t need church. I had found the community that I needed.

Moving on, I got married, had another child and my mother, aunt, grandmother and cousins began to attend a church, AoG, not far from where we lived and I was pressured into going.

Every single Sunday I walked out pissed off and resentful. I hated the sermons. I hated the judgement. I hated that we were immediately taken in as insiders and the youth pastor beat his pregnant wife, the secretary was having an affair with a deacon and a missionary stole money from the church. And that was all before the pastor told my mother to refuse a heart transplant because he’d had a dream that God would heal her.

He didn’t.

And the pastor charged our family to perform her funeral.

And during that funeral he changed the wording of something that I’d written to be read because it wasn’t Christian enough.... AKA I hadn’t gotten much better at the Bible speak.

That was it for me. I ran away from organized religion.

It’s embarrassing to me to call myself a Christian now. Today I see Christian’s support the least Christian President we’ve ever witnessed. They turn themselves into pretzels to find a way to support a man who goes against everything they are suppose to stand for.

Godliness 

Faithfulness 

Truthfulness 

Respectfulness

Kindness

Charity 

Forgiveness 

Humbleness 

Thankfulness 
CHRIST

They raise their fists in the air as he mocks women and the disabled. As he cages children and speaks hatefully about shit as insignificant as the Oscar winning movie. Every single attribute I’ve listed he doesn’t possess and if you’re not a Christian and you love that guy because he lacks all those things then you do you. You go, Girl. But as people who call themselves CHRISTIAN it’s shameful and I don’t want to be boxed in with them.

I’m embarrassed. 

If it’s ever brought up I say .... I’m not THAT kind of Christian and people nod because they know what I mean and that’s embarrassing too. 

So, I’ve been on this.... search, I guess, for where I belong. What path is the path for me?is there a hole that I fit in as a square peg?

Is there a Christian sect that has empathy and respect and kindness, because I feel angry a lot these days and I just hate it. It’s not me. I’m an empath. You tell me your story and who hurt you and you won’t cry alone. In my opinion, empathy is the single most important quality to possess as a human being. Being empathetic to others would solve all those issues that we fight about. Listen to their story. Hear what they hold dear. Feel, for a few seconds, what they feel, and we’d all understand so much more. Is there a place like that for me? Is there a church community that doesn’t shove their interpretation of the Bible down your throat? That allows room to think and question and doubt? That’s a hard ask, right? It’s difficult these days to sit next to a stranger on a bench with the same newspaper and be able to ask for an open minded conversation without an opinion shoved down your throat, let alone the Bible. 

And.... as it turns out, there is...... 

I was watching a video that had nothing to do with religion. I was struck by the person’s spirit. They were funny and charming and graceful and kind and off handedly they mentioned their religious sect.... which I hadn’t even realized was a branch of Christianity. She began saying a couple of things about it and then moved on. It was nothing earth shattering. She wasn’t evangelizing, in fact, the number one requirement of this branch is to never evangelize. So, I began to study it. 

It feels like the hole my peg fits into. I told my family who all had the same basic reaction... Huh? What?

Ok? Weird.

And then I just asked that they take a look. See what they think. Do they see a fit? Do they think I looked a bit too hard? 

Weeks later my YM’s called to tell me that she wants to join this branch. Not only does she want to join this branch, but her boyfriend does as well and they immediately felt it was right for them. They looked into it, they love the way they practice, how they believe, what’s important to them and what’s not and the fact that they go out of their way to not judge. 

So..... my next blog will be about that and if I’ll take the leap or stick my toe in and how strange that feels to me. 

We still drinking on a blanket under the stars? Because I love that. Stay sitting down. We will solve the problems of the world and high five ourselves. 

Luv the moon this time of year,

Tracy