Losing My Religion

I have been in an ugly place the last couple of months.

I feared that letting go of my soulmate required me to lose my belief in soulmates. And, I feared that losing my belief in soulmates required me to lose my belief in God. In short, I was losing my religion.

But, I gave myself permission to doubt. I allowed myself to follow the path taught by many Eastern religions (and psychology) to work through your repressed feelings. I did not say my feelings were "right" or "wrong". I did not feel guilty or bad for feeling what I felt.

I just felt.

And allowed myself to feel those feelings more deeply and truly.

I just felt.

And I gave myself permission to NOT believe.

I just felt.

And I looked at the core of my disbelief.

I just felt.

And I looked back on other times I "lost my religion" and thought about what I was truly feeling then.

I just felt.

And, in the end, I realized that my "disbelief" was never disbelief at all. It was ANGER.

Look -- life isn't fair. And the concept of free will only goes so far in describing why bad things happen to good people. Believe me, I have seen many people in horrible situations that are self-induced from poor choices: the woman in an abusive relationship, the alcoholic with liver problems, the former drug-addict who can't find a job, the teenage mother struggling to graduate with the responsibilities of a child.

BUT, sometimes people are in horrible situations THAT AREN'T self-induced. Sometimes people do everything "right" and things turn out bad anyway: the girl is raped by her father, the kid tries to help someone being bullied at school and is shot by the bully, the family loses their life savings when the mother gets cancer.

I have seen a lot of pain and suffering and hurt in my life time -- maybe too much. Sometimes I feel like it is my life purpose -- to help suffering people. There are days when it feels like everyone around me is drowning in suffering and I am trying to keep their heads above water, but watching as they slip below the surface, one by one.

My frustration is only multiplied when my head starts to slip below the surface too.

And it ... well... it just pisses me off.

Because I feel like God SHOULD step in and fix things.

And He doesn't.

I know this is THE FAMOUS "problem of evil" and many others have hit this wall and found it to be the breaking point in their beliefs, but I have to work my way through it. I have to. Because I DO believe. I believe in soul connections and God and collective unconscious and synchronicity.

I wish I didn't believe. I wish I didn't feel it deep in my soul.

It would be easier to imagine that there is NO God than to accept that there is a divine force in the universe -- a force that sees my tears, hears my frustration, understands my anger -- and fails to act.

The Freedom to Doubt

I know the exact moment I decided to identify myself as a Quaker.

It was Easter morning many years ago. An elder in the meeting (one of the founders) stood up during the service and said something like this:

"Friends -- today is Easter and many Christians are celebrating the resurrection of Jesus this morning. I am feeling kinda left out about it all. I WAS a Christian as a child, but I am not sure what I am anymore. I still think Jesus lived and he had a lot to say, but I don't know if I believe that he died on the cross. No -- I guess I DOUBT he died on the cross. I saw a special on the Discovery Channel the other day and they talked about this chemical that could have been put on the stick to give Jesus water and how it lowers the heart rate and causes symptoms that could have been mistaken as death. And, well, anyway... it just made a lot of sense, you know? And I wonder if it matters anyway. I really don't care if he died on the cross or not. I still think a lot of what he said was true and he teaches me how to be a better person".

My soul cheered.

You see, I have always been the "doubting Thomas".

By the time I was 10, I decided to read the Bible cover to cover. As I started reading, I realized that it said I should fast for this and fast for that and give offerings of doves for this and render beef fat for that. Being a dedicated Christian, I ripped out a calendar and wrote down all the dates as I worked my way through the old testament (and tried to capture doves for the inevitable killing season). When the first day came, I stopped eating. My mother told me, "Oh, we don't do THAT. Only Jews listen to the stuff in the OLD testament. We don't have to fast".

And I was like, "Waaaa????" What. the. hell? You tell me every word of this book is true and then you just decide not to do ANYTHING the first half tells you? Are you kidding me?

As I kept reading it got worse:

• Issac and Abraham offer to prostitute their wives to protect themselves
• Lot offers his daughters up as prostitutes for strangers AND THEN rapes them and everyone seems fine with it
• Jacob, Rachel and Leah (and many other instances of men having multiple wives)
• The rape of Dinah

I couldn't even make it out of Genesis without a list of questions a mile long. Like a good Christian, I went to see the pastor and ask him my questions. He patted me on the head and said something like, "You read too much. You have too many questions. Just stop reading and you will feel better".

But, I didn't.

And one Easter he began his sermon about Jesus's undying love for us and how He went willingly to the cross to bear our sins and I just couldn't hold it in. I stood up and yelled, "THAT'S NOT TRUE!" (*gasp of at least 20 women in white gloves and hats*) I said, "What about his sweating blood in the garden of Gethsemane as he begs God not to make him do it? And what about Matthew 27:46 when he screams 'My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me'? Does that sound like someone happily and willingly sacrificing his life for me?" (*sound of at least 20 women in white gloves and hats flipping to Matthew 27:46*)

Needless to say, the service ended at that point and the pastor angrily told me that I needed to stop questioning his divine understanding of God... and that I should sit in the back pew for the rest of the year to think about listening more and talking less.

So, ... when I realized that Quakerism is strongly rooted in the acceptance and understanding of doubt, I was released from a horrible burden. For me, believing and doubting are like yin/yang. I couldn't believe completely until I was given the freedom to doubt completely. And I needed the support of a religious community that understood this and allowed me to struggle, allowed me to voice my concerns and my doubts, allowed me to seek my own truth.

A guy named Jon Watts is part of PYM (my local chapter of Quakerism). He made a music video where he sings:

I'm not a Christian

But, I'm a Quaker

I have Christ's inner light

But, he's not my savior.

Some Quakers thought he went too far in saying that George Fox had nothing to do with Jesus, but I like the song and I like that I am part of a religion that honors people and their right to believe (or not believe):

Why I Believe and the Fred Miller Dilemma

My ex-husband is a hard-core, evangelical atheist. I, on the other hand, have always believed in a higher power. His attempts to convert me caused many discussions in our house over the years. I came to realize that my attempts to justify my position in terms of a logical argument missed the point. I call this problem my "Fred Miller Dilemma"

Imagine, if you will, a conversation between Fred Miller and a guy he has just met.

Fred Miller: Nice to meet you. My name is Fred Miller.

Guy: Your name can't be Fred Miller.

Fred Miller: I am sorry. That is my name.

Guy: Well, as everyone knows, The surname Miller is primarily of Scottish origin. The origin of the Scottish name comes from a burn (rivulet) in Glasgow namely the molindinar Mo-lynn-dine-are and the name has evolved over the years to molindar Mo-lynn-dar and to molinar mo-lynn-ar and to Millar and finally to Miller. The name Miller also originates from Northern Ireland, notably County Antrim. You have many physical characteristics of a person with ITALIAN ancestry. It is much more likely, based on your physical characteristics that you have an Italian last name.

Fred Miller: That may true, but my name is still Fred Miller.

Guy: AND you said that you were from Brooklyn. Only 3% of the Brooklyn population is of Irish ancestry, so it is highly unlikely that you could have a Scott Irish last name and be from Brooklyn.

Fred Miller: That may be true, but my name is still Fred Miller.

Guy: And how old are you? 34? 35? Were you born in '75? Your first name can't be Fred. That name was a popular baby name in the 20s, 30s and 40s, but was largely out of fashion by the 70s in the U.S.

Fred Miller: That may be true, but my name is still Fred Miller.

Guy: And the name Fred comes from the English origin. How would you come up with an Irish last name and an English first name?

Fred Miller: I don't know, but my name is Fred Miller.

See, the thing for me is that I never REASONED my way into belief. Just like Fred Miller, the logical argument only makes sense when I don't already KNOW the answer.

And, I don't THINK there is a higher power; I KNOW there is a higher power. I just FEEL it. I sense it. So all my ex-husband's very logical and well-documented evidence couldn't change my mind. Even when there is overwhelming evidence to contradict my belief, I do not budge.

In general, I have always known on some level that this absolute KNOWING position is a very dangerous one to take. Too often, we have seen people dig into ridiculous positions because they just KNOW.

Still, my most core beliefs were made through this KNOWING.

And not only my belief in God, but my belief in soulmates and destiny and soul connections. There are times that I have spent hours making a list of what I would like to have in a partner. Then, a man comes along who defies half my list and I just FEEL this connection with him and I throw the list out the window. On the flip side, I have met several men that meet every one of my desires on paper, but I just don't FEEL it... and so I walk away.

I do not have any decisions about this, but I just want to throw it out there for everyone: somehow I think this concept of love and soulmates is deeply connected to God because they all come from a place of KNOWING rather than reasoning. Is this KNOWING a real phenomenon? Is it Jung's universal unconscious? Is it the nondualistic nature of reality? Is it a figment of imagination and the random firing of neurons?

Most importantly, if I just FEEL that there is a higher power and I just FEEL that I am meant to be near someone, does letting go of one belief require that I let go of the other?

I Wish I Could Tell You

I wish I could tell you that I dreamt of you again last night. I wish I could tell you that the memory of you has filled my dreams for the past two weeks. I wish we still had the kind of relationship where I could IM you this morning and say, "You know what is weird? I had a dream about you again last night" and you could type back, "Weird".

I wish that when I called you, you didn't answer the phone by saying, "Honey, what's wrong?" I am not your "honey" anymore and saying that word just causes an awkward pause on the phone as we both remember and reaccept the truth. And asking me what is wrong just demonstrates that you think I can only call you for "emergencies".

Apparently, I can't call you to say, "You know what is weird? I had a dream about you again last night".

I wish I could tell you that my dreams AREN'T the ones you fear. They have nothing to do with your warm, panting breath on my neck or your fingers on my skin. I wish I could tell you that what I miss most is our friendship and my dreams reflect this. Most of the dreams involve us on the park bench. You are sitting and I am laying (as I always did) with my knees in your lap. We often don't talk at all. That makes sense, I suppose, since the most profound words between us were always those left unspoken.

I wish I could tell you that in the dream I had last night, I was running down the hill -- like I always did --and you were running after me. Your taunts about my bare feet and my lack of technical running form were drowned out by the sound of my giggling laughter. I wore an ankle length skirt and the folds wrapped around my legs, tripping me as I ran.

I got to that spot on the road -- you know the one -- where the path opens up and you can look down the hill and see the lake. I stopped and smiled to myself thinking about the time you tipped the canoe on purpose and we both had to swim for shore. And I thought about the way you took all the blame ... even though I was the one that dared you to do it.

At that moment in the dream, I turned to look at you, to read the smile of understanding and remembering on your face, but I could not find you. I searched the path behind me, but you were no longer there.

I was alone.

I wish I could tell you that the dream isn't much different from reality, is it?

I wish I could tell you that I do not want you to leave your wife. That is never what I wanted. And I didn't want some secret, illicit affair. I wanted to talk to you, as a friend, because I know... I KNOW what you are doing and what is about to happen.

I wish I could tell you that I know you regret marrying her and think you should have waited for me. I wish I could tell you that you are wrong. I wish I could tell you that you almost destroyed your marriage when you heard I was getting a divorce and I sat in silence because you asked me not to talk to you. Every moment you were in Tempe, I wanted to grab you by the shoulders and say, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING! GRAB THE FIRST FLIGHT TO RALEIGH AND FIX YOUR MARRIAGE!"

I wish I could tell you I know you won't leave her because that would make you the "bad guy," the sinful, thoughtless jerk. I wish I could tell you I know you will force HER to leave YOU instead. You will work long hours at the ER and tell her you are doing it to support the family. And the few hours you have left will be spent on quality time with your son and at the church "saving souls".

I wish I could tell you that one day she will say you are pushing her away and you don't really love or understand her. But, you will tell her she is being clingy and needy. Finally, one day you will have hurt her so much that she won't be able to take anymore. She will walk out the door. And you will consider yourself blameless and innocent because you sacrificed our friendship for your marriage. You never said anything inappropriate to me. You let her know when you talked to me. You never crossed the line.

I wish I could tell you that I know all of this because it is what I did. I destroyed my marriage because I was clinging to the memory of you. I wish I could tell you that I am trying to save your marriage because I love you and I want you to be happy.

I wish I could tell you that my dream seems like the perfect metaphor -- we laughed and ran down the path together, but now we have come to the point in our lives where our paths finally diverge. I wish I could tell you that I am ready to turn and realize that you are no longer there.

I wish I could tell you that love isn't about chaining a soul; love isn't a painful, longing, hurting thing; love is about letting someone walk away when that is where his path leads him. Love builds; love fixes; love heals; love soothes. Love does not destroy. I wish I could tell you that somehow, in trying to do the right thing, we both ended up doing the wrong thing.

I wish I could tell you that this bond between us is REAL and holy and beautiful. I have never doubted my love for you or yours for me. Walking away does not change that. Our lack of a marriage does not change that. Nothing can change that. I have always loved you. I will always love you. That is why I am letting you go. It is why I am asking you to let me go.

I wish I could tell you that we are both stalled at a crossroads. Both of us have been pulling in opposite directions, trying to pull the other down our path. You are meant to go to the left and I to the right, but neither of us can move on until we let go of the other's hand.

I wish I could thank you for not letting go of my hand when I wasn't ready. I wish I could tell you that I won't let go of YOUR hand until YOU are ready. But, I need you to be ready... because I can't bear to hold on much longer.

And, when you are ready, I will be okay. You can let go of my hand.

I wish I could tell you.

A Hand to Hold

I did not come up with my list of reasons people push away love on my own. You see, for many years I worked with drug addicts, drug dealers, single teenage moms, killers, and criminals. It was my job to get them to stop pushing me away.

Pushing people away in boyfriend/girlfriend relationships is just like pushing people away in other life relationships. They usually follow a consistent pattern:

Stage One -- Guarded Stage -- They cross their arms. They sit as far from me as possible. They avoid eye contact. They answer in curt, short responses or not at all. The important thing in this stage is that I let them have their distance, but remind them they will have to open up eventually. I generally say something like, "If you don't want to talk today, it is okay, but I am here to help you and I will listen when you are ready to talk".

Stage Two -- Testing Stage -- They ask loaded questions like "Do you know what it is like to go hungry?", "Did your father rape you?", "Did you grow up in the hood?" The important thing here is to be 100% honest, admitting when I did not experience what they have gone through and discussing my own situation if it truly relates. It is also important to never, ever say this phrase -- "I understand" -- because I don't REALLY understand. I sympathize. I empathize. I never understand.

Stage Three -- Anger Stage -- They throw stuff. They leave the program. They scream cuss words at me. They say mean things. The nastier they are, the closer they are to breaking. I try to remember that this is their desperate attempts to hold up their wall. They are trying to protect themselves. I tell them their behaviors are inappropriate, but I am not giving up on them and I will help them if they let me.

Stage Four -- Release Stage -- They break down. They give up their anger. They cry... sometimes on my shoulder. They ask me to hold their hand. They apologize for their behavior in stage three. They ask for help.

Some people go through the stages in days or hours. Some take months or years (like Chucky), but everyone breaks eventually if I patiently demonstrate my worthiness of earning his or her trust. And, once they break, they are rewarded with support, honest dialogue and my genuine caring. For years, my old clients would stop by to tell me they were still drug-free or away from the abusive relationship or getting straight As.

We are all walking this path through life and no one, not the hardest, bravest, strongest of us should walk that road alone. Sometimes when we reach for a hand in the darkness, we find another warm hand to hold.

Why People Push Away Those They Love (2)

In my last post, I said a lot about my own personal experience, but I never really answered the question.

WHY PEOPLE PUSH AWAY THOSE THEY LOVE

1. WHEN THE PUSH IS MEAN -- She wants to know if you can love her shadow side. She is mean to you. She does not answer your calls. She is late for your dates. She tells you the relationship isn't working. She does things she knows will annoy you. She doesn't really want you to go. She wants you to say, "I am not going to let you push me away". She wants a man that loves her enough to put up with her ridiculousness.

2. WHEN THE PUSH IS RUNNING -- She wants to know that you will sit and wait for her to return. She wants to know that you will let her go. She wants to know that you don't "need" her, that you aren't trying to "trap" her. She wants to know that you don't want to control or change her, but that you love her enough to give her freedom.

3. WHEN THE PUSH IS "YOU DON'T KNOW ME" -- She feels unworthy of you. She has dated guys before that seemed to like her and then they got to know the "real" her and they decided they didn't like her. She seems confident. She will even tell you she IS confident, but she isn't. She thinks that guys love the "fake" her, but no one understands the "real" her. Once you see this "real" her, you won't want to talk to her anymore. She wants you to be patient. She wants you to make her feel safe. She wants you to find the real her and love her anyway.

4. WHEN THE PUSH IS BEING DISTANT-- She makes jokes when you try to talk about serious things. She tells you to lighten up. She may use drugs or alcohol to force herself to emotionally distance herself from you. She probably dated guys before that lied and told her they loved her when they did not. After she started to genuinely care about them, she found they were using her for sex or they just needed her to fill their own egos and make them feel important, but they walked away easily and she was left hurt. Either way, she is not going to be hurt again, not by you, not by anyone. She is protecting herself from you. She doesn't know if she can trust you.

5. WHEN THE PUSH IS SLEEPING WITH/DATING OTHER GUYS -- Look to see if she has a long dating history. Perhaps she uses guys to fix her ego. She is experiencing a lack of self-esteem. "Look," she is saying, "I am important. He is sexier than you. He makes more money than you. He is more educated than you. And HE likes me. HE knows how important I am, even if you don't". She is trying to prove to herself that she can do better than you, that she doesn't need you... because she does.

6. WHEN THE PUSH IS TALKING ABOUT HER SOULMATE -- She has experienced real love. She knows what it is like to breathe his presence. She knows what it is like to have unconditional, eternal love. She knows what it is like to be willing to die for someone. She wants to feel it again, but is scared that there is ONE AND ONLY ONE person for her and she already ruined it with him. She wants you to reassure her that maybe the universe will allow such a miracle to occur more than once for a person.

Of course, there are times when a woman pushes you away because she really just doesn't like you. But, if you feel a push/pull, if it seems like she really loves you and doesn't want to push you away, realize that there is probably one of these issues (or several) in motion.

And, I don't mean to imply that it is your job to fix these problems when they arise. A person can only be so patient and so understanding before it becomes masochistic. On the contrary, I am trying to tell you that when you see these problems occuring, you should know IT HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with you. It is about her. And once she heals herself, these problems with disappear on their own.

Blogblast for Peace 2009

“When you find peace within yourself, you become the kind of person who can live at peace with others.” ~Peace Pilgrim

Today, I cannot help but think about my ex-boyfriend, Sami. He grew up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. When we dated, he was in his early 20s. From the moment he was born until the moment we met, his homeland had been in the middle of the 30-year Ethiopian/Eritrean war.

Most of that time, Sami's father was the lead General in charge of the Ethiopian forces.

When Sami was in his late teens, the Eritrean forces surrounded his father in an abandoned building. His father put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. When I asked Sami why his father had killed himself, he said, "You don't understand. They would have tortured him to death and then drug his dead body through the streets. He was already dead before he pulled the trigger".

Naively, I said, "Well, at least he spared your family from watching him being drug through the streets". Sami took a breath. "No, we weren't spared from watching that at all. I watched all three days as they pulled him back and forth".

One of Sami's best friends was named Ziggy. Ziggy grew up, oddly, in Eritrea. He lived his entire life on the opposite side of the war. Ziggy's father and older brothers had been shot and drug out to the doorstep of his home. The soldiers told the family that they could not bury the bodies or they would be killed. The family was forced to let the bodies fester in the heat for nearly a month before they could remove them.

A few years later, his mother and sisters were raped in front of him by Ethiopean soldiers and then slowly mutilated (while they were still alive). He ran from the house, with the screams of his mother in his ears. He walked for days, on his own, to get to a distant relative's house. Thankfully, the relative got him out of the country.

In a small rural town, these two people found one another. An ignorant college administrator saw they were from the same area and put them together as dorm roommates.

Years after we met, the General that replaced Sami's father looked out upon the extensive trenches the Eritrean army had constructed, and famously said, "The Eritreans are good at digging trenches and we are good at converting trenches into graves. They, too, know this. We know each other very well."

The thing I remember most about it all was Ziggy. He often openly cried about the carnage he had seen. Once, when we were talking about his friendship with Sami, I said, "Well, perhaps you find some peace in the fact that Eritrea won the war in the end".

Ziggy said words I will never forget: "There are no winners in war. Only those that suffer and those that suffer more".