Losing my religion

Different people leave the church system of religion for different reasons. Statistics show millions are leaving the church system as we know it, particularly in North America. I left in two phases. The first phase was me leaving the church itself. I had always had seeds of doubt, but I was willing to squash them on faith- or what I had always been taught was faith. But what I couldn't squash was the love factor. The lack of love among Christians was never-ending. If God was love, and the church was always marketed to be about love-not just love but unconditional love- then why were my fellow christians so heartless? Why did the preacher always have to preach sermons on love or have a "love campaign" just to get us to be involved in each other's lives?  I sat in countless church meetings-both casual and ministry staff meetings-where we discussed-or "shared" openly about our struggle to call one another, hang out together, and basically "b...

What do you do when you leave church or religion  and have made all your memories with these people? When you have boxes of photo albums filled with their pictures?   They own your memories. A song triggers a memory of you dancing together in the kitchen. A smell reminds you of when the gang went on vacation that summer. A color takes you back to your roommate’s wedding.   Now there is no one. Since your time and energy went into building these imaginary relationships, now you realize you drove your real friends away years ago. What happens when these real friends survive your belief system but are not as close to you after all these years as they could have been, when blocks of their lives have come and gone without you in it.... The single lifestyle is very difficult to maintain without friendships because of the constant social pressure to not be alone.   This single lifestyle is lonely by design - especially if you live alone and you are f...

I left the job interview under the impression that I had it in the bag. The girl interviewing me- and I do mean girl- was perky and bright-eyed as she spoke with me. "It sounds great" she said, shaking my hand.  "we'll be contacting you within two weeks." I never heard from her again. It's a recession. And recessions don't care who you are, how much potential you've got, how much education you have, or how much experience. I was dissapointed-not because I really wanted to job, but because I was rejected-and of course  because I needed the cold hard cash. I didn't pull out my bible to look up verses on prospering. I didn't pray for God to "move in a powerful way". I just went through it. I allowed myself to be upset-and depressed-and then hopeless-then angry-then upset again-and after a while to be hopeful again. As a Christian, I was never allowed to go through the natural cycle of the human experience. It was unde...

I wonder how many single people out there are victims of PMS (post-ministry syndrome)? I can spot single PMS a mile away, over the phone, on webchat, you name it, I can sniff it out.  Because I am a PMS survivor, too. In another blog, I  wrote about Joe, the posterchild  for the socially illiterate. But in some way, all of us who were entrenched in the church  are...socially illiterate. No one escapes the flames of religion unscathed. In the christian religion, singles weren't even important enough to be mentioned in the bible, except for extracted verses on "not being unequally yoked" or "it is better not to marry..." The standard for single people was so high it was agonizing. It was always about what NOT to do. "DON'T be unequally yoked." "It is better NOT to marry." As a result,  I floated between states of euphoria to ones of depression as I failed to "overcome sin". Nothing was to be about me. I remember i...

I wrote this blog months ago and frankly a lifetime ago as well. I have been through so many changes that I'm a different person now than I was when I wrote this. However I do feel the subject matter is still relevant and I'm just wanting to post it. So, here it is. I used to be the person who tried to "pull in" the person who was always in the corner, isolated and downright strange. Church, I thought back then, was supposed to be the one place where there was unconditional love and acceptance of everyone. I was kidding myself, because there were people who I didn't get along with, who didn't  like me all that much and others who freakin' irritated the hell out of me.  The minute I went over to strike up a conversation with that person in the corner-who everyone else sees but avoids -I quickly would get snagged up in their web of dysfunction and I would find myself looking around for help.  My roommates would sprint past me, my friends would give me...

It takes a lifetime to recover from spiritual abuse. This abuse is the only abuse that rips you to peices and then tells you that you're not allowed to get bitter about it.  You aren't allowed to be angry and pissed off at the deepest violation that can happen to a  human being.  You are lied to, psychologically tormented and thrown to the curb by the leadership and your friends and somehow if you leave you cannot say one bad word about the bad place you came from. The church I was in was a evengelical cult. Truthfully I believe all religion is cultish. I guess the extreme tactics my old church did to recruit people put it over the edge. When people left like I did, it was psychologically ingrained into their subconscious that leaving this church meant leaving God. I remember practically having funerals for people who "fell away". Everything was about either trying to get people in, keeping people in, or getting them back in. ...