We went to the Moravian Lovefeast and I was left uninspired. It was my hope that I could find my church there, but it didn't happen. I have been searching for a church for months and months, starting first with the MCC, then making my way closer to home to the Parkway United Church of Christ. Neither one lifted me up, or for that matter, grounded me. I gave each three chances to do it, but I left empty each time. I tried another church which opened me from the middle out and I cried during the entire service, but I was dealing with my issues with Spencer's transgenderism and was in a state of near collapse. When I returned to that church the next Sunday, I again was left homeless, Godless. The next church I tried was the Unitarian Universalist church and there aren't even three words to put together to describe the hollowed feeling I got from them. The problem is that I don't know what I'm searching for. I keep getting the same feeling I get when I'm writing...just an emptiness that feels bottomless, a feeling of pure echo that flaps about, bounces off things and finally dies out in the pit of my gut.
Last October I thought I was going to die. And that came about because I had lost God, the feeling of being watched over and protected. I felt like every step I took brought me closer and closer to death. The really bizarre part of that was that I wasn't sad about it. I knew I was going to die and it meant nothing. The closest I got to despairing about it was a feeling of disappointment. I was never going to see Spencer grow up. I was never going to write a novel. I was never going to buy a home. I don't think I was ever suicidal before or since that period in my life but I knew, suddenly and completely, why people kill themselves, how they do it, why they leave behind their loved ones without a care, without heart. It doesn't matter. None of it matters. There's nothing left. It's just time for you to die. It was time for me to go.
Talking to Daniel helped. I told him everything. It was difficult because we were both working on the unit at the time and in snatches of downtime, I poured it out. I had become an orphan. And I was going to make Spencer an orphan. I was going to leave. He never judged me. He never tried to talk me out of it. He just listened. "I've lost God. I'm practically homeless, nothing is going right, prayer doesn't help. There is nothing in me...and there is nowhere to turn..." or something to that effect. He said something that saved my life. He said, "Tracy, you can believe that God is all-powerful or all-loving. I choose to believe that He is all-loving...and He loves you." I chose to believe it too. Not right at that moment, but it came to me little by little and it nestled somewhere in my heart enough that I put the insulin bottle back and threw out the syringe. I haven't thought about killing myself since then and when things get really, really awful, I know God loves me and suffers with me, so I just suffer through and take it all in.
But I don't know why I can't find Him in church. I don't know why it echoes. Daniel recently gave me a book, Traveling Mercies, Some Thoughts on Faith, by Anne Lamott, in an unspoken quest to help me find my way. And though I love Anne Lamott, have read all of her books, and find expansive spirituality in everything she writes, I found this book lacking. Nothing came.
And I don't know what I expect to happen. Does everyone who believes in God, who is filled up with God, experience an earth-shattering reverence that explodes above them, in them...does it complete them? As LTD and I were leaving the Moravian church, I felt such a longing, such an incredible need, to be lifted up, to be flung about, to be whole again. "We need to go to a black church...I need to hear gospel." We both considered it and LTD even called a friend of ours at work to see if she knew of a church where we could go. It didn't work out, though, and we went home. Without the gospel.
What I realize as I write this is that I'm not searching for God. I've come to terms with that. What I'm looking for is a way to say, "Thank You. I'm doing okay. I couldn't have gotten here without Your help." And I want to do this is a big way, in a church, where I can feel Him, where I know He's listening...no, where I can feel myself saying it. And I know the premise that God is everywhere, but I want to find my church. I've been searching for a long time. I'm still searching. I will search until I find it.
My dear Tracy:
I fought God for many years, toying with the idea of a divorce, a renunciation of divine being. In the end, it was when I was in partial hospitalization and listened to the testimonies of patients who had been in the pit three or more times, yet still insisting that prayer and daily devotion helped them through, that I made the decision -- as my therapist puts it -- to let God off the hook. I chose to live as an agnostic (atheism seems so mean) and make my first order of the day being a good person.
I think understanding for yourself what God is helps. I realized that if there is any God that makes sense to me, it is the God of the Book of Job. Not the nasty bugger who makes a bet that unravels Job's life, but the God of the last chapters who speaks to Job out of the chaos of the whirlwind. This is the God who is the Universe, who is forever busy moving stars around, causing asteroids to fall on planets as meteors, blowing up winds like the one that robbed me of one of my deck chairs on Christmas Day. And this God, I realized, doesn't have it in for you, doesn't put burdens on you for the sake of testing you. Things just happen and sometimes they happen to good people like us. There's no malice in it. Just the spinning of the Universe.
We can get to desiring vision like we desire a fix or a drink. We can be addicts to ecstatic experience. I've found my best happiness in just being like a monk -- going about my affairs, keeping each moment clear. You don't have to live in a monastery to be like this.
If there is any part of traditional prayer that makes complete sense to me it is the four words from the Lord's Prayer "thy will be done". Things will happen. They won't blow you away like a storm, cause you to shudder from head to toe with the blue electricity of communion with the divine. They will, however, refocus you on what before all else is important: be a good person and don't waste energy or spirit trying to move the world in your direction.
Take care my friend. I am listening every time you write.
I'm here too. And it does take a long time. I left my church about a year ago and haven't found the magic again, yet, sadly.
I just found a comment you made on my blog about my meds. They've given me Zonegran and Seroquel. Zonegran was the Z one.
I will have something to say on this when I can speak again. I hope that I may come back this post someday
For most of my life, I had so much faith, so much love for my religion. I was inspired and uplifted, I really was. Then I started taking meds(depakote, now lamictal) to stabilize my mild, adult-onset (37) bi-polar disorder. I was never grandiose in my religiosity, but after taking the meds, I lost my zeal for many things, including my faith. I have since fallen away from the Church for various reasons--and have "checked out" other religious denominations, but I'm flat, flat, flat. I've often "blamed" the meds.
Sorry, no help here.
Dearest T,
Have you tried building an altar? When I lost the love for organized religion, I discovered the difference between it and spirituality. Building an altar really helped me reconcile the loss with the find. Hope you find solace soon.
Raine, I'm so sorry for your loss. I hope you can find some spiritual comfort soon. For now, just breathe.
Hi Tracy, Your words (and the comments of your readers) speak to the experiences of many. You are good at saying things that help others. Thanks for continuing to share your life. (I'm linking to this post.)
Here's why I, a person who considers himself very spiritual and in as real a communion with God as I think is possible for me, need church: community. I can sit at home and pray or meditate or whatever. But I need other people. And not just anyone, but people who get me.
Recovery is a great church; support groups are great churches; sometimes just having friends who can hear us and love us is church. I'm still searching for a good church, too, and I've been a member of one all my life.
You know what church is? Right now. Whatever this moment is, that's church. If you show up.
So let's start our own church.
Daniel....I consider our coffees at Borders church. We always end up talking about God in some manner anyway, don't we?
I found god on MJ while listening to Abbey Road and Dark side of the moon back in the 80's. There became-where there was music, there was church
Tracy - From my own personal experience in finding God I can tell you that you won't find the peace you are looking for FROM someone else here on earth - it only comes through personal revelation and communication with the HOLY SPIRIT! Read your Bible, attend church (because it is important to be in communication with other believers), get down on your knees and pray, line up your life with God's principles, do random acts of kindness....all of a sudden a warm feeling will wash over you and you will know God is all around you......it works!
http://www.crazytracy.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/903
