personal

I’m giving up the faith

To be more precise, I stopped believing about a couple months ago. Although that was part of a longer process of doubting and reconsidering, and I’m still making sense of my new lack of faith (which is why I haven’t posted anything on it until now).

It’s still a bit weird to think about. My faith was pretty much the central part of my life. This blog was just a personal blog, but it pretty quickly became almost entirely a religious blog. Heck, I was thinking about becoming a consecrated religious at the start of the year.

Why?

It’s difficult to pin down exactly why. There are a lot of reasons and they are all tangled up together. But I’ll try to untangle them now. I’m not looking to offend or convert anyone, or start an argument, but just want to share my thoughts.

1. Christian ethics and spirituality is too passive and weak (sorry)

I’ve read a lot of Christian spiritual books, and at the heart is a deep submissiveness to God, to authorities, and even to oppressors. The central theme is giving ourselves up, abandoning ourselves, passively trusting and submitting. The Church and scriptures talk about the Christian as a child, a servant, a slave, and a bride (in a clearly patriarchal sense).

Now, I’m not saying that this is all wrong. It’s not. There’s a deep truth and beauty to it really. But it lacks the wisdom of the opposite principle, that life has to be grasped, that (at least at times) we have to imitate Jacob and wrestle with God. We have to fight for justice and our rights, both for ourselves and for others.

I don’t want to be too harsh, but Christianity appears to be a religion for losers, that praises being a loser. “Blessed are the poor”, “the first shall be last”, “give to whoever asks of you”, “resist not evil”. We can make sense of this by taking a deeply anti physical, anti world stance, holding that everything the wicked might take, even our lives, are ultimately worthless, and I think the early Church did believe this, but the Church no longer really holds such a stance and I don’t want to either. I want to stake my claim and fight in this world, for this life. I don’t want to be a slave/servant/child/bride, I want to be the master of my own life.

2. The Church doesn’t believe

The more you try to take the faith seriously, the more you see contradictions, and the more you realise that most of the Church, and in particular the hierarchy, don’t care. They care about some things very passionately of course, from various points of doctrine to social causes to liturgical minutiae, but I think very few really care about the faith or holiness. I’ll give a few examples.

  • Confession – if confession is really so important, why is it so infrequently offered? The easiest answer is that few priests think it really matters.
  • Hell – why are so few people scared of hell, both for themselves and for their loved ones and for the non Christian majority of the world? Again, the easiest answer is that no one really believes.
  • Women veiling – why did the Church abandon a practice with crystal clear roots in scripture and apostolic tradition? And why is there not even a proper justification given for this change? People claim it was merely a local cultural practice, but the scriptures themselves explain it on a completely different basis, arguing from nature, the creation account, and the angels. The easiest explanation again, is that the Church just doesn’t care. [For the record, I have no desire for women to be covered, I just wanted my church to be consistent with its supposed beliefs]
  • Jesus’s teachings – too often I went to mass and Jesus says something remarkable, only for the priest to either ignore it completely to speak about something else, or even worse, they contradict or weaken Jesus’s words to the point of being just dull. Again, it seems they just don’t believe.

3. Hell

The doctrine of hell brings a whole mess of problems. I’ll list them out:

  • Does God want people to go to hell? If not, then in the end He doesn’t get His way and His victory is incomplete. If He does (as Aquinas and others taught) then He’s not so loving (except in an abstract “ground of being” kind of way that isn’t what anyone really means by love).
  • Is hell a good thing or a bad thing? If God is willing to send sinners to hell as a punishment, why shouldn’t we be happy with this outcome?
  • Is the criteria really right? ‘No salvation outside the church’ – that’s just absurd. I know there’s the idea of “invisible Christians”, but that is either an exception to the general rule, or it’s a sneaky rejection of the rule itself (like the Church’s change in policy towards the practice of usury).

4. Many minor points I had overlooked

When you start questioning, suddenly every issue you had questioned previously, not found a solution to, and decided to leave and come back to later, comes back all at once.

  • The divinely sanctioned and commanded violence in the Old Testament
  • The shortcomings of the Law, including treating women as property and tolerance of slavery
  • Contradictions in the scriptures eg in the resurrection accounts
  • The lack of good reasons for denying women access to the priesthood
  • The general tendency to treat morality as a system of laws

5. Where is the love?

Jesus said that his disciples would be known by their love. Can we really say that Catholics or Christians as a whole are known by their love? I can’t.

What now?

Now, I’m making my way through life as my own master. I’m still figuring out exactly what I do believe now, and reading a lot of philosophy in the process. I’m enjoying it so far! Life is good, and I’m embracing it wholeheartedly. Feel free to continue following this blog or to stop as pleases you.

Now that all that’s said, I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Books that deserve a standing ovation pt1

I’m always looking for the best book for me to read next, so I thought I’d “do unto others” and share my top book recommendations. I figured the best way to distinguish the cream of the crop, is the standard of giving a standing ovation (if the book were a play…) I’ve made a rough list of about 17 so far, but I’ll share them bit by bit, in no particular order.

Ilia Delio, Making All Things Whole: Catholicity, Cosmology, Consciousness

This is a genuinely extraordinary book… It has transformed my ideas of Catholicism and the whole universe. I wish that I could explain it, but it’s just too much. It touches on some crazy ideas from science, and I guess is perhaps the beginning of a new Christian Cosmology, that’s been largely lacking ever since Galileo and Newton destroyed the mediaeval Cosmology. But it’s more than that… It’s a renewed Christological Cosmology and a Cosmological Christology.

Bonaventure – The Major Life of St Francis

Nothing has made the gospel seem so clear to me as the life of St Francis, and this book especially. Bonaventure uses Francis’ life to teach us the ways and power of true holiness and virtue, and shows us St Francis in his uncompromised madness. St Francis is fairly called a “second Christ”.

St Therese of Lisieux – The Story of a Soul

This is possibly my favourite book of all. St Therese’s life is, on the face of it, very boring. In terms of events, there’s very little of significance. But what it has, is an extraordinary relationship of total surrender to God’s merciful love. This book teaches the true way of salvation, not by our own strength, but entirely by God’s merciful love.

And once you’ve read this, read My Sister Saint Therese, by the saint’s sister Celine. It’s a collection of recollections, that show Therese from another angle, from someone so close to her.

Let me know your thoughts if you’ve read any of these, and or any books that you’d give a standing ovation.

God bless!

I’m writing a book!

For a while now, I’ve been slowly working on a book of Philosophy/Theology. It began as just one or two philosophical thoughts, but as I wrote them down, I found myself stumbling into other thoughts, including some very theological ones. I don’t really know where it is heading, because every time I revisit it, it seems to lead me in some new direction.

I don’t want to give any details away just yet, firstly because the paint’s still wet, and secondly because I think these thoughts need their proper space. So please forgive me for being vague. I believe these ideas are powerful, and I need to handle them carefully.

I will say that I’m very excited by them. They’ve changed my understanding of basically everything. They’re not particularly similar to anything I’ve written on this blog so far, probably because they can’t easily be slipped in, one at a time. Also, they’re just not ready.

Please say a prayer for me and my book. That I’ll write in humility and truth. That I’ll actually write it, and not get scared and bury it in the ground like the wicked and lazy slave in the parable of the talents. That whatever is true in it thrive, and whatever is false in it wither.

Thanks, and God bless you!

Love your own cross

It’s easy to love other people’s crosses. I think especially about the heroic crosses borne by the martyr’s and saints through the ages, for the glory of God.

Today I was buried with assignments rapidly approaching, that I’m far behind on, so that these really must come before almost anything else. I’m not even able to spend long writing this post, because I need to catch up on sleep, so I can wake up and work some more. It’s painful.

I thought at one point, “Ah! If only I could be living and suffering for Christ’s service, rather than trapped in this work.” And then I saw once more, that this is my cross, this is my way to love and serve God. If I won’t accept this, there’s no way I’d ever accept the greater sufferings and service of the saints. This is how I’m meant to love God right now. This is my gift. This is my prayer.

 

Please pray for me. God bless you!

I showed Jesus my wounds

At yesterday’s Good Friday liturgy, I rolled up my sleeves for the first time this year. So what? Well, my left forearm has some scars on it, and in these scars, open wounds on my mind and soul are visible.

In rolling up my sleeves, I wasn’t just responding to the beautiful weather; I was bringing my wounds, and so myself, before Jesus crucified. He is wounded to enter my wounds, He died to enter my death. He is naked before us: how could I hide myself from Him?

We have to let Jesus enter into us, through our wounds, our sins and our death. How? Through faith in Him and through His holy sacraments. In these, Jesus comes to us in our sins, our struggles, and our suffering, and brings us His life that conquers death.

When we give these up to Him, and let Him enter into them, something mysterious occurs. As He touches them with His mercy, He fills and transforms them with His self-sacrificial love, and in doing so, we find them united to His Holy Cross. Our wounds are united to His.

And His wounds have been glorified by His resurrection from the dead.

 

God bless you, and Happy Easter!
He is risen!

san-damiano-cross

I love the San Damiano cross. Jesus’ arms are open wide in a priestly gesture, of offering, gift, and welcome. The Cross is an act of love and freedom.

Me and the Cross

I don’t really talk much about my own life here, and certainly not about my mental health. Suffice to say for now, that it feels like its falling apart; like everything I have relied on and hoped for is being lost before my eyes.

And it serves me right. Why? Because I literally asked for it. It was for a long time my prayer, and still is, that God humble me completely. I guess I just didn’t see it looking like this…

As my “everything” seemingly falls apart (I suspect and hope the situation in many ways isn’t as bad as it sometimes feels), I see that I’ve been trusting and hoping in things that aren’t God. And that’s the way to certain disappointment. Yes, I was hoping in God too, but not in God alone.

When I reached my recent lowest, I felt and believed that all that I have and I am is nothing, that all that I have and I am is completely worthless and useless. What could anyone possibly want with me? What could God ever do with this?

But this is pride. To suppose that my weakness– my nothingness– limits God in any way, is madness.

‘Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.’
2 Corinthians 12:8-10

I look to the cross, and I see that God isn’t victorious by strength, but by faith and obedience. It is in Christ crucified, and in Him alone, that I am to place my trust. It is by dying to self, living in reckless sacrificial love, in union with His holy cross, that I am to live and serve God.

‘I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.’
Philippians 3:10-11

So here’s me. However much or little (or nothing) I am, I am God’s, and that is all I need. I’m not called to be strong or talented or valuable, but merely faithful; the victory is His concern, not mine: how could I ever achieve resurrection?

I just hope and pray God lets me remember and accept this when I really need to.

God bless you
image

P.S. I feel I should also mention, that a part of this feeling of losing everything was the loss of my supposed righteousness when I fell to a certain sin. Thank God I lost this illusory righteousness. I am a sinner, and my only justification is God’s love for me.

I have no righteousness, but I share in Jesus’ own. I have no life in me, except His.

God bless you again

Thoughts from hospital

I’m in hospital this morning (kept overnight), to get stitches on my arm for a cut I made a week ago (self-harm). Please pray for me. Now here are some thoughts.

I’m finding hospital crazy peaceful. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the simplicity, the solitude, the lack of control, or the simple care. Or better yet, the knowledge that this place, this time, is genuinely good for me, bringing me healing. I’m so grateful for and to the NHS.

I think I’m in the hospital today, for a similar reason to why I’m in the Church: because I can’t help myself. I could maybe learn to get by with effort, maybe even living healthily by external standards, but to really live, and live truly, I need real help. I’m not here because I deserve it (I don’t), but because I need to be.

[Thoughts from the second morning (third day)]

The stitches went well. I was put under general anaesthetic because it was multiple layers. Please keep me in your prayers.
The NHS is just absolutely brilliant. The care I’ve been given is simply wonderful. Before this, I knew it was good in theory, and knew it had done me good before, but I didn’t realise how good, how absolutely indispensable it is. From now on, the NHS will be central to my political persuasion.

The love and care of my family and friends has been invaluable also. Love changes everything. By their love, I’m not alone.
The night I cut myself (I did it in the evening), I asked the Lord to speak to me through his scriptures, and turned to John chapter 11, where I found Jesus say (v4), ‘This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God; that the Son of God may be glorified by it.’ I don’t know how he wants to do that, but if he can do it for a dead man, why not me?

Weakness seems to me essential to Christianity. Not just at the start, but the whole way. We need a saviour. I need a saviour who isn’t just against my weakness, my brokenness, my death, but who enters into it. This is the salvation I need.

If we consider we are just saved from sin, then we are stamped “saved”, I think we’ll find big trouble. Jesus came to save sinners, not to stop our sin, then declare us saved (or even both at the same moment). Of course he wants to heal us, and we must let him. As Pope Francis put it, sin is the privileged locus of our encounter with God, and God even caresses our sin.

[In the evening]

I’m going to be transferred to another hospital for a few days so they can do a mental assessment of me. Please pray for me.
Martyrdom is the opposite of suicidal tendencies, I believe. Against the choice of life for myself, taking the destructive choice of attacking that life (for myself), martyrdom offers dying to self and living for others, taking the the positive choice of giving that life for others. That’s why it’s a struggle, rather than working towards the intellectual conviction that life is “worth” living.
I wonder if it might not be “worth” it after all, from a selfish point of view. Selfishness is perhaps the problem in the first place. But martyrdom doesn’t even ask such questions, it just gives and struggles.

Honestly, the thought that I can’t kill myself, but will die many times over for love, has been a strange comfort in times of great darkness. Perhaps even the choice to not take but give my life, is a martyrdom already.

God bless you
Please, pray for me

[A couple days later]

At lunch today, I started thinking of next week this time, when I’ll be having lunch with my Church after mass. It brought me great joy.

That is the beauty of tradition: it allows our hopes and our memories to mingle. Our hopes become more certain, and our memories more fertile, more alive.

[Back home at last]

I’m glad to be back.

The mental health assessment unit was a powerful experience. Life is tough. Such bad things happen to such nice people.

It was tragic to witness (and in honesty, participate in) social outcasts rejecting someone they consider worse than them. I could make excuses, but the simple fact is I was partly selfish, and the other part a coward, because I could have tried, or at least sat out. I didn’t love my neighbour as myself; I didn’t do what Jesus would do; I didn’t see Jesus in the needy. What I didn’t do there, I didn’t do to Jesus.

But it was also beautiful, how accepting, nonjudgmental, and caring other patients were. I think I appreciate better Jesus’ focus on the poor. I also understand better Bl. Mother Teresa’s words,

‘Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.’

To be miserable or keep to myself would be easy and safe, but to give a simple smile or nice word is tough but important. It made a world of difference to me, and I guess I must assume mine helped others also.

Oh, they recommended me counselling and arranged a follow-up visit to check on me, and said they didn’t think medication would be best for me.

Please pray for me.

Oh! I also missed the Sunday obligation as a result (I asked twice, and wasn’t allowed out). I wouldn’t have thought this a big deal, but when I got out, I saw that Pope Francis tweeted,

On the one day I didn’t! It’s not just that I didn’t go, but I now see I didn’t try hard enough. I considered asking for an extraordinary minister or priest to visit me, but didn’t bother, thinking that I wasn’t even sure I should receive the Eucharist. But I didn’t bother to check myself to see if I actually shouldn’t. And I didn’t make much of a fuss at all.

Please pray for me