The Naked Journal
Thoughts, musings, and meanings behind NakedPastor Art.
The Naked Journal
The Church and Loneliness
THE CHURCH AND LONELINESS: Martin Luther King Jr. said that 11 a.m. on a Sunday morning was the most segregated hour of the week. It's also the loneliest. How is it possible to be in a crowded room and feel so lonely? The very reason I decided to go to church again was so that I could meet people. I don't just mean to get introduced but to actually meet them and get to know them and even form friendships. I've been attending here for years and it still hasn't happened yet. So why do I keep doing it? It's like playing the lottery. I've bought hundreds of tickets and maybe won a hundred bucks total. But I keep buying the stupid things. Maybe that's what's going on here. I keep betting that maybe one day I'll cash in and make friends. No such luck. This church just isn't interested in community. It says it is (because they know that's what people want) but it's not. (CLICK ON THE IMAGE FOR A DIGITAL DOWNLOAD OF IT) It's too bad because I think fellowship is its greatest asset. I suspect that's why most people come. If you asked everybody here why they come and they were honest I bet they would say it's for the fellowship. Instead, it focuses on beliefs and behaviors. I'm positive almost everybody here is here for the fellowship rather than to be told how to think and act. But there really isn't any real fellowship. Just being next to each other doesn't cut it. If you've been in a bad marriage you'd know that you could sleep in the same bed but be complete strangers. Same here. We sit in the same row and are miles apart. We might smile to each other, say hi, shake hands, talk small talk over a coffee in the lobby, share communion. But it all makes me feel even more lonely. I just want to connect. That's all. I just want to love and be loved. Is that too much to ask? I just want to be heard, understood, and accepted. I just want warmth in my life. And here they have every opportunity for that to happen and they squander it every single time. You might ask me why I don't take the initiative and try to form friendships myself instead of depending on the institution to do it for me. I'll tell you why. They keep us so focused and busy that we don't have time for it! It's true! Community's just not a part of this culture. Being collected is. I bet even the pastor is lonely but it's so built into the system he's just as trapped as we are. Maybe the reason why we all just keep coming is because it's a promise, since, as painful as it is, being with people is the next best thing to being loved by them. Do you know what I mean?
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Ten Subtle Ways You Could Be Abused
I know abuse is being discussed a lot these days. Spiritual abuse is becoming a more recognized reality even in psychology circles. Religious PTSD is a newly recognized and legitimate field of study and therapy. Some might say that I'm using the word "abuse" too liberally because they would claim that it means a cruel and violent treatment of another person. Certainly this is abuse. But abuse also means the improper use of something or someone. When we don't respect people as they are and allow them to be who they are freely, this is a more subtle form of abuse, the logical conclusion of which leads to violence against the human spirit. In fact, this problem will increase. As we become more outspoken against obvious abuse and broadcast it without restraint, abusers will go underground and become less obvious and more subtle in ways that will require a more wisdom and honesty to discern. No, we don't tape people's mouths, cuff their wrists, shackle their feet, put them on a leash, or lock them in a cage. Not literally. Rather, how do we silence people, limit their influence, constrict their involvement, prevent their movement, manage their actions, and control their lives? How do we punish people for not conforming? These are the real questions that can expose where subtle abuse is happening. I get this response from people: "It's their own fault for being abused because they stay! All they have to do is leave and it's over!" Possibly. However, this is another dilemma people face: many want to be a part of a community, especially their religious community. There are many people who long to be a part of a church. They have this right. The choice is to stay and suffer some abuse or leave and suffer profound alienation. Ask yourself these questions: What strategies are being used, consciously or unconsciously, to keep you under control? What is being done to make you conform to being a legitimate member of the community? Here are the more subtle ways you may be being abused without you even knowing it. This can occur in any relationship from a spouse and a family, to a pastor and a church, a boss and a company, a leader and a group, or people of influence and a movement. You are not allowed to speak your mind honestly and truthfully. You can only play if you meet certain expectations. You can't apologize enough. You can still give but receiving is limited. Your loss of respect in their eyes can never be remedied. You live in constant fear of an outburst of anger against you. You're allowed to live but your benefits have been severely cut. To criticize them is wrong because you criticize the ultimate good they represent. They have a network of peers that will rally around them and protect them. You're warned that your life will get drastically worse if you leave. There may never be raised fists or voices. There may never be any overt threats or ultimatums. This can all happen behind close doors or in broad daylight with nice clothes and smooth voices. In fact, some people might think you're hearing and seeing things and maybe a little crazy and unwell. I always encourage people in such situations to trust their gut. Test it. Push that button a little harder or once more and see if it becomes more obvious and reveals its true abusive nature. I've heard many times that it is naive to expect a community to exist without controls. There is a sensitive dance between personal freedom and corporate responsibility. But I claim we have opted for subtler forms of crowd control at the grave expense of providing spaces for personal freedom. I've also heard that I'm being petty to critique so harshly. I'm encouraged to give people, particularly leaders, a break. I'm often reminded that I'm being merciless and trivial, and that I'm revealing my own resentment at not belonging the way I'd like to belong. I'm told I'm angry and throwing stones at a house and people I willingly abandoned and that I need to grow up, return penitent, or finally leave and shut up. But what if I believe in the value of community and want people to build, facilitate, and be a part of them in healthy ways? Find or build a healthy community starting with your healthy self. Until then, it is necessary to leave these kind of codependent and toxic relationships and systems. Yes, we will experience a period of alienation. But I'm convinced that over time we will find nomadic comrades who have suffered the same kind of abuse and rejection. We will discover that we are a part of a new tribe that accepts us as we are and gives us freedom to express it. Together we will withstand the powers that have cast us off and rescue others from them. We will be like a band of sojourners and prophets who live in the desert threatening the authorities that tried to control us.
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The Church Should be the Safest Place for Question
Last night 7 people representing the LGBTQ community from New Direction with Wendy VanderWal Gritter came to my house, and along with some local friends we had over 20 people stuffed into my living room. We had wine and ordered in pizza. They arrived at 5:30pm and I expected them to stay only a few hours but it was almost 11pm by the time they left. It was an amazing evening full of deep discussion, tears and laughter. The love and sense of community was so thick you could cut it with a knife. The one issue that prevailed in our discussion was community. They had a lot of questions about our online community The Lasting Supper. All of them have experienced this cartoon. (Click on the cartoon Questions Changed for a digital download!) There are a lot of questions, but living in the question with questions is generally not a welcomed posture to take in the church. We all hunger for the kind of community where we can just be ourselves without being judged, segregated, separated or alienated. All we want is a safe space where we can learn to be who we authentically are and where we can learn to give that same respect and space to others. The philosopher Slavoj Žižek suggests that the purpose of philosophy is to ask the right questions. I believe that is the purpose of theology, and church ought to be the safest place to do that. But no. Rather, the church has become the most dangerous and even most fatal place to do it. Everyone in my home last night can attest to that. I personally am committed to providing safe spaces for questioners to thrive.
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Creativity Should Not Be Controlled
Yesterday at church, instead of me speaking (since I'm taking a break from it for a while), we invited anybody to read something they'd written. For about an hour several people got up front and read what they'd written. Everyone was astounded. The quality of writing was amazing. There was poetry, journal entries, song lyrics, short stories, proverbs, and things that just can't be categorized. (Click on my painting "Together in the Midst of Life" to see it in my store.) The youngest to read was my daughter Casile, 15 years old, and the oldest was Joyce, in her 70s. There were people up there who are normally quite vocal and play a pretty visible and audible role in the life of the community. They weren't surprises. But there were others who never make a peep and hide in the shadows who got up and read some of the most amazing stuff. We were shocked! This is what I think: when you do something that doesn't follow the norm, like reading personal journal entries in a religious setting, then something happens. It's like all of a sudden things are being said that don't sound religious, don't have religious overtones and aren't even at all moralizing.Some of the poetry that was read had to do with physical abuse of a child. Another of the beating of a woman. Some had to do with our blatant disinterest in Darfur. Some had to do with love. One had to do with the death of a sister. One had to do with wanting to die. One had to do with atheism and doubting, questioning and abandoning a god that never seemed to exist to begin with. One had to do with a tubal pregnancy and grieving something that was never even seen. One had to do with wanting to stop this race and just enjoy the view from here. One was a friend's tribute to another woman in our congregation just diagnosed with Altzeimers. One had to do with depression. And I can fairly say that although they didn't contain religious vocabulary for the most part, they were very religious in the sense that they testified to something larger than themselves. We all left amazed, encouraged and filled with a sense of awe. Everyone left feeling more creative or the desire to be. (If you're looking for tips for igniting your creativity here's a post I wrote) Creativity cannot and should not be edited or controlled or directed. I don't think most of the people who read thought, when they were writing, "What would God want me to write?" They just wrote what was heavy on their hearts at the time. As a result, it was free, risky and incisive. But because of that it did something. It crossed boundaries. It walked through walls. It altered our reality. We left changed. Related Blog Posts on Creativity The Importance of Being Creative During Faith DeconstructionWhy You Need Nature in your Creative ProcessEmbracing Creativity: An Artist Trapped in a Pastor's BodyCan Art Help Improve Your Mental health?
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