The Naked Journal
Thoughts, musings, and meanings behind NakedPastor Art.
The Naked Journal
The Grief No One Talks About in Deconstruction
Grief in losing community. When people think about deconstruction, they often think it's about losing faith or changing beliefs. But I think it's just as much about losing a sense of belonging. For me, I was terrified of leaving my religion and losing my friends and family in the process. The difficult thing is that questioning your beliefs rarely happens in isolation. Our beliefs are tangled up with our relationships, communities, and how we see ourselves. So questioning one can feel like risking the others. But questioning itself isn't something I think we should be afraid of. Jesus certainly wasn't. Jesus challenged almost every accepted idea of his day. He questioned who belonged, who was excluded, who was worthy of love, and what it really meant to follow God. In many ways, I think he embodied deconstruction. The Narrow Way is available as a print, a sticker and a t-shirt. My own journey has looked a little like that. It has been liberating and empowering. But it's also been lonely. In the beginning, it felt like I was losing my entire world. Deconstructing wasn't just theological. It was relational. It was vocational. I lost my community when I left the church. I lost my sense of identity, purpose, income, friendships, and community. The safe place I thought I'd always have suddenly disappeared. I found myself alone, isolated, and trying to rebuild my life from the ground up. It's Okay To Grieve When You Leave the Church is available as a digital cartoon. When the people who once knew you best suddenly feel like strangers, there's a grief that few people talk about. It was one of the hardest things I've ever experienced. It was also one of the most freeing. I couldn't go back, and today, I'm deeply grateful that I kept moving forward. You can buy We Will Not Go Back as a print. But before I could move forward, I had to grieve. I don't pretend to have all the answers. But I do know this: Grief asks to be acknowledged, not avoided. It’s okay to grieve when you leave the church. And from all that loss and grief, you get the beautiful privilege of finding yourself after leaving religion. So if you've lost a community, a church, friendships, or a sense of belonging, I hope my words and my art remind you that your grief is real.
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Grief During the Festive Season
This is to be a festive time of year. But for many, the festivities intensify our grief. I call this cartoon, Grief. Even during a season of giving and receiving, experiencing loss feels even more pronounced. Let's remember that for one another. If this speaks to you and you'd like to own a NakedPastor original this original Grief cartoon is available.
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It's Okay to Grieve When You Leave the Church
Don't let anyone rush your grief! You've left the church. That's heavy! Grieve it. Feel it to the full. Go ahead and deny that it hurts. Then bawl your eyes out once in a while. Get angry. Get frustrated. Think about going back then change your mind again. Get depressed. That's the best way to let it pass and finally find peace. Grieving is an important and necessary step after any kind of loss. You have to grieve when you lose your favorite pen. You have to grieve when you lose your loved one. Of course they are on a different scale, but grief is a part of the process of responding to loss. Is there an appropriate length of time for grief? I don't think so. But let's take me for an example. I lose my favorite pen. I can't find it. There's nothing I can seem to do to get it back. It's gone. Forever. My response has been anything from denial, bargaining, anger, depression, to hopefully and finally a sense of peace. After all, I can go back out and buy another one. Maybe that grieving response took‚ I don't know‚ 15 minutes. But what if I lose a loved one? The same stages of grief apply, but they will take longer. It will take a much longer time for me to eventually and hopefully reach the stage of peace. But this depends on a lot of factors too. How close was I to this loved one? Were we living together? For how long? How dependent was I on this person? How much did he mean to me? Were we estranged when we were separated? And so on. You might grieve for a year. Or maybe 10 years with the occasional reversions on anniversaries, etc. Who knows? Even when we lose something that wasn't a totally positive experience for us, and maybe even unhealthy, we can still grieve. Like losing a limb because of infection: it's unhealthy to keep it, but painful to lose it, followed by a period of difficult adjustment. We grieve when we leave the church. Even if we left volitionally or were forced to leave‚ whatever the circumstances‚ we must allow ourselves time to grieve. If you just went one month to church just to observe and left, your grieving might not take as long. But what if you went to church for 50 years and were deeply involved in its life and then were asked to leave or you felt you simply could no longer stay? How long should grieving take then? A week? A month? A year? Five years? A life time? I would suggest having someone to talk to so that you can walk through it in a healthy manner, whatever that is. It is possible to get stuck in grief, bogged down in anger, stalled in depression, broken down in sorrow. Having someone to talk to may jumpstart you to make your grief manageable and help you progress towards a joyful life. But don't let anyone tell you how long you have to grieve. Take as long as you want. I remember just a few months after a devastating church split, some people who were strong supporters finally left the church because I wasn't healing fast enough. But I couldn't speed it up. And you might know me well enough by now that I just couldn't and wouldn't fake it. I was grieving. It took me a long time to get over that. I left the church in 2010 under strained conditions. I grieved that for years. I still experience grief once in a while. But no one's rushing me now. And I don't judge myself for it. I talked regularly with someone. I still do when I need it. I'm better now. And I did it at my own pace. I'm fine. Happiness finally came. You can do it too. Don't rush the grief. Let it come. Feel it to the full. This is the best way to let it pass. And it will. Eventually. And you will be happy again.
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