On the Other Side

I haven't really been on top of this blog lately, and the number of posts per week has dropped off sharply. At first, I thought this was due to my summer schedule, which had grown a bit fuller than it was when I started this blog. But something didn't feel right about that explanation. It seemed, rather, that my intense desire to chart my transition away from Christianity and belief in God had somehow subsided, and significantly so. Why was this?


Once I started following my thoughts down this trail, a couple of observations became clear rather quickly. First, I wasn't really thinking much about the "newness" of my worldview. I still did a lot of reading both of books and folks on the web, but much of that reading was, by now, reaffirming what I now believe rather than stretching or challenging my assumptions about the world. In short, being an atheist—even though it's still strange to write those words—has become my new normal. For that reason, I'm not constantly excited and provoked by new ideas, which ultimately served as one of the sources of inspiration for my blog posts.


Second, I remembered why I called this blog "ellipsis." My idea was to blog about life "in-between" Christianity and whatever now lay ahead of me. While I still want to understand myself as in the process of becoming, I realize that, practically speaking, I've come to the other side. I'm on the firm ground of cognitive harmony again, rather than the bridge of dissonance. I don't, of course, have it all figured out: I'm sure there are many, many things I haven't "figured out." Still, the framework within which I'll face those problems is provisionally fixed.


So, while I imagine that from time to time I'll throw up a new post, I think I'm going to let myself off the hook if I let the blog fall into disrepair. The blog has, I believe, served its purpose well, i.e., to help me document this major transition in my life. To those who have read, commented, and offered support: thank you. 


Until next time...

A New Spirituality?

Friday afternoon, I sat down with my spiritual director to talk about the future of our relationship. We had been meeting for over a year when I decided to walk away from the Christian faith, and I wanted to let him know about what had taken place. I knew things wouldn't really be the same, and had pretty much decided that participating in spiritual direction wasn't really a live option any more. But, at his request, I decided to see whether it was something I could still incorporate into my life.


Prior to the meeting, I understood "spirituality" as referring to one of two things: 1) dependence upon some variety of supernatural being(s) who give meaning and purpose to life, and the cultivating of that relationship; or 2) glorified navel-gazing and positive self-talk (à la Oprah). Since I'm not terribly interested in either of these—I no longer believe in the existence of a supernatural being, and I'm already battling enough self-interested thinking in my life—I assumed that spiritual direction would be out of the picture. After all, if I called the game of the spiritual journey a hoax, then why would I want someone to guide me on it?


The result of the conversation, however, surprised me. (More after the jump...)

The Hard Part

The letter to friends, family, and professional contacts (who need to know, at least) has gone out; the awkward personal conversations have, for the most part, taken place. That was by no means an easy thing to do, but the hard part, I've just realized, lies ahead of me.


See, the hardest part of leaving Christianity wasn't telling my closest friends and my family. Truth be told, I'm coming to see how challenging it is to discovering a new normal. My relationships with friends and family members now has to find a new center of gravity. If it's not our shared faith and worldview, then what is it? I've only had a few chats with friends and family who know, and I could feel the strangeness of it all. The camaraderie of being co-religionists ran much deeper than I realized. No longer can we absent-mindedly maintain our common assumptions about what's important in life. It's only just becoming clear how often faith and church life came up in conversations, and now that this is gone, what then?


Sure, over the next few weeks and months, I'll probably still talk a good deal with folks about my deconversion. Eventually, though, it will become an issue with which both my friends and family grow weary of discussing—and, no doubt, I will too. And that's the rub: what then? How will we understand our relationship? What things will people choose to share or withhold from me? What will I decide to talk about?


Add on top of this all the fact that, major changes aside, I'm still working hard to figure myself out. I'm trying to process through a wide range of my own insecurities and dysfunctions, while trying to become more aware of those of others (so I can better understand people). Plus, there's the whole business of rearranging my metaphysics and a priori assumptions from the ground up, which, I gather, will take a bit of time.


I never imagined, though, that the long-term effects of coming out would require so much mental energy. The challenging part, it seems, is still to come.

Words

My life is filled with words. When I was training to be a minister, a close friend and mentor told me that ministry is done almost entirely through words: preaching, writing, reading, studying, and talking with people—these are the main things a pastor/priest does. Now, as an aspiring academic, I find the situation really isn't too different. Teaching, research, and writing all have to do with putting thoughts into verbal form.


What's more, as a teacher and scholar (and to a lesser degree, when I was in ministry), I'm utterly responsible for my words. Being in the humanities, people will frequently challenge my use of a particular word or phrase, and entire scholarly arguments can be built upon what a single word means. So, not without reason have I become a little anxious about what I write and say. 


The result is that I am extremely self-conscious about any sort of verbal communication I allow to get out from my mind to anyone else. It causes me no small anxiety to publish an essay, or read a paper at a conference, or give a lecture. 


It might surprise you, then, that I have a blog at all. If I get worked up about other people hearing my thoughts, then why, dear reader, would I want to let you read them?

The Word Is Out

Some people are surprised that I felt the need to tell my friends and family about my deconversion from Christianity. A few of my wife's friends, who happen to be de-facto or weak atheists, said something to the effect of, "It's not their business what you or your husband believe." At any rate, the ol' cat is out of the bag and the beans are spilt. I sent off an email to about 40 friends, family members, and colleagues, and there's no going back.


So far, about a half dozen folks have responded already, each of them offering support, concern, and (for many) prayers. I really don't mind it when people say they're praying for me; it's a sign that they care about me enough to talk to what they think is the highest being in the universe on my behalf. Are many of them praying that I change my mind? Yeah, but if there's anyone on the other end, I hope those prayers are answered; if not, then it doesn't do any measurable harm.


Strangely enough, this feels like a bizarro version of Christian baptism, the rite of initiation into the church. In baptism, a confession is made in which one publicly renounces the former way of life, etc., and embraces the peace that comes with new life in Christ. Plus, baptism often takes place on Easter Sunday. Oddly enough, I openly admitted to my wife on Easter Day that I was no longer a Christian (tough words to say at the time), and now, with this letter sent out to my loved ones, I've made my anti-baptismal confession in public. The one thing that is the same is the peace, though it is of a very different sort, unmingled with the dependence on someone else to bring it.  

Purpose

Recently, I've found myself struggling a good deal with my "purpose" and identity. In some ways, I'm finally realizing why so many people throughout history have pursued the question of the meaning of life. After all, when you've spent the better part of three decades having this issue sorted out because of your religious system, things get pretty fuzzy once you leave that system behind.


What on earth am I doing here? What do I want my legacy to be? (Is that even a legitimate question?) What sort of work do I want to do? What is the "good life," and how will I live it? 


These questions have begun, slowly, to haunt me. I thought I had things figured out, and that it wouldn't be too hard to de-Christianize some of my earlier motivations and presuppositions, and simply carry on with life as usual. Unfortunately, those foundations are too eroded, I think, for me to continue to build my life upon them. So what, then, am I to do?


I obviously don't have many answers to this; not yet, at least. When I was speaking to a friend a few days ago, the best thing I could come up with was this: I want to live in a way that promotes the thriving of humanity and of the earth. This is a huge commitment, with a lot of nuances and competing concerns, and I don't think this notion of "thriving" can carry the whole load of discerning my own purpose in life.


I suppose, too, that my wife would appreciate it—and, of course, I would too—if I oriented at least part of my purpose to love. In a lot of ways, these notions of thriving and love, one rather objectively determined and the other radically subjective, might offer a bit of balance to my life that either one alone couldn't. At any rate, they offer at least good starting points (though there's also the bit about figuring out what "love" means outside of a Christian worldview...).