Christmas was twice as difficult this year. The first is the usual heartache that comes with being divorced and raising children with someone who once meant everything and is now just another person you negotiate with about visitation, money.
The second reason is my descent into atheism. I have been uncomfortable with religion since my late teens and rejected my Roman Catholic upbringing, and realized in my 20's that God has nothing to do with religion. Continuing to seek other religions allowed me to keep a certain amount of faith alive, especially when i discovered the liberalism of the Anglican church (catholic lite). But the last few years have brought more skepticism about the existence of God. i continued as a member of my church because of its community- i rationalized that while i could not swallow EVERYTHING that was celebrated there, at least i enjoyed the people and how faith sewed us together. That all went to hell (har har) when the recently departed minister was found to be some sort of Jekyll & Hyde personality who verbally attacked some parishioners while acting as the perfect man of the cloth for others. Toss in an inappropriate relationship with a church member and you come up with a whole lotta parishioners who want blood, and took their vitriol out on the Vestry.
Have i mentioned in past posts that i am a vestry member?
i was asked to become member at the end of 2007, by a man i knew through the church but also through our local gym; we bonded over music, guitar playing- he is an all around good man. Unfortunately, the deterioration of my marriage in early 2008 and the ensuing depression left little on my end for the vestry, and my commitment has been slight, to say the least.
When a parishioner asked to speak with me in 2009 about how she felt there was a division between the clergy and certain parishioners, i did not follow up as i should. When everything came to a head in mid 2010, i mistakenly thought it was this issue she had brought to my attention, not the minister, not his odd protection of a woman whom he had given a job, not his dual personality. It turned out that she was one of many, many injured parishioners, and by the time the meeting came, they lashed into all of us.
There was no God there at the meeting where injuries and tears were bared, not with me on the bridge that night in May, not when i wanted my marriage back so badly my body caved in on itself in despair.
i want so badly to believe that there is something more than us- i have always felt a sense of spirituality, felt through art, music, nature- but can no longer stomach the archaic vision of a white haired Dumbledorian figure who presides over our happiness and sadness.
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