Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

My grandfather has been telling me the whole time I've been in college that I've grown and matured considerably from who I was when I graduated high school. I used to kind of just take his word for it, because knowing my grandfather I figured he was probably right - but I couldn't really see it in myself. A while back, I was re-reading some of my old journals - my DeadJournal from high school and freshman year of college and my first LiveJournal that I started using freshman year after I abandoned the DeadJournal... I stopped using that journal sometime last year because I wanted to get most of my classmates out of my personal business, and I wanted somewhere to start anew.

Anyway, reading through these older journals was like being blindsided by a Mack truck. My entire life, adults would rave to me about how mature I was for my age... and sometimes I was even told I was more mature than many adults. If that's the case, I weep for the majority. I had some entries of semi-deep thought and a few moments where I would say I handled certain things "maturely," but they were kind of far between. Needless to say, all it took to make me see the difference my grandfather had been talking about was a glance through my old writings. Since then, I've started to notice smaller growths I've had recently. It's kind of exciting to notice the passing of a negative behaviour and especially the replacement with a better one.

I'd decided to focus on fixing my mental health this year, and began work on that, when my direction took what seemed like an unfortunate, inconvenient turn. While my intent was to patch up my mind, a large part of my growth recently has been in the spiritual area. I'll start at the beginning... you can stop reading now if you aren't interested... or grab a Snickers. (I'm reminded of Rose from Golden Girls and her stories of St. Olaf... if she even hints that she's about to tell one, all of her housemates immediately find themselves incredibly busy doing something else.)

When I was growing up, my father was extremely harsh and controlling. He was never physically abusive in any way, but he was an emotional nightmare, and that nightmare tended to spread to anyone who got close to him. I don't hold a grudge against him any more; we've spoken and made amends, so to speak. As a small child, however, many of the things about him were terrifying -he was tall, his voice was deep and loud, and every time he got mad, it was an explosion of rage that had built up because he insisted on holding everything in. Additionally, his personality is such that even if he is not angry or upset about something, he often comes across that way. I was afraid to disagree with him, because his reaction was almost always quite inappropriately large.

He was incredibly demanding - if I was told (never asked) to do something, he'd come along behind me and make sure it was "good enough". If it wasn't, he'd point out where I went wrong, not with a gentle, corrective tone - but with an angry-sounding tone that made me feel insolent for not having done my chore properly. Eventually, it stopped frightening and saddening me, and it began making me angry. My diary from those days is full of "I hate my dad" entries - far more so than I usually let on when I'm posting snippets of it.

In addition to fueling my "angry little girl" interior, my father's behaviour gave me the message that self-loathing was proper. If I was good at something, that was okay, but acknowledging that I was good was Bragging and it's wrong to brag. Accepting compliments was equated in my mind with an acknowledgement that something about me was good, and therefore qualified as Bragging. I learned that I wasn't deserving of any praise, from myself or other people. In addition to wreaking havoc on my social and musical life, the self-loathing thoughts I had all the time laid a perfect bed for those Bible Belt Christians (notice that they are different from others who are known as "Christians" and usually not in a good way) to plant their seeds of doom in my heart.

I first started to really become spiritual in middle school. I started contemplating "God" as I knew him from church and Sunday School, and I started going to the youth group, where we talked in-depth about morality in general as well as Christian beliefs. I also became very interested in other worldviews in classes where we studied Greek mythology and world religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. I started to form a tiny little worldview all my own, discovering what spoke to me from each path I studied. In 6th grade, I went on my first church weekend retreat. I grew a bit, learned a bit, and started to connect to what I thought was the Christians' version of God.

Fast forward to high school and the introduction of BA. BA was a pagan in my year who had many of the same classes I did. He frequently spoke of his adventures using astral projection and aura reading, which intrigued me greatly. I was also interested in the tarot, having read about it in a Trendy Teen Magazine. I began researching all of these things online as much as I could. I tried a few times and found myself unsuccessful, probably due partially to the fact that I had been reading in a Christian pamphlet that "occult" things were Evil and Satanic and No Good Christian Girl would use them. I didn't know whether Astral Projection and Aura Reading counted as "occult" but I was positive that my Tarot Cards were, because I'd seen them mentioned by name in the pamphlet.

I didn't really think any of these things were wrong; they didn't feel Evil and I could find no good reason why anybody should say they were Evil, but I told myself that I was a terrible person for using them because some Christian organization told me it was wrong. I continued to progress along the Christian path, attending church events and doing many volunteer serices at the church. My concept of "God" was forming, and I started to think about all of the people of the other religions of the world, and what would happen to them if they were wrong. Some of them would never even be exposed to the "truth" of Christianity; surely they wouldn't be eternally punished for that? I thought and thought and thought about it and finally I realized that all of the different religions I'd studied had such similarities throughout them - morality codes, similar historical events, and the like - that it only made sense that they were all talking about the same thing. They simply called it different names. This idea made sense to me and it was the only one I had been able to truly accept in my heart.

Fast forward to senior year of high school. I sat in front of BF in humanities class, and we always talked all through classes and such. He invited me to a weekly Bible study and, seeing a possible way to "Strengthen My Relationship With God" I faithfully attended every week. The group was made up mostly of Southern Baptists from different schools in the area who all attended the same church. Some of my teachers from school were also in the group. The members of the group who went to my school also met at break every morning for Prayer Club and were joined by some other students at the school. This group was run (and as far as I know, probably still is) by Mrs. C, one of the Spanish teachers. Oddly enough, one of the other Spanish teachers, LT, actually went to the same church I did and was a priest's daughter, and she had nothing to do with it, so apparently she had some sense of the fact that teachers aren't allowed to lead religious worship in school.

The prayer/study group of which I was now a devoted member consisted of weekly studies of Bible chapters and/or subjects as well as daily meetings at school for short devotions, all of which were led by students and/or the teachers at school. They often featured the message that "We Are All Horrible, Dirty Sinners And Deserve To Go To Hell For Eternity Simply For Having Been Born". This was inevitably followed by something like "If You Believe In Our God And Act Like We Do You Will Be Saved From This Horrible Fate But If You Do It Wrong You Will Burn Forever In Hell".

Let's recap my neurosis for a moment here. Self-loathing complex as well as fear of upsetting my father. Both of these messages the Baptists were serving me played directly into these issues I had. I was highly fearful of doing anything wrong, and absolutely terrified of the Unforgivable Sin, vaguely listed in the Bible as "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit" and not clarified at all except for the statement that blasphemy against the Father and/or the Son was forgivable. This made it all the more terrifying - how do I know which one I'm blaspheming against, and for that matter, how will I know if I accidentally blaspheme, even if within my thoughts or beliefs? I immediately swept all previous thoughts of truth in all religions under the rug along with any desire to question what I was told by these Christians. They taught me that gaining too much knowledge was detrimental to my faith and would put "lies" in my head, so I began to resent my humanities class because we were required to study non-Christian philosophers and sometimes pieces of other religions in class.

I went to two more weekend retreats during my time in high school. One of them happened my junior year, and it was during my "accepting" time. The second one was during my senior year - I had to miss a band event to go to the team training for it, and I bravely stood against my band director's orders that everyone was required to be there and told him it was important to my spiritual journey. I carried his entire clarinet section, and he was a Southern Baptist who was very in favour of leading his students to Christ, so of course he let me go. While I did rear my ugly Baptistey head during this one (it was an Episcopal retreat, as were the previous two), I got far more out of it by helping to bring good spiritual experiences to other people than I did from actually going through as a candidate. This, looking back, is really the only thing that I got out of Christianity. I thought I had a relationship with God, but really I had a relationship with a book, a denomination, a lot of fears, and the fuzzy feelings I got from helping other people to feel they had a purpose.

Overall, the whole period was terrible. Outwardly I don't think I showed too many signs of oddness or inner turmoil, but inside I was always questioning my salvation and fighting myself to keep my actual beliefs suppressed. I went off to college and for the first year or so I continued to travel back home to go to church nearly every weekend. I joined Legends Alliance, where I started debating in the Controversial forum. Speaking to people of various religious and political standpoints eventually forced me to open my mind back up. I realized that, while the church had taught me that "Homosexuality Is Wrong; All Gay People Are Either Doing It On Purpose Or Have A Mental Imbalance" I had to force myself to believe it, and after researching information about literal Biblical translations, historical contexts, and psychological studies I realized that what the church so vehemently preached at me was Incorrect.

Add on a few more experiences like that one, add a best friend who practices a form of witchcraft-based paganism, and don't forget the predisposition toward the occult, from early high school. Mix it all together, and you get Fluffy Christian-tinged Paganism. Episcopaganism, if you will. I fumbled around in this area for a while, trying to learn more things about paganism at large, not really realizing what it is. I still harbored many leftover fears from Christianity, however, and I wouldn't give myself permission to let go of my religious beliefs. I ended up believing in some bastardized form of Christianity that stole elements from many different pagan religions. I eventually got tired of trying to reconcile all of my beliefs, suppositions, fears, and curiosities and decided I was going to take a break from religion for a while. Add a hard-atheist boyfriend and I'm starting to lean towards the absence of any gods at all, at least ones that interact with us, simply because it makes things easier. One day, I just said to myself, "If there are any god(s) out there, give me a sign... one that I can't mistake. Otherwise, I'll be going about my business."

A few weeks ago, I was taking a bath. Admittedly, I was intoxicated, so I take much about the experience to follow with a grain of salt. I don't wish to go into great detail, but something happened that reminded me of days past. It felt like the unmistakable sign I'd asked for - it came out of almost nowhere and it was so jolting that it frightened me for a moment. My immediate reaction was to think of my ingrained Fear-Religion - I feared it was a sign that I was supposed to go back to Christianity, which I just couldn't accept because of what it had turned me into and the fears I associated it with. I spent the rest of that night in fear and denial.

The next day I sat and thought about it while I was sober. The experience itself seemed far diminished in my memory, as I had expected it would when viewed with a non-intoxicated mind. I decided to let it go for now and if I was really meant to have a sign it damn well needed to happen when I was sober enough to tell the difference between sign and imagination. While thinking, it came upon me that this wasn't a sign about Christianity, just a reminder of my previous spiritual nature and a feeling that something was calling me back to it. For the next week or so, I sort of cycled through my entire religious history almost like a montage. Each day I wondered "was this one right? Or was it that one?"

The past week was spent figuring out what the beliefs I swept under the rug really were. I'm still working on it, but so far I have clarified a few things. "Logos," the sort of relationship between everything in the universe, speaks to everyone. To some, Logos makes sense as scientific principle. To others, Logos makes sense as beauty, music, and art. To others, Logos makes sense as Jesus Christ and to others it makes sense as the Kemetic pantheon. All of the different gods and such are just parts of the larger whole. This makes me a soft polytheist. Currently, I'm in the process of exploring different options that seem to interest me and hopefully one will speak to me.

I feel like I made a significant breakthrough last night because I was finally able to talk to S about this without worrying that he was going to inadvertently insult my beliefs. He told me afterwards that his dad views these things in much the same way I do. Skepticism is currently serving as both a tool of mine and an obstacle against me. I'm still having trouble completely letting go of all of my fears about leaving Christianity, but I'm getting close. I'm excited to be getting back to what I really believe, and discovering aspects of it that were previously unknown to me.

I just had another of those flashbacks to my hyper-Christian phase. They're really rather sickening... anyway, I was doing an interview with my band director when he was choosing section leaders. He did that every year, and this particular year he asked something along the lines of what person who had died I would most like to meet. My answer was Jesus, which actually sounds like a good way to get some things answered... but he started preaching at me like some youth minister or something... he made that squinty face - you know, the one that Bob Saget makes in Full House when he's trying to teach his kids a lesson? Then he basically started saying, "But ya know what, Jesus is alive." *insert 'all-knowing' head nod* "And you can know him... in here." *insert cheesy pointing-to-heart tactic*

Of course at this point he had me feeling like a terrible excuse for a Christian (at this point I was thinking much like a very indoctrinated southern Baptist), and I started trying to backpedal and cover up my terrible insinuation that my Lord and Savior was not as alive as the church purported him to be. Ugh. The amount of religious undercurrent in my high school band was just terrible. Most of the band members went to the local southern Baptist church with the band director, and since teachers aren't rightly allowed to lead prayers at school functions, the band director would always have one of the kids from his church take the microphone and make the whole band pray before meals at band camp and before taking the field for competition or football games.

The prayer club I was in during the last year or two of high school was run by a teacher who ignored those rules completely. She would frequently pray in prayer club meetings (which, arguably you could say that the students asked her to, which is "okay" wink and teach lectures on her interpretation of the Bible. She would also attend the Bible studies that my ex-boyfriend had at his house, and sometimes she and other teachers from our school would run discussions and lessons there.

I don't see it as wrong that teachers from school ran Bible studies outside of school, but I do have a problem with the fact that they were actually teaching us these things as facts within school hours, on school property. My band director was all but evangelizing to me during that interview, and asking other students to evangelize for him at band functions. A moment to focus before performances would have sufficed - students wishing to pray could do so silently - but the choice to say grace before meals should be each student's personal choice. Those who do not wish to pray shouldn't be forced to stand there while the whole band has to listen to "Father God, we just.. we just thank you for this day, Lord. We just thank you for the opportunity to be here today, Father..."

The band director continues to do these things to this day, and I believe the other teacher I mentioned does as well. I know that her Facebook profile is full of scripture references, and comments and notes wherein she evangelizes to her students. I certainly don't think it's a stretch to assume she is still doing the same things during school hours. I don't see a problem with allowing student groups to form for the purpose of prayer or religious study, but I don't think that the teachers should be allowed to evangelize to them during school. Also, to have one of these groups, it was a requirement at my high school to find a teacher willing to be the sponsor, and often other religious groups were unable to find a teacher who would do this for them. If some of them are going to be excluded for this reason, then all of them should be disallowed.

I have only recently realized how much of a complete prat I nearly turned into back in those days, and I guess I just need to kind of vent about it and hopefully get some responses. It really kind of baffles me that I managed to become so very brainwashed, and in such a short time, too. I was an intolerant bigot, the kind of person I find myself arguing with these days on Gaia and Legends Alliance. I'm always thinking, "This person would really be a lot more intelligent if he/she would just stop and think for a minute." Of course, in my experience ignorance is often encouraged in Christianity.

I remember taking my humanities class during my senior year, and learning about philosophy. Whenever something would start to make sense to me as something I might consider, if it didn't jive with my southern Baptist based definition of Christianity, I would immediately start repeating this Bible verse to myself. "Beware, lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ." Like learning how to be a critical, free thinker was somehow sinful. I even wrote this verse on the end of one of my philosophy essays as a footnote, because I was so outraged that I was forced to learn it.

I just can't stop wondering how I got that way... how I let it happen... and if it happened once, will it happen again? And if I remain skeptical of everything will I keep it from happening again or will I just be dooming myself to something that will cause me to miss the bigger picture somewhere? I feel like an idiot for even posting this.