Love (and other divinities)

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“Hebrews 6:4-6, warns against falling away from the faith and those who do, cannot not be brought back to repentance because they are ‘crucifying the Son of God all over again.’” (from an anonymous question posed to the Orthodox Church in America)

“Doubt and uncertainty and questioning are inextricably bound together with faith”
― Miriam Toews, Women Talking

“... the twin pillars that guard the entrance to the shrine of religion are storytelling and cruelty.”
― Miriam Toews, Women Talking

“Autje: Why were you forced to leave the colony?

August: My mother questioned things.

Autje: She questioned God?

August: Not God. Power. The rules made in the name of God. And she encouraged others to question things too.” ― Sarah Polley, Women Talking

“Leaving is how we demonstrate our faith. We are leaving because our faith is stronger than the rules. Bigger than our life.” ― Sarah Polley, Women Talking

When author and activist Glennon Doyle interviewed Sarah Polley¹, director and screenwriter of the critically acclaimed new movie, Women Talking, she noted that the options that the women in the movie were discussing—to stay (in their community) and do nothing, stay and fight, or leave—were the same options that she had faced as a young mother (and lesbian who had not yet come out, even to herself) attending church regularly as an adult for the first time. Faced with the constant homophobic messages of the church, she realized that she could either stay and pretend it didn’t bother her (and thereby risk inadvertently telling her kids that homophobia was OK), stay and fight the system, or leave. She eventually chose to leave, just as do the women of the Mennonite community in the fictionalized account of their story (for a more in-depth discussion of the movie, see my post from earlier this month: Women (She) Talking (Said)). Just as we, almost a year ago now and after months of futile fighting, left the church we had thought we would raise our children in. Just as I, soon after, stopped identifying as a Christian.

Even that statement is too simplistic, really. I am not, precisely, a Christian. I am also not, exactly, not Christian. My spiritual practice is both green witchcraft (connection to the Divine through nature and nature-based aspects of, or understanding of, Divinity) and progressive Christian church attendance. Both practices shape my ideology, my understanding of and relation to spiritual cosmology, and my internal and spoken usage of spiritual language. Which is a fancy way of saying I have no freaking clue what I am…but it’s working for me anyway. That doesn’t mean I’m completely comfortable in my “new” spirituality yet, however. Last night I took the time to listen to a very long, very vulnerable video a friend posted last week about her journey through cancer and the anger at God she had to work through as a result. This woman has been through more in the last few years than anyone else I know, which is saying a lot. And, ultimately, her faith in God has been made stronger. The same can be said for most of the people in my family after the trauma and heartbreak of walking my youngest sister through her cancer diagnosis and untimely death in 2020. I felt the guilt of this knowledge settle in my gut. What was wrong with me? What was wrong with me? Why was it that other people could push through heartbreak and anger at God and emerge again, their spiritual framework still intact and view of God effectively unchanged? Was I simply too weak, or two rebellious, to do the same? Was I using my heartbreak as an excuse to punish God for a lifetime of fury at, and disappointment in, authority? Was there a difference between walking away from my religion and walking away from my faith?