I'm washed on your shore and barely alive
I dig my heels into the dirt
'Cause this one's gonna hurt
Won't let the waves wash me away
Is what I always pray
In my heart I know you couldn't see
In the dark or find your way through me
Now I'm alone, my hands are numb
How do I carry on?
At the turn of the tide
I feel this part of me die
Am I washed on your shore and barely alive?
Now I'm held hostage in my head
With every word you said
God, all those lessons in my past
I spit them out so fast
I see myself with you, I act so small
I see myself with you, I always crawl
So someone leave a raft for me
The water's getting deep
At the turn of the tide
I feel this part of me die
Am I washed on your shore and barely alive?
Here I am in my insecurity
Here I am in my damaged dignity
Here I am, you're pulling me in too deep
Here I am
Here I am, I'm in the mercy seat
Here I am, running without my feet
Here I am, oh what's come over me?
Here I am
When I was melting in your hand
You didn't understand
You slip through me like grains of sand
You still don't understand
Overboard, I'm thrown out to see
What you are and what I mean to me
But I will always have my dream where you can swim to me
At the turn of the tide
I feel this part of me die
I've been on your shore before
And it was no waste of time
Over my head and in my mind
Am I washed on your shore and barely alive?
—Charlotte Martin, "On Your Shore"
I heard these lyrics for the first time a few weeks ago, and it really touched a nerve. It's possible that Charlotte Martin wrote this song about a lover who spurned her. However, I heard this and I immediately thought the song was written to God about a faith the narrator is just barely hanging onto. The song hit me very deeply and I haven't yet recovered.
Because those lyrics are exactly how I feel about my relationship with Christianity. The ocean of athiesm is pulling me out to sea, and I'm clinging to anything I can to somehow believe. But I know I can't anymore.
My years as a liberal Christian were "no waste of time," certainly. I learned a lot about myself as a person and a lot about viewing faith in different ways. But when I moved to Sacramento, there was a dire shortage of churches that were liberal (at least in my area). A few of my neighbors were extremely Christian--one was a Promise Keeper--and they always found ways to throw God and Blessed and Jesus into the conversation. Yes, we're really blessed to be in such a good neighborhood. Have you found a church yet? It's really important for your kids to grow up with Jesus. Make sure they have lots of friends in church. This was very tough to hear for me--especially since I came back to the church because of the movie The Last Temptation of Christ (yes, the 1988 Scorcese film that Christians picketed).
There are two enormous churches in my area, and I really couldn't stand either of them. One preached about the evils of Harry Potter one Sunday. The UCC's in my area were going through an enormous amount of turmoil--one had lost over half its congregation. I went through a couple of discussion groups led by a pastor--in one, we discussed "God's Politics" by Jim Wallis. But she moved to Washington DC about six months after we met her.
My parents, afraid for my soul, had me talk to a missionary friend of theirs--a really intelligent, well-read guy who I'll call M. I was actually looking forward to having my faith strengthened by this conversation. Now, I was a liberal Christian at this time, although I didn't go to church, but I was reading Marcus Borg and liking his worldview. Immediately, M starts debunking Borg, calling him names and saying no serious Biblical scholar believes anything he says. I told him my view (see previous posts about not believing the book of John and reading the letters as criticism, not Truth).
He tried to debunk that as well--he pulled out 2 Peter 3, in which Peter says Paul's letters should be treated like Scripture. I left empty and confused. (And to think that I hadn't been that confused before I met with M, at my parents' insistence! Irony!)
Turns out that most scholars don't think Peter actually wrote 2 Peter. Most scholars don't think Paul wrote some of the letters attributed to him. Turns out a lot of what I value in the Gnostic Gospels were added in centuries later. Jesus saving the adulterous woman from the stoning ("let the one who is without sin cast the first stone") was added 400 to 600 years later. The verses on the Trinity? Added years later. And the book that revealed all this was by a Christian apologist!
All of this information indicated very strongly to me that I couldn't trust the Bible. And when I sat down and actually read though it, I didn't like what was in there. When I was 10 and read the Bible straight through, cover to cover, did I even think about what I was reading? No. Did I catch all the differences (not necessarily conflicts, but definite differences) between the Gospels and how they portray Jesus? I did not.
But once that whole Bible inerrancy was shot down in my mind, I realized that a lot more was possibly errant than I thought. I also realized that the fear of hell was a very selfish reason to believe in Jesus.
I came back to Christianity a few years ago with an open mind and an open heart, ready and willing to believe, and confident that the more I found out, the more it would strengthen, not shake, my faith. Instead, everything I've uncovered has undermined my assumptions and contraindicated my expectations of Christianity.
While there have been a couple of Christians along the way who have been respectful and understanding, the vast majority have been downright nasty and disrespectful to me. I've been called arrogant, stupid, evil.
Many of the athiests I talk to say that the loss of their faith was liberating. I've found it excruciating. But my goal in life now is to improve others' lives here on this earth. I want to be a good citizen and a good neighbor in a way I never wanted to as a Christian. I want to understand, tolerate, make better. I want my kids to have sympathy and empathy and to act on it, with or without a higher power. I want to leave this world better than it was when I came in. Before, the world didn't matter since I had salvation. Now, my life does matter. I'm scared of that, and it's hard sometimes to get through the day without the comfort of Jesus. That's because I am responsible for everything I do and every decision I make. Accountability is probably the scariest thing in the world.
At the turn of the tide, I felt that part of me die. Now I have to keep myself afloat.
'Cause this one's gonna hurt
Won't let the waves wash me away
Is what I always pray
In my heart I know you couldn't see
In the dark or find your way through me
Now I'm alone, my hands are numb
How do I carry on?
At the turn of the tide
I feel this part of me die
Am I washed on your shore and barely alive?
Now I'm held hostage in my head
With every word you said
God, all those lessons in my past
I spit them out so fast
I see myself with you, I act so small
I see myself with you, I always crawl
So someone leave a raft for me
The water's getting deep
At the turn of the tide
I feel this part of me die
Am I washed on your shore and barely alive?
Here I am in my insecurity
Here I am in my damaged dignity
Here I am, you're pulling me in too deep
Here I am
Here I am, I'm in the mercy seat
Here I am, running without my feet
Here I am, oh what's come over me?
Here I am
When I was melting in your hand
You didn't understand
You slip through me like grains of sand
You still don't understand
Overboard, I'm thrown out to see
What you are and what I mean to me
But I will always have my dream where you can swim to me
At the turn of the tide
I feel this part of me die
I've been on your shore before
And it was no waste of time
Over my head and in my mind
Am I washed on your shore and barely alive?
—Charlotte Martin, "On Your Shore"
I heard these lyrics for the first time a few weeks ago, and it really touched a nerve. It's possible that Charlotte Martin wrote this song about a lover who spurned her. However, I heard this and I immediately thought the song was written to God about a faith the narrator is just barely hanging onto. The song hit me very deeply and I haven't yet recovered.
Because those lyrics are exactly how I feel about my relationship with Christianity. The ocean of athiesm is pulling me out to sea, and I'm clinging to anything I can to somehow believe. But I know I can't anymore.
My years as a liberal Christian were "no waste of time," certainly. I learned a lot about myself as a person and a lot about viewing faith in different ways. But when I moved to Sacramento, there was a dire shortage of churches that were liberal (at least in my area). A few of my neighbors were extremely Christian--one was a Promise Keeper--and they always found ways to throw God and Blessed and Jesus into the conversation. Yes, we're really blessed to be in such a good neighborhood. Have you found a church yet? It's really important for your kids to grow up with Jesus. Make sure they have lots of friends in church. This was very tough to hear for me--especially since I came back to the church because of the movie The Last Temptation of Christ (yes, the 1988 Scorcese film that Christians picketed).
There are two enormous churches in my area, and I really couldn't stand either of them. One preached about the evils of Harry Potter one Sunday. The UCC's in my area were going through an enormous amount of turmoil--one had lost over half its congregation. I went through a couple of discussion groups led by a pastor--in one, we discussed "God's Politics" by Jim Wallis. But she moved to Washington DC about six months after we met her.
My parents, afraid for my soul, had me talk to a missionary friend of theirs--a really intelligent, well-read guy who I'll call M. I was actually looking forward to having my faith strengthened by this conversation. Now, I was a liberal Christian at this time, although I didn't go to church, but I was reading Marcus Borg and liking his worldview. Immediately, M starts debunking Borg, calling him names and saying no serious Biblical scholar believes anything he says. I told him my view (see previous posts about not believing the book of John and reading the letters as criticism, not Truth).
He tried to debunk that as well--he pulled out 2 Peter 3, in which Peter says Paul's letters should be treated like Scripture. I left empty and confused. (And to think that I hadn't been that confused before I met with M, at my parents' insistence! Irony!)
Turns out that most scholars don't think Peter actually wrote 2 Peter. Most scholars don't think Paul wrote some of the letters attributed to him. Turns out a lot of what I value in the Gnostic Gospels were added in centuries later. Jesus saving the adulterous woman from the stoning ("let the one who is without sin cast the first stone") was added 400 to 600 years later. The verses on the Trinity? Added years later. And the book that revealed all this was by a Christian apologist!
All of this information indicated very strongly to me that I couldn't trust the Bible. And when I sat down and actually read though it, I didn't like what was in there. When I was 10 and read the Bible straight through, cover to cover, did I even think about what I was reading? No. Did I catch all the differences (not necessarily conflicts, but definite differences) between the Gospels and how they portray Jesus? I did not.
But once that whole Bible inerrancy was shot down in my mind, I realized that a lot more was possibly errant than I thought. I also realized that the fear of hell was a very selfish reason to believe in Jesus.
I came back to Christianity a few years ago with an open mind and an open heart, ready and willing to believe, and confident that the more I found out, the more it would strengthen, not shake, my faith. Instead, everything I've uncovered has undermined my assumptions and contraindicated my expectations of Christianity.
While there have been a couple of Christians along the way who have been respectful and understanding, the vast majority have been downright nasty and disrespectful to me. I've been called arrogant, stupid, evil.
Many of the athiests I talk to say that the loss of their faith was liberating. I've found it excruciating. But my goal in life now is to improve others' lives here on this earth. I want to be a good citizen and a good neighbor in a way I never wanted to as a Christian. I want to understand, tolerate, make better. I want my kids to have sympathy and empathy and to act on it, with or without a higher power. I want to leave this world better than it was when I came in. Before, the world didn't matter since I had salvation. Now, my life does matter. I'm scared of that, and it's hard sometimes to get through the day without the comfort of Jesus. That's because I am responsible for everything I do and every decision I make. Accountability is probably the scariest thing in the world.
At the turn of the tide, I felt that part of me die. Now I have to keep myself afloat.
posted by SuperSkeptic at 12:05 AM
1 Comments:
“Many of the athiests I talk to say that the loss of their faith was liberating. I've found it excruciating.”
For a long time it was also excruciating for me. To suddenly realise that the belief that you’ve followed and loved for most of your life is probably almost as bad, if not worse, that loosing a loved one. But I think there is hope. For me, the period of pain slowly ebbed away, to be replaced by a deeper understanding of who I am and my place in this great universe. I derive great peace from that enhanced understanding. Things are not at all perfect since I lost my faith. There is still much that I need to struggle through, still too many questions without adequate answers. In fact, I wouldn’t want to wish the faith struggle I went through on any Christian. But at least I am on firmer ground in comparison to when I first left my faith. I can’t say that the same will happen in your situation, but there is hope down the road.
I’ve read your testimony with a degree of fascination. Your articles describing your faith struggle were extremely well articulated and honest. What I found most interesting were the differences between your two instances of de-conversion. Please let me know if I have misunderstood, but your first de-conversion seemed to be a result of unhappiness with the church; the second de-conversion incident was a result from an actual realisation that much of what you were taught with regards to Christianity was not true. I wonder if the first kind of de-conversion is easier to repair than the second. Most atheists that I read about on the net have become atheists through the second type – I wonder if the second type is more permanent.
I hope that you will find peace in the raging sea that you find yourself in, even if it means that you will eventually reclaim your faith, or one day reject it in its entirety.
Thank you for sharing your story. I’m sure many readers appreciate the effort that you went through to articulate your thoughts in writing. I know I do.
All the best
Kevin
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