Fall From Grace

November 16th, 2009

My parents paid for me to go to a private, Lutheran high school.  While I got an extraordinary education, I don’t know if I envision these kids going there– unless that’s where they want to go (and we have the money for it).

If given the chance, it’s doubtful that I would change a single thing about my childhood.  What I learned from the mistakes of my family, and from the guidance of those grown ups who cared about me is invaluable.  What I learned from the church was priceless, too.  While it’s not what I believe now, it was appropriate for where I was at while I experienced it.

In fact, what happened in high school very much contributed to who I am now.  And frankly, I like who I am now.

The church taught me some excellent values.  It established within me a solid concept of right and wrong, and it taught me that belief, in its purest forms, creates character that is beautiful and respectable.  It also taught me a plethora of reasons why I am not part of the church, and in experiencing it to the extent that I did– a formal education from kindergarten to graduating from high school– I learned who I am in relation to the church.  I learned to stand up for what I felt in the depths of my heart is Right, even if it meant going against the very body of people who taught me that standing up was honorable.

My senior year of high school left the deepest cut.

After following his own thirteen years of Lutheran education, my best friend came out to the world.  He discovered his sexual attraction was not what it should be, according to the church.  With the massive burden of faith on his shoulders, he stood tall.  Knowing that the only realistic expectation was of ostracization from the people he loved, he took a risk in order to stand true to his heart.  It was a leap of bravery, and in turn, he spiraled into a free fall from the protection of everything and everyone he had ever leaned upon for support.

One semester away from graduation, my friend was formally asked to leave the school.  Bureaucratically assigned to a non-compliance to dress code, he was no longer welcome.

I found myself faced with the greatest spiritual dilemma to occur thus far in my life.  Support the person closest to my heart or turn against the body that had fed my spiritual needs for as long as I had known?

My nature would allow me to do nothing other than to succumb to my rage;  I was incensed and motivated for revenge.  My experience had already taught me by then that truth was the greatest weapon against the unjust.  And in my mind, this was the most wicked injustice I had experienced.

So I fought.  Using the power of the internet, I began to research and write letters.  Every major news agency heard from me.  Every GLBT organization in the world received a letter or an email.  I urged them to write letters to the principal and to the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.  Amazingly, they did.   He was featured in the newspapers locally.  Other local high school newspapers published articles on the story.

Sadly, it was a battle that was hardly won.  He left; after enrolling in a local trade-oriented school, he graduated and left the state.  I was threatened to have my own enrollment evoked.  I lost friendships and a vast schism formed between our close-knit classmates of our small, private school.

I graduated a Lutheran.  But it was only a matter of time before I began to compile my grievances against the church.  Eventually, while lying in bed with a lover, I heard the words I was barely ready to hear:  “If you’re going to say that you actually believe in a God… I just can’t believe that such an intelligent woman as you would believe in something so stupid.”

I conceded.  It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in God, per se, but that what I had been taught by the Christian church was not what I believed.   Memories of falsehoods began to flood into my brain.  When I was in eighth grade, my mother and I were in the pastor’s office, discussing some of the questions she presented in response to my confirmation.  The memory of her tears flooding down her cheeks is something I will never forget.  “I’m sorry D_____, but the Lutheran church teaches that babies who are not baptized DO go to hell.”

Being too young to really understand the bond between a mother and her unborn child, I didn’t entirely understand why she was so hurt by it.  At the time, I could only hear the enormous bells of, “Your grandmother was a witch, and she’s burning in hell as we speak” barrelling back and forth between the walls of my head.

No!  No, it couldn’t be true.  My Grandmother was a good woman.  A wonderful woman!  How dare you– you’ve never even met her! She was my dear heart, the woman who gave me the wings I needed in order to blossom into the butterfly I was becoming.

Another memory was of a time in my youth group– at a new church– with some very respectable and worthy leaders.   I loved my new pastors.   I loved the group of kids and adults who led the worship and prayer.  Yet, because we are human and fatally flawed, group prayer was no longer a passionate plea for God’s embrace, it was a thick, murky, black-filled gossip session.  We prayed to God the secrets that should never have crossed our lips.  We huddled on the floor in the tiny chapel, embraced each other, cried against each other’s breasts, and created something nasty and dark.  I swear to you when I say that I saw demons fluttering about the room that night.  Group psychology and metaphysical, magical teachings confirm the existence of such things– be it group hallucinations or manifestations of evil.

As the years have passed, I have regularly revisited the subject of faith.  At one point in time, I had even defined for myself my own, unique religion.  I was the leader of the religion, of course, as any good Aries would be.  I wrote it out, and I shared my convictions with anyone who would listen.

The best caveat I welded into my religion was that I was entitled to change my mind about anything spiritual at any time.  Thankfully, that was the wisest permission I ever gave myself, because my faith has continued to grow and change– sometimes in leaps and bounds, often with complete re-writes of the by-laws and accepted beliefs.   I continue to explore my faith every single day.   Today is no exception to the rule.

Today, I recognized the possibility that much of what I believe takes the form of the Buddhist beliefs.  Granted, I know very little about this particular faction, but from what I do know, it has many beautiful concepts to offer serenity to my experience.  Yesterday it was Wicca, Hinduism, and Science of Mind.  Tomorrow it may be something entirely different.  And though I was taught for many years that to be of solid character was to fight for one thing , one system, I have become comfortable with my mish mosh of spiritual laws which now govern my soul.

Defining labels are a godsend when you do not know exactly who you are.

Now it is not so simple to describe where my heart lies.  Yet I am not afraid.  I am not separated from the force of the universe that allows our world to turn.  I am more comfortable with my own mortality than I have ever been.  My spiritual comforts come from within, from my heart and my mind, and if I were to strive for the comfort I had when Jesus wrapped his arms around me throughout the hellish nights I spent terrified as a young child, this would be exactly what I felt.