A Story of Changing Faith

This is a free-flowing narrative, written from my heart. I hope it makes some sense and that you can bear with me… You may find it insulting, upsetting, crazy. I don’t know, but you might want to skip it if “religion” gets your hackles up. It’s probably not going where you think it is.

The Beginning

Born in 1961, I was raised in the Presbyterian Church by a Presbyterian father and Baptist mother. I was an only child. From the time I was 6 months old until age 9, we moved around a good bit. My earliest memories of church and “Christian education” are from First Presbyterian Church in Waynesboro, VA, where Dad was raised. My favorite times around church were the Sundays my great-grandfather would take us to “The Hotel” after church for lunch. I think it was The General Wayne Hotel. Do I remember anything about those lunches? No, I only remember that I was excited.

Sunday school and Bible stories, including my own copy of A Child’s Book of Bible Stories, were all part of it. When my father thought I was old enough, I was required to tell him something about the sermon each Sunday, as proof that I was listening.

All the Old Testament stories were presented as having really happened: Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark, etc. Real. These things happened.

I was told that the bible was written by men (literally, as it happened) who were divinely inspired by God.

God, the creator, was our Father. Jesus was his son who came to earth. Wait a minute. If we’re his children and we’re on earth… I don’t quite understand the difference. (“Don’t worry. You will.” Um… still don’t) Then, too, there was the Holy Ghost (now the Holy Spirit) who somehow tied the three of them together in the Trinity.

Communicant’s classes, learning catechism, all followed. I had a memory of being baptized, sprinkled, of course. I later assumed it was imagination. Presbyterians are usually baptized as infants. So I figured I couldn’t have an actual memory. Only about 4 or 5 years ago, I came across my baptism certificate. It turns out I wasn’t an infant. I was 4 or so, old enough to have walked down the aisle and remember it. Wow.

I read the bible. I would say, although I’m no expert, I know it at least as well as, probably better than, a lot of Christians.

Eventually, I had different versions from the King James Bible I was raised on. The Living Bible was quite popular when I hit my teens. I underlined, made notes, all of that. Now something else is the “official” bible of PCUSA.

I gave a brief sermon on Youth Sunday one year. I talked about Jesus and asked the congregation to look at their palms and think about nails being driven through them. I thought I was very inspired and inspiring.

I believed.

Why wouldn’t I believe? I trusted my parents. They presented everything as truth. They believed. Naturally, I would, too. Then.

Teen and College Years

As a teen, I also attended a Lutheran church that some of my friends and I discovered. This church had a band and played music in a more contemporary style. Love was very open and free-flowing there. We were enamored.

My parents subsequently separated when I was around 11. Ultimately, they divorced. This was not common in the 1970s. Mom was able to buy us a small house in a different neighborhood. We changed churches. It was still Presbyterian. Mom was in the choir. I was very active in youth group. We had sock hops and square dances, and I even hit my first softball. I was with people who loved and accepted me. The youth leaders were really terrific people.

Around the time I started high school, something happened. I didn’t, and still don’t, know exactly what. But I think Mom was the only single female adult at the church who was divorced. She was also very attractive. I somehow overheard something that let me know that the tongues of the biddies in the church were wagging in some way that had besmirched my mother. As a high schooler, my focus was on lots of other things. But the first seeds of doubt about church were planted.

When I went off to college, I think I attended the non-denominational Chapel Hill Bible Church a handful of times. Later on, I went to the Episcopal church, Chapel of The Cross. This was really only because a group of my friends would go there, then to lunch at Spanky’s. Spanky’s had fantastic “breakfast potatoes”.

When I went home to Charlotte, I would go to the Lutheran Church and maybe to the midnight Christmas Eve service at the Presbyterian Church.

I honestly don’t remember much about what I thought about church and religion at this time. I do remember a college class in which “Pascal’s Wager” was discussed. I think we were reading Camus. Anyway, I remember a girl in the class who totally didn’t understand what it meant. Google if aren’t familiar with Pascal’s Wager. This girl grew up in NYC and hadn’t been raised in any religion. She just didn’t understand “the wager”. I had never encountered anyone who didn’t know anything about Christianity. In my mind, it wasn’t “Christianity”; it was just, you know, God and stuff. Other than feeling somewhat guilty that I wasn’t a regular church-goer anymore, I didn’t think about it too much (but it made an impression).

I did experience some moments of pure joy in Chapel Hill. I naturally chalked them up to God.

I was exposed to other religions, mostly in history classes during college. That’s when logistical questions started pestering my mind. Also, germs of thoughts like, “Why are these people wrong, and what I was taught is right?”

I’m pretty sure I’m glossing over other things that I buried and no longer remember right now. Not feeling like digging them out. Faith, religion, whatever you call it… so it goes.

After College

After college I moved to Washington, DC. I lived near the National Cathedral, but I think I only went there a few times, just to see it and show it to visiting friends. I don’t remember seeking out any type of church or church community.

Again, when I returned to Charlotte for holidays, I would go to services with Mom or friends. It felt homey… I ignored the feelings of fakeness. I still essentially believed what I had been taught.

I lived in DC for five years before returning to Charlotte. I couldn’t afford DC anymore, and I had, unknowingly, been dating Satan for two years. Breaking up with him also factored heavily into the move.

Probably I could write about that relationship, but long ago I decided he was dead and don’t want to revisit anything about it. He was ten years older than I, so he absolutely could be dead.

Questions of logic continued to plague me. My brain grew weary and I finally settled on faith. Faith being more important than understanding.

Lots of time went by. Mom became enamored of the TV/radio services of Dr. Charles Stanley. He was the pastor of First Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA. She was returning to her Baptist roots. Her second husband was Alcoholic, oops, I mean also Baptist. I listened/watched Dr. Stanley with her some. Not impressed. Seemed like a nice man.

Billy Graham, born in Charlotte and a Baptist, was a big deal. I went to a “crusade” at the stadium once. I was swept up. I was a believer. I didn’t go to the altar call, but I was moved. I thought so. I don’t think it lasted very long.

A neighbor of mine was a big fan of a later TV preacher, Joyce Meyer. A BIG fan. So I watched her some. The first thing that struck me was when she spoke of praying and the “power of prayer”. She said you had to pray the “right way”. Huh? WTF? Joyce said, essentially, if you don’t believe your prayer will be answered when you’re praying, then, of course, it won’t be answered. Say what? That “crawled all over me,” as we say in the South. I couldn’t listen to anything else she had to say.

Knock, and the door shall be open. Seek and ye shall find. Ask for all things in prayer. Go to God in prayer. You will be answered. Prayer is where you get your “personal relationship” with God. Started seeming like BS.

Faith was fading and fading fast.

Then the book and movie “The Shack” came on the scene. Wow. Powerful. The personifications of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit in the movie! Those were images I could get behind. A lot of that story made sense to me. Octavia Spencer as God? Oh, hell to the yes! Faith restored!

But. As prayers went unanswered. As I learned more and more about so many of the horrible, miserable things people do to each other, often in the name of faith, I couldn’t reconcile it. Millions of human beings have died in much worse ways than hanging on a cross for SIX HOURS. I mean, for real. I can’t totally shake my teachings, though. I think Jesus existed and was who he said he was. But I don’t believe that is the only true way to “eternal life”. And, seriously? Compare 6 hours on a cross with all the atrocities. Something is wrong with this picture. Very, very wrong (to me).

I’m not sure there is life after death. I fervently hope the “Rainbow Bridge,” aka afterlife for animals, exists. You know what they say about wishes, though. That, and $5, will get you a stick of gum. OK, I just made that up, but I think you get me.

At some point after moving back to Charlotte, I decided to try Seigle Avenue Presbyterian Church. In Charlotte’s First Ward, it was a “black” church, although the pastor at the time was white. The gospel music was terrific. The pastor’s sermons were really good. I went a lot. But. No one talked to me. I went to some lunches after church. No one would say more than hello, if that. I’m naturally an introvert, especially when I’m unsure if I’m welcome and “belong” in a place (also a problem for me here in Portugal, I digress). Strangely, it took me quite a while to realize that I wasn’t having conversations with people. I expect my discomfort showed. Generally, although an introvert, I’m openly friendly. I couldn’t pull it off. I probably should have taken someone with me. Eventually I decided to stop going.

I met my husband, Scott, on Christmas Eve of 2007. I won’t go into the whole story here. Turned out he was also a lifelong Presbyterian. I hadn’t gone to church in a good while. But I was willing to. And we did. We even got married there. Not gonna name it because of how it ultimately played out.

Middle Age and Beyond

In 2010/2011, PCUSA (Presbyterian Church USA), aka the Presbytery, amended the Book of Order, its polity, to make three major changes. The only one I remember now is that openly gay people were allowed to be ordained. I didn’t know it wasn’t allowed. What we learned then is that our church wouldn’t even let openly gay people join the church as members. WHAT? This church went so far as to hold a vote on whether or not to remain part of the PCUSA. To our surprise and horror, only 48 of us voted to stay. We were aghast that we had been members of a church that believed this way. We had gay friends and relatives at our wedding there. We were totally oblivious to the attitudes and felt bad about putting these wonderful people in that position. I liken it now to finding out some of your friends and relatives are trumpers.

Outrageous. We left immediately.

Ultimately, we landed in another Presbyterian church that couldn’t be more unlike the one we left. It’s a fabulous community of welcoming people. If you’re in Charlotte, check out Caldwell Presbyterian Church. The services are online; check it out even if you aren’t there.

Learning and Questioning

So. Two things occurred that cemented the change in my worldview, especially regarding faith. One was pre-Scott, and one was post-Scott.

The first occurred after I had been laid off from IBM and started my own business. The first person I hired was a young woman from Senegal. She spoke her village language as well as French and English. She majored in Spanish in college and was fluent in that as well. This was a huge benefit to my business.

She was Muslim (Sunni Islam). Even though this wasn’t long after 9/11, I at least understood that the militant extremists were not the same. I didn’t give it a thought at all. But as we worked together, we did talk about religion. She knew about as much about Christianity as I did about Islam. Not much. A lot of what each of us knew was full of mistruths and misinterpretations. I found it fascinating. As we went along, I returned to my earlier thoughts of why Christianity would be “right,” and Muslim/Islam be wrong? And Buddhism and so forth and so on. We both believed what we were raised to believe. Was it really just an accident of birth? Seems so.

Again, I couldn’t reconcile the logic of all I had been taught.

The business didn’t make it. Ultimately, I ended up working for Duke Power (now Duke Energy). I’m going to skip to the situation that occurred.

The Last Straw

One of my coworkers had two college-aged daughters. The younger one developed anorexia and bulimia, unbeknownst to her parents. She was at a university in the NC mountains and didn’t see her parents much during the semesters. Long story short — She was taking laxatives, starving herself, throwing up, all of it. Her roommate found her collapsed on the floor one morning. She had had a heart attack. She was taken to the hospital and was in a coma. I don’t remember now how long she survived in the coma. MANY, MANY, MANY people were praying for this girl; more than I had personally ever experienced. I prayed fervently for her myself. I truly thought that with the huge number of people praying for this young woman, there was no way she wouldn’t pull through and be ok. She wasn’t. She never regained consciousness. She died. I think she was 20 years old.

Why? How?

Of course, the usual crowd of “everything happens for a reason,” “there’s a greater good we can’t see yet,” “God works in mysterious ways” all came out. By the way, not one word of that is in the bible. I see it as how people cope with the random things that happen.

I was overcome. I could not find any explanation that made this girl’s death good in any way. I don’t care if it helped some people with eating disorders. WHY DID THIS PERSON HAVE TO DIE? WHAT ABOUT THE POWER OF PRAYER? I could have looked Joyce Meyer dead in the eye and declared that I had every expectation of these prayers being answered, with this girl having life. I’m sure 99% of the other prayers did, too.

I was done. I talked to others about it, even one of our pastors. No one had anything other than platitudes to offer. Faith? In what? Why? What kind of “father” would allow this? Do this? I don’t care if one day we’ll understand. We don’t understand now.

Current Thoughts

You may think this next part is just me hedging my bets, back to Pascal’s Wager, so to speak. It’s really what I think now.

I get that life and death are mysteries. Regardless of people’s accounts of being “dead” and coming back, we don’t know with any kind of certainty what, if anything, happens “next”. No matter what we think, believe, hope, or want to be the “next life,” we may all be completely surprised. Or not. Maybe there is nothing next. Reincarnation? Rebirth? Streets of gold? Sitting on a cloud? Who knows?

Dad was killed in an accident when I was 24. I worried incessantly for a while that he would be bored. I don’t know why, really. I just couldn’t come up with what we do in eternity. We seem to be made to need a purpose. Does that just go away? Could he see me? Could he help me? What?

Digressing again.

Yes. I have had experiences that I chalked up to “the divine”. Was that what happened? Or did it just… happen?

I envy those of you who feel you have a personal relationship with your creator, or whomever you were taught it is. I have never figured out how to have such a relationship with an entity I’ve never seen, never had a true, auditory conversation with, don’t understand, have been told I’m not “supposed to” understand… just have faith. I’m a hugger. Personal relationships involve hugs, don’t they? I’ve tried. It just has never clicked with me, or felt anything like a “personal relationship”.

Why make it all so incomprehensible? Why give a “roadmap,” bible, that’s supposed to tell us how to live and make it so subject to interpretation?

OH. I almost forgot. Somewhere along the line, after I had researched things like was there any evidence of Noah’s Ark happening? No, no evidence whatsoever. Is that a surprise? Naw. Who among us, who’s familiar with the story hasn’t wondered, “How could there possibly have been two of every single animal on the planet in that ark?” Followed by obvious potty questions.

While I’m on the subject, after the ark landed, it sounded to me like Noah was a real asshole. He’s the one chosen to be saved from this destruction of the earth? Are you serious?

Back to my points… I started hearing from pastors that, well, you know, what was written in the bible came down through oral traditions.

When have you ever known stories handed down through generations orally to not have details change? It’s like the old game of “Gossip”. Whisper something to someone and have them tell the next person and so on down the line and it never comes out the same at the end as it was at the start.

Then these things got written down. By men. Then copies were made. By other men. Then religious leaders got into the picture. On and on. Different languages, different interpretations. How reliable can this thing be? And then there are the texts of other religions. We’re supposed to live our lives by which of these?

Betrayed and Confused

Anyway, pastors started basically saying that these “stories,” in the Old Testament at least, were never intended to be considered true accounts of things that really happened. They’re meant to illustrate a point. Allegory? This confused me greatly. When did this become the accepted explanation?

I was told as I was growing up that Jesus spoke in parables.

Here’s part of what the interwebs say about parables.

The pastors also say that the disciples often didn’t correctly understand the parables.

You’re telling me that these men who were with Jesus, in person, most of their time, who heard him say these things with their own ears, didn’t understand what they were supposed to be learning? But we’re supposed to understand? Or are we? If we aren’t, what’s the point?

We all know that humans have been using their own interpretations of religious texts to justify all sorts of horrendous acts. Plenty of lesser, but still important acts, too. It’s chaos. I don’t know. Maybe if I had that personal relationship, I could just ask and be told the truth. If only it were that easy.

I meant to put all that in earlier as part of what has caused my deep confusion, sense of betrayal, and my inability to determine who and what to believe. I was on a roll and forgot.

This pretty much sums up where I am in my “faith journey.” Just mine, just my experiences and how I made sense of them, or didn’t. I mean no insult to anyone other than the church members that were disguised as loving people. But even they have the right to believe what they believe and be who they are. Like Dolly Parton, I think if you aren’t hurting anyone, be who you are. Unfortunately, even “hurting others” is open to wide interpretations. Sigh. I’m just trying to be good to those around me and make the best of the things I don’t understand, which are clearly myriad.

If anyone actually reads this, I’m sure some will blast me. I’ll probably cry, but bring it on.

God was originally published in Shaped Souls on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.