Your beginning is similar to mine but fortunately I left the church with no real negatives, it was just a matter of realizing it left too many unanswered or poorly answered questions than seemed right. I was already leaning into my new path while I was still attending church and it was a gradual seperation. I dont particularly subscribe to the starseed or other new new agey ideas either. As to gatekeeping and money making, I just practice the old keep what works, toss the rest. If people dont like how you practice your spirituality, they can kick rocks because ultimately its yours and not theirs. As an aside back to the beginning of your post, the photo reminds me of my family back in the 80s It was a whoa I remember that throwback 😄
Thank you for sharing! I agree with the idea that spirituality is individual in the sense that you have to find what works for you, but one other thing that I've been exploring is how spirituality simply cannot exist in a vacuum. For me, part of my journey is understanding the sweet spot between my humanity and my spirituality and how they influence each other. And that requires me to look outside of myself and see how what I'm learning can impact my community and others...and vice versa, how some practices might hurt others and may need readjusting. Lots more to write about this! I think that photo was maaaybe 1991? I'm pretty sure my mom sewed our dresses! 😭
Gosh I really love your writing and continue to relate to it so much. I'm a recovering Catholic....I think? Am I still Catholic? I don't know - I don't think so? I'm actually really struggling at the moment with dropping what was such an integral part of my life for years (I even went to a Catholic high school where I was VERY involved with the religious clubs there). I can't support a Church that doesn't support equal rights for all though. Am I Episcopal now? How do I raise my kids to have a good religious foundation that I am still grateful I received, without having to exhaustively point out every time I disagree with something the Church has done and continues to do? My kids are old enough for First Communion and with all the programming I've had in my early catechism years, it feels WRONG to not have them go through it. But don't get me started on how difficult the Church makes it on keeping members, especially families...so many hoops. Anyway, all this to say that I see you and I'm working through my own questions as well. I very much miss the comforting rituals and words and music, but not enough to overcome the misogyny and homophobia, among other things. Thank you for writing this!
Ah, thank you for sharing, Erin! I think you just hit on a major aspect of the whole religion thing...it does offer community and social connections that are really hard to let go of if you decide to leave. Church was sort of a safe space for me in the sense that people came there specifically to connect and gather with other folks, so it was part of the brand. I took a lot of comfort in the predictable social situations offered there because it was known territory. A lot of this dovetails with my anxiety and struggles to make friends...church just made it easier because being nice to others was in the fabric of it all. Didn't always happen (still experienced cliques in the church), but it was less likely.
My sister is struggling with some of the same things you mention re: kids. She's wondering whether she wants to raise her daughter in the church because, like you mention, it does offer a great foundation and teachings that we're both grateful we received. It's just the other stuff that's problematic. I'm holding out hope that we can both find a spiritual sweet spot!
Love this piece (again)! I have a question for you: I wonder if in seeking this spiritual sweet spot, do you feel you must find a label that you identify with (the way you did with "atheist," "ex-Baptist," etc.), create a new label (woo curious?), or become comfortable with not having a label to call yourself? Is it even possible to have a solidified identity without having the label/language to express what that identity is? These are the questions your piece stirred in my brain and I'm curious to hear your thoughts!
Funny you say that--before I started getting into tarot, I had a silly fashion Instagram account called "Everything Converges," under the idea that everything is linked and no one label can satisfy the complexities of life. Which, in retrospect, was VERY lofty and hifalutin for a fashion account, but that's beside the point. I realized recently that this is one of my Life Truths that I abide by: I cannot place labels on many facets of myself, such as my gender identity, my spirituality, my relationships with others...it just doesn't work for me. I'm fascinated by the idea of overlap and convergence, and the more I look into it, I realize that permanent labels just don't work.
So to answer your question: to me, a sweet spot is without a label and is also open to shifting. What works one day might not be the ticket the next. There's so much to explore in between the strict expectations of labels!
I love that life truth. Labelling myself X, Y, Z has tripped me up several times in life. I'd like to be comfortable with not having a label to identify myself with internally, but I'm not there yet. I still label myself: a person who values relationships, a thinker, a productive employee, etc. Who I am is now an amalgamation of these labels, with varying importance allocated to each depending on what's top of my mind.
I really do understand this. I was raised in the Methodist church (70s-80s), which was more questioning and forgiving than what I understand from my Baptist and Catholic friends (although back in the 60s & 70s even the Catholics were able to question more). It never settled with me. Then some spiritual experiences in my life made me go looking for answers. I wandered through new ageism and the cult of control (if you do it right enough and good enough everything will be perfect and if it isn't it's because you aren't doing it right - oh, and positive emotions only please). What a long journey it's been. I finally ended up in nature and since have found my way to some grounded, spirit as essence of everything friends and teachers drawing on what I'd call more indigenous, earth-based fundamentals (which line up with my experiences in getting to know the natural world) and also practicing mindfulness and meditation. Closer to the ground. I just started a really wonderful Tarot class - she calls it a pilgrimage and I think that's right, a pilgrimage to reclaim my own spiritual self without the label or patriarchal imposed rules. Really the journey of a lifetime. I write ostensibly about living "in" nature but really I feel like when I'm out there that's the real world and the rest of it is kind of make-believe.
Thank you for sharing this, Karen! I agree that nature seems to be an essential gateway into our spirituality. We spend so much time treating the world around us as merely a backdrop to our experience, but I would argue that it shapes us so much more than we know. John O'Donohue spoke about this a lot in his poetry and in his thinking--he says that nature is the shoreline to the other, more spiritual realm, and I agree with him. When we try to escape the world in order to access our spirituality, we miss the most potent, accessible portal of all.
Thank you for this perspective! I grew up Catholic, dabbled in other Christian denominations in college, returned to Catholicism, stopped going to church except on special occasions, and now here I am finding spirituality in other ways. The more I dig in, the more I see similarities, good and bad. There's performative worship. There's the prosperity gospel and toxic "love and light" spiritual bypassing. Flawed humans give spiritual guidance and are held up on a pedestal where their ego is vulnerable to dark forces, and they bring others down with them.
There's also peace and comfort to be found in ritual and community. There's angels and spirit guides/saints, although they may be acknowledged more in Catholicism. People hear the voice of God, see visions, or have dreams and believe it to be a moment of clarity in knowing God's will, but we call it our intuition. A study in "core lies" that I did with a mentor from my college ministry is basically shadow work wrapped up in biblical terms.
All this to say, I'm right there with you in trying to find a spiritual sweet spot and coming to grips with the full picture of every path I've traveled.
Thank you so much for sharing this--that's exactly what I'm trying to tease out: what was good about my upbringing in the church, and what tenets can I carry over into my current spiritual practices? Like you said, there is so much overlap and "rebranding" of religious terms to make the edges a little softer and more woo-like, but the essentials are the same. I guess that's what I'm trying to figure out: what is essential to my spirituality divided from all the other crap that gets in the way?
And like you, I'm being asked to look at the entirety of my journey, not to edit out the parts that taught me hard lessons and hurt me. There's so much peace, I believe, when we choose to see our life as parts to a whole instead of random occurrences that hold little meaning.
Your beginning is similar to mine but fortunately I left the church with no real negatives, it was just a matter of realizing it left too many unanswered or poorly answered questions than seemed right. I was already leaning into my new path while I was still attending church and it was a gradual seperation. I dont particularly subscribe to the starseed or other new new agey ideas either. As to gatekeeping and money making, I just practice the old keep what works, toss the rest. If people dont like how you practice your spirituality, they can kick rocks because ultimately its yours and not theirs. As an aside back to the beginning of your post, the photo reminds me of my family back in the 80s It was a whoa I remember that throwback 😄
Thank you for sharing! I agree with the idea that spirituality is individual in the sense that you have to find what works for you, but one other thing that I've been exploring is how spirituality simply cannot exist in a vacuum. For me, part of my journey is understanding the sweet spot between my humanity and my spirituality and how they influence each other. And that requires me to look outside of myself and see how what I'm learning can impact my community and others...and vice versa, how some practices might hurt others and may need readjusting. Lots more to write about this! I think that photo was maaaybe 1991? I'm pretty sure my mom sewed our dresses! 😭
Gosh I really love your writing and continue to relate to it so much. I'm a recovering Catholic....I think? Am I still Catholic? I don't know - I don't think so? I'm actually really struggling at the moment with dropping what was such an integral part of my life for years (I even went to a Catholic high school where I was VERY involved with the religious clubs there). I can't support a Church that doesn't support equal rights for all though. Am I Episcopal now? How do I raise my kids to have a good religious foundation that I am still grateful I received, without having to exhaustively point out every time I disagree with something the Church has done and continues to do? My kids are old enough for First Communion and with all the programming I've had in my early catechism years, it feels WRONG to not have them go through it. But don't get me started on how difficult the Church makes it on keeping members, especially families...so many hoops. Anyway, all this to say that I see you and I'm working through my own questions as well. I very much miss the comforting rituals and words and music, but not enough to overcome the misogyny and homophobia, among other things. Thank you for writing this!
Ah, thank you for sharing, Erin! I think you just hit on a major aspect of the whole religion thing...it does offer community and social connections that are really hard to let go of if you decide to leave. Church was sort of a safe space for me in the sense that people came there specifically to connect and gather with other folks, so it was part of the brand. I took a lot of comfort in the predictable social situations offered there because it was known territory. A lot of this dovetails with my anxiety and struggles to make friends...church just made it easier because being nice to others was in the fabric of it all. Didn't always happen (still experienced cliques in the church), but it was less likely.
My sister is struggling with some of the same things you mention re: kids. She's wondering whether she wants to raise her daughter in the church because, like you mention, it does offer a great foundation and teachings that we're both grateful we received. It's just the other stuff that's problematic. I'm holding out hope that we can both find a spiritual sweet spot!
Love this piece (again)! I have a question for you: I wonder if in seeking this spiritual sweet spot, do you feel you must find a label that you identify with (the way you did with "atheist," "ex-Baptist," etc.), create a new label (woo curious?), or become comfortable with not having a label to call yourself? Is it even possible to have a solidified identity without having the label/language to express what that identity is? These are the questions your piece stirred in my brain and I'm curious to hear your thoughts!
Funny you say that--before I started getting into tarot, I had a silly fashion Instagram account called "Everything Converges," under the idea that everything is linked and no one label can satisfy the complexities of life. Which, in retrospect, was VERY lofty and hifalutin for a fashion account, but that's beside the point. I realized recently that this is one of my Life Truths that I abide by: I cannot place labels on many facets of myself, such as my gender identity, my spirituality, my relationships with others...it just doesn't work for me. I'm fascinated by the idea of overlap and convergence, and the more I look into it, I realize that permanent labels just don't work.
So to answer your question: to me, a sweet spot is without a label and is also open to shifting. What works one day might not be the ticket the next. There's so much to explore in between the strict expectations of labels!
I love that life truth. Labelling myself X, Y, Z has tripped me up several times in life. I'd like to be comfortable with not having a label to identify myself with internally, but I'm not there yet. I still label myself: a person who values relationships, a thinker, a productive employee, etc. Who I am is now an amalgamation of these labels, with varying importance allocated to each depending on what's top of my mind.
I really do understand this. I was raised in the Methodist church (70s-80s), which was more questioning and forgiving than what I understand from my Baptist and Catholic friends (although back in the 60s & 70s even the Catholics were able to question more). It never settled with me. Then some spiritual experiences in my life made me go looking for answers. I wandered through new ageism and the cult of control (if you do it right enough and good enough everything will be perfect and if it isn't it's because you aren't doing it right - oh, and positive emotions only please). What a long journey it's been. I finally ended up in nature and since have found my way to some grounded, spirit as essence of everything friends and teachers drawing on what I'd call more indigenous, earth-based fundamentals (which line up with my experiences in getting to know the natural world) and also practicing mindfulness and meditation. Closer to the ground. I just started a really wonderful Tarot class - she calls it a pilgrimage and I think that's right, a pilgrimage to reclaim my own spiritual self without the label or patriarchal imposed rules. Really the journey of a lifetime. I write ostensibly about living "in" nature but really I feel like when I'm out there that's the real world and the rest of it is kind of make-believe.
Thank you for sharing this, Karen! I agree that nature seems to be an essential gateway into our spirituality. We spend so much time treating the world around us as merely a backdrop to our experience, but I would argue that it shapes us so much more than we know. John O'Donohue spoke about this a lot in his poetry and in his thinking--he says that nature is the shoreline to the other, more spiritual realm, and I agree with him. When we try to escape the world in order to access our spirituality, we miss the most potent, accessible portal of all.
Escapism is the problem not the solution for sure.
Thank you for this perspective! I grew up Catholic, dabbled in other Christian denominations in college, returned to Catholicism, stopped going to church except on special occasions, and now here I am finding spirituality in other ways. The more I dig in, the more I see similarities, good and bad. There's performative worship. There's the prosperity gospel and toxic "love and light" spiritual bypassing. Flawed humans give spiritual guidance and are held up on a pedestal where their ego is vulnerable to dark forces, and they bring others down with them.
There's also peace and comfort to be found in ritual and community. There's angels and spirit guides/saints, although they may be acknowledged more in Catholicism. People hear the voice of God, see visions, or have dreams and believe it to be a moment of clarity in knowing God's will, but we call it our intuition. A study in "core lies" that I did with a mentor from my college ministry is basically shadow work wrapped up in biblical terms.
All this to say, I'm right there with you in trying to find a spiritual sweet spot and coming to grips with the full picture of every path I've traveled.
Thank you so much for sharing this--that's exactly what I'm trying to tease out: what was good about my upbringing in the church, and what tenets can I carry over into my current spiritual practices? Like you said, there is so much overlap and "rebranding" of religious terms to make the edges a little softer and more woo-like, but the essentials are the same. I guess that's what I'm trying to figure out: what is essential to my spirituality divided from all the other crap that gets in the way?
And like you, I'm being asked to look at the entirety of my journey, not to edit out the parts that taught me hard lessons and hurt me. There's so much peace, I believe, when we choose to see our life as parts to a whole instead of random occurrences that hold little meaning.