Forgetting

It's been a gradual spiral back into nihilism the last couple weeks. Not sure what it is, exactly—probably the semester winding down, and dreary winter coming on. But futility and demotivation have been the name of the game for me the last few weeks. Blech.

Interestingly, the Christian agnostic thing is working out well for my reality-oriented self. So I'd still put myself in that category after all these months—a somewhat successful experiment I suppose. But the problem lies, as it always has, in trying to find the point of it all.

Support

Finding your world view shattered on the ground isn't exactly fun. But for an extrovert, infinitely worse was feeling as though I were a fish out of water on a sweltering desert island in a sea of well-intentioned sharks. Overstatement? Sometimes. But only sometimes.

My parents didn't get it. My mom was devastated, and my relationship with my dad deteriorated into long arguments. They warned me not to talk to my cousins because I was "such a good role model" for them. My counselor, dean, and professors were very supportive of my questioning—up to and until I stopped arriving at the correct answers. (I've found that such answers, of the sort which are also used in Bible studies and devotional books, can be terribly mundane once one has mastered the various formulae.) After many months of supporting me, my boyfriend (understandably) came very close to ending our relationship. One friend informed me that our friendship was over unless I wanted to continue listening to his views on the topic. After that I mostly stopped talking to people about it.

But there were a couple distinctly bright spots.

Irrational Fears

One of the most incredible, mind-blowing parts of the Christian experience is getting to be utterly invincible. It's fantastic. Honestly. If you've ever been down the Christian path you know what I'm talking about. See Romans 8: We know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. If God is for us, who can be against us? In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Sweet.

So what do I do when, a couple weeks ago, I'm cruising through the South American countryside in a little minivan and I'm suddenly absolutely terrified for my life? Now, I should explain that this terror was not ordinary terror. It was post-traumatic stress from an experience with a driver a couple years ago who was too drunk to even realize when we hit another parked car. We're talking hard-core, irrational, psychological, "I'm gonna die today" terror.

One Year Anniversary

According to old emails, the anniversary of my question moment was about three days ago. Wow. So it seems like a good time to share a little more of my story. I'll start with that day for the heck of it.

I remember texting a friend that night, one of the people I thought would be most open and relaxed about it all, and asking if I could be a Christian atheist. I also remember being blown away by how strongly she reacted. I realized that somehow, I had finally asked one question too many, had crossed a line that thou shalt not cross, and I was enthralled by the newness of it all. There was so much excitement and relief that came from uncharted territory. It was all so freeing.

But as the weeks went on, and my parents began and continued to struggle, and school rushed at me with the religious fervor only found in a religious community, the fun quickly disappeared. I became bitterly nihilistic, lost most motivation, driven mad by menial tasks (there's so many of them) and occasionally suicidal. I remember sitting in my car late at night many times, sobbing and screaming at a God I didn't think existed for abandoning me to meaninglessness. Ecclesiastes says it better than I can. I began to truly appreciate why Nietzsche went insane. I talked with a counselor, a dean, several professors, my roommates, my boyfriend, and a few friends, and inevitably, with terrifying and increasing efficiency, my mind arrived at this single dead end of blank meaninglessness. Why fight, why work to have any impact on the world, when clearly the most efficient end was a permanent end? The thought of returning to Christianity was tantalizing, almost more than I could resist. To just…forget…to have the safety net, the peace, the hope, the assurance, the meaning. It was a miserable irony to recall the classic argument that surely Christianity must be true, because laying down one's life was the hardest thing possible. Miserable, because what I faced was infinitely worse.

Orson Scott Card

The first time I read Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game was back in high school. At the time, I enjoyed the book, but as my worldview was still quite intact I had no real need to pick up on the occasional hints at Card's deep understanding of philosophy and human nature. This past spring, though, I heard the last couple chapters again on audiobook. I broke down sobbing. Here, at last, was an author who got it. Someone who knew my struggles for what they were, and validated my craving for inherent meaning in intelligence and human life without necessitating an extrinsic force. This summer, reading Card has been a therapy unlike anything else.

On Bars

I'm not quite sure what this post is about. Maybe it's about how last night, I met a girl who might, maybe, be me in a few years. She's the same age but somehow managed to hit the end while she was still living at home (an unthinkable feat in my mind). She was able to witness that, yes, it sucks, it destroys your world. And she was able to look at me and say—you can do it. You can put your life back together. You'll be ok.

Maybe this post is about how we then went to a bar with a group of friends. It was my first time in a bar, though of course I didn't drink. So maybe that's what this post is about—that over the last month, I've embraced the fact that I will never be able to just leave the traditions; that it's something I love too much and that has had too profound of an influence upon me to be able to walk away. Is it possible to participate in the church without advocating? It's been deeply instilled in me that no, this is inherently impossible. There are so many places I don't belong…

Back at the End

There's no easy way to rebuild your worldview. This year has been rough. Very rough. I find myself just as exhausted tonight as I was at the beginning, and I feel like I've made little to no progress—at finals week, it's striking me how precious little I've given to or received from the classes which once drove me to willing, happy slavery. What happened? Where did I lose my perfect, energetic, inspired self in trying to find myself?

How do I fill the void which was at one time so richly, amply supplied? The words to In the Middle of Me by Todd Agnew once cheered me and now taunt me. So this is the price of truth, of craving with everything in me to just stop…lying…though the world was so many times sweeter when I could rest on that drug.

It seems like an apt time to perhaps share a little of the beginning of my story. Well, glad you asked…

Packing Up

The school year is wrapping up, which means it's time to do what I've done at least once a year, every year, for the past seven years: pack.

I really like packing. Packing is when I get to cull through my treasures, soaking in memories, smiling or puzzling over some little scrap that tugs at my mental libraries. I get to rewrite my history, occasionally tossing things which have lost significance, but always replacing them with a few new things I've collected. Some people have scrapbooks. I have an assortment of papers and odd objects that anyone else would put in a junk yard.

I came across my old study Bible tonight. It was given to me in middle school at a private international academy. I flipped through it with a certain fondness, noting verses I had highlighted or memorized. I smiled at the puzzled questions I'd written beside verses in Genesis. It's at least 7 lbs and the size of a textbook, but I can't bring myself to part with it.

One Beginning

On July 12, 2011, a Christian at Olivet Nazarene University hit an end and would never be the same. That was about ten months ago. At the time, I took deep consolation from the blog Leaving Eden, written by a girl an hour up the road from me. In some ways this blog is started tonight with the same motivation as her: to extend consolation to those who have broken the boundaries of a Christian university culture and feel the isolation that accompanies. But in other ways my story is very different.

As I mentioned, it all really ended and began ten months ago. So unfortunately, the journey I've experienced since then may come out in bits and pieces. Sorry for all you obsessive chronological folk. :) At some point I may get around to writing out more of that history. Suffice to say, I started at atheism, then existentialism, then nihilism, then kind of evened out at agnosticism for a while. Most recently, I've taken up the label Christian agnostic. We shall see where that goes. In the meantime, I dedicate this blog to anyone else whose faith has, at some point, hit an end, and who has been faced with the overwhelming prospect of building a brand new worldview from scratch.