I heard an interesting idea somewhere in the midst of a social media doom scroll the other day that somehow broke through and resonated with me: we are all born with an innate spirituality (whether we choose to cultivate that or not is another thing), and religion has become the default construct used to try and connect many of us to that awe and wonder. Often, however, strict religious practice can result in perfectionism, control, an inflated sense of certainty, and unhealthy power dynamics. These are broad strokes of course, and I know there are plenty of folks who are able to have a religious practice that is not dogmatic or tied to some strict “this or that” system; but there are many of us, myself included, who find themselves unable to get away from the binaries that religion often uphold: that the world is exactly this certain way, that I need to have a perfect spiritual practice, that there is one God and only one way to get to him (gods forbid that that god be a women or nonbinary!), or that grace is for those folks out there, but not for me, that I better get my shit together.*
And so, I left religion. It’s been a long, joyful, painful road.
But I still haven’t been able to shake this whole spirituality thing. Rats!
As part of the unlearning and relearning process, I have continued to probe other faith traditions and religions from around the world, to learn from them. There is so much to learn, so much beauty in our world.
I won’t spend this post telling you my spiritual philosophy—we can do that another time if you want. But I wanted to share a poem about my walk today, and what the act of noticing, an act that I learned through the Buddhist practice of mindfulness (among other traditions), helped me learn and see the divine in the world around and within me. If I hadn’t had a crisis of faith all those years ago, I maybe wouldn’t have found my way to a mindfulness practice. But here I am, seeing and hearing and smelling the whole wide world around me in ways I never found in a church.
*It’s important to share that this sense of perfectionism that I experienced in the church continues to show up in all sorts of other parts of my life even now, 12+ years later. The world demands that women be perfect, sacrificial lambs; “human givers,” as the Nagoski sisters say in their book “Burnout: the Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle.” Those around me have been reinforcing my inner people pleaser since the day I came out of the womb and was called a “girl”, and though I no longer have a religion to tell me how to be perfect or a woman, I can promise you, much of the world still demands it of me, and you, for that matter. It’s actually bullshit; an armor that I needed as a little person who was trying to make sense of the broad, often scary world, an armor I don’t need any longer, that is holding me back from being authentically me. So, Christianity is one of the many culprits of pain in my life, but really, it’s much, much larger than that. Nuance, you know? Woof.