Sunday Lazy Sunday

Church isn't something I've been wanting to attend lately. So, it being Sunday and me needing to acknowledge the ineffable in some fashion or other, I've decided to blog.

Matthew told us not to walk through the streets trumpeting the practice of our religious lives. I wonder if he knew about blogs and how they would enable us to trumpet everything from the most mundane to the most personal affairs we could put into written word. I wonder if he knew that trumpeting one's religious life would, 2000 years later, have more to do with being honest about being confused in a diverse cultural landscape and reaching out for a listening ear than attempting to appear righteous. Nowadays, people don't want to feel righteous as much as they want to feel connected and less alone.

Righteousness is such an ugly feeling for me, lately, and this has a lot to do with why I haven't been attending church. Righteousness means every person I look at who doesn't "have God" is lying to themselves, their words are not to be taken at face value but instead are a cover for emptiness and a lack of being. Righteousness means that I deserve attention in a certain way from the people around me because I have something that they need to hear. Righteousness means that I will limit myself to speak the language of an ultimate neediness, which everyone else must acknowledge in themselves if I am to feel comfortable. Anyone who seems at peace or confident without articulating a need for God, for any kind of spiritual life, is an anomaly and is ultimately resented for their ability to find strength and confidence in themselves and their worldly accomplishments.

These are the ugliest aspects of righteousness, and to be sure, they represent not righteousness in its entirety but rather a particular species: self-righteousness. The problem is, any time I go to church or have a half-hour of prayer, what initially begins as a feeling of peace and love for those around me quickly is sublimated into a desire to applaud myself for being so great. The sense of self becomes magnified, and with it, desire for a different situation, for things to be better. A profound unacceptance of the way things are fills the air, and depression and alienation quickly so often follow suit. In fact, the one thing this freshly spiritualized self cannot do is accept things as they are, right now, in the present. As the world's future becomes known, the wheat separated from the chaff, I feel increasingly separated from the various voices of which the world is comprised...music, the words of my friends, the pain and confusion of others. I am put above these things, I am some sort of hero, I somehow have an answer that everyone else is just ignoring. Everyone else is lying to themselves, while I'm being honest about my weaknesses and holes. Most importantly, I am totally, totally alone, and I feel it so much more profoundly the more I try to base my life on "higher" things.

Clearly, in Christianity, there is a constant sense of being called forth, of a moving towards, a striving for ultimate union. This manifests itself in the earnest, childlike (a word which is not necessarily to be construed in a negative sense) admonitions of the faithful. There is a constant sense of vulnerability. For me, however, these potentially positive things have more often than not disabled me from accepting myself or my given situation. I cannot have the sense of humor that comes from accepting the worse aspects of life and being able to not take them too seriously, for these aspects are understood to arise not from the the fact that "this is the way things are" but instead from a recognition of ultimate and eternal death, evil, and darkness. I cannot have fun with my friends because there is always something better, always an ideal which is not quite being realized. Their words cannot be totally accepted at face value because, again, they are not complicit in helping to build "real" reality, i.e. the Kingdom of Heaven. Everyone is to be treated as if, deep down, they are hurting deeply, despite whatever appearances of wholeness they may exude. Most importantly, I cannot accept myself. Or, strange as this sounds, I accept myself totally in a way that keeps me from needing to adapt to new relationships.

What I want is not to have a shining, beaming self-sustaining confidence, but instead to be surrounded by people I love, enjoy, and can have a good time with, with whom I have a mutual sense of fun and connection. Simplicity. Acceptance. Satisfaction with the things I do and the choices I make. This is what I want.