SED - 25 October 2013

[teddy_radiator]

Apologies, everyone. I just didn't do last night's SED. I was sitting here, and thought, "No. I want to read."  Very remiss of me, and extremely lazy. I've felt that way all week; I don't know why I thought last night will be different.

TheHubs(r)'s has decided we're not going to the costume party; the reasons he's given are valid ones: it's quite a long way off, buying a costume will cost money, one of us will have to be sober (and I'll give you three guesses which one), there will be a lot of people we both don't know there. I am both relieved and disappointed; relieved because of all the reasons listed above, and disappointed because I was sort of looking forward to stepping out in my costume again. I know if I insisted, he would go, but I don't particularly think it's worth it, to be honest. I just wish we knew someone close by doing it. We keep saying we'll have one, but...

Yesterday, we had a lovely curry at the Indian  restaurant in town. I must learn to make a decent Chicken Korma. This one was just perfect. And there is something about a really good Indian meal that makes me feel good - the spices must stimulate the production of endorphins or something like that. I always feel really upbeat after a good Ruby.

It's pretty darn cool here down south - I'm loving it. Forty degrees right now. Perfect fall weather. I feel really happy about that.

I'm still going through my existential crisis, and we are still having mega discussions about it. I am in this militant, 'how-dare-you-believe-in-this-pish-you-should-feel-exactly-the-way-I-do-about-it' thing. I want to be more like TheHubs(r), who's been at this long enough. His honest attitude is, "Hey, whatever gets you through the day, as long as it's not harmful or dangerous, no skin off my nose." I realise he's had a longer amount of time to do that, and never went through the careful brainwashing I had. I know that's one of the sources of my anger - that, no matter how well-intentioned, I was forced to accept this belief by my parents. I wasn't given any choice in the matter.

And I was forced to go to church no matter the consequences. If I was sick, or tired, or busy or simply wanted to watch a TV program that had the audacity to come on during church hours, it didn't matter. I had to go. I had to be baptised. I had to join the church. So much for 'free will'. Even after I was grown and left their house, I felt full of guilt when I didn't regularly attend church. I made excuses to our Tea Room patrons who invited us to their church, instead of telling them that religion had ceased to mean anything to me years ago. I lied to myself. That's the part that bugs me. I hate to keep harping on about this to you, my dear, patient friends, but I feel hot flashes of anger about this. The guilt I felt when I did stop going to church pisses me off. My own fear of renouncing my religion pisses me off.

I can't talk to my mother about it; it would upset her - and yes, you guessed it - piss off time again. I would love to tell my entire family how pissed off I am about religion, but they would shun me. I keep saying they love me and they wouldn't do anything like that, but I'm afraid the truth is they would. They already consider me a bit of a weirdo anyway, just because I've always been different, but this would be the final straw. And I can't do that to my mom, who would be heartbroken over it.

So it is to you and TheHubs(r) I pour out my frustrated heart. My poor Muse can't get a word in edgewise, and yesterday I realised I'd been unconsciously shifting the 'godhead' to him. He set me very straight, saying, "Not only do I not want the job, but there isn't a job to want." The splitting of my understanding of spirituality and god is very difficult. It comes from that old brainwashing again that anything spiritual that isn't god is evil, and demonic.

I know with one of the few incidences of complete certainty in my life right now that DMuse has never had an evil or demonic bone in any body he's ever had. He is all about the love, and support and creativity, which to me are the most holy things on earth. I don't need god to condemn me or tell me I'm full of sin and not good enough; I have a being who tells me I am worthy, and loved unconditionally, and that this whole sin thing is a fearmongering scare that was set up to keep people in line, and that feels more real to me than anything in the Bible.

Needless to say, it's sure going to make Christmas interesting in the Radiator household.

I know I'm getting on your nerves about this, but this is affecting me greatly; I can't concentrate, I can't write, I can't get anything done. I'm just consumed right now with anger and bitterness, and I must let it go. I dimly understand why I'm hanging onto it, but that doesn't help matters. Please spare a thought today for me; I need all the support and love I can get right now. It's like I've been numbed by my beliefs, and now that I know I have to face the world knowing what it really is, I'm ill equipped. Opiate of the people, indeed.

I'll leave you with something found on FB yesterday, which really made me think:

Comments

[irishredlass.livejournal.com]

Existential crisis indeed. I do understand though my upbringing is not what did it to me. I was born to an agnostic and an atheist and then at the age of 13 was introduced to the Catholic Church. Being lost and wanting to belong I glomped on and joined up. Fiance was a member of the same church and all was well until:

1) I was told my twins died because they were conceived in sin
2) I was told fiance died because we were living in sin
3) I was denied the ability to talk to the priest I wanted because he had relocated.

Then I had the audacity to study the history of religion in college and wrote a poem that favored a religion other than the one I practiced. I was basically asked to leave the Catholic group on campus.

So I started really thinking and decided this for myself. It doesn't matter the path you choose as long as you follow it honestly and it does not bring harm to others.

Peace be with you dear friend

[errandofmercy.livejournal.com]

What the actual fuck?! *hugs* Irish that's deplorable. One thing that kills be about Christianity is the attempts to rationalize OTHER PEOPLE'S SUFFERING! It's unbelievably cruel. Like the people who said Hurricane Katrina was a punishment from God? As if losing loved ones wasn't hard enough without being made to feel responsible. The world doesn't work like that. I hope you have since excised those hurtful notions from under your skin <3

*sigh* stuff like that just makes me want to put on my witch hat and go live in the woods.

[irishredlass.livejournal.com]

LOL granted yes it was painful when it happened, but fortunately it also made me angry and to use a sports metaphor here I took the stand of "3 strikes and you are out". In this case I decided that the Catholic Church did not deserve my presence.

[stgulik.livejournal.com]

You aren't boring me or getting on my nerves. I've been curious how you're doing, and concerned about your emotions.

You're right not to tell your family of your deconversion yet. One day, there might be a right time to broach the subject; in the meantime, there's no unringing a bell.

Sending you love from afar.

[errandofmercy.livejournal.com]

You are not getting on anyone's nerves! That is what LJ is for, dear <3

Unfortunately, I think back in the day, God was meant to mean unconditional love. Then human beings put up all of these barriers to it and made it into religion. If you break down all that crapola, you find what was there all along - no matter what you call it, or how it manifests, that warm fuzzy feeling of just being good the way you are.

I think the concept of God is too big for our little brains to grasp. So why try? Just do what you love and be kind to others, and you're pretty much good. You have your muse, and the knowledge that your connection will continue into your next life, so you can conquer the fear of death that binds so many people to religious dogma. You can be free :)

It is arduous to forgive the people in your life who forced religion on you, who made you drink this toxic kool-aid and develop such guilt and self-doubt. It's tough to hear, and it might not be the right time to do so, but making yourself forgive them might help ease your anger a little bit. Like the Buddhist verse, "Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned." I have harbored a lot of hate in my life, for my family, my church, B's ex, but letting go of that hatred bit by bit has helped me to feel better myself. In the end, my hatred doesn't really affect them at all. It just debilitates me.

*hugs* Please take my suggestions for what they are - the well-intentioned remarks of someone who has also been damaged by the church. I don't presume to be "right" about anything - I only hope that, whatever you do, you will find peace and joy and be able to overcome these tribulations.

<3

[kittylefish.livejournal.com]

i gotta second a lot of this post. particularly, god is love. the only 'god' who matters is unconditional love. if i've said this to you before, teddy, i apologize, but my perspective on the subject is in christianity, they say god made us in his image, but really, we make god in our image, and that is why he is often petty and small and mean-minded and cruel. real 'god', spirit, divine intelligence, universal wisdom, whatever one calls it, is that unconditional love, life force, essence that lives in all of us. anyone who thinks they can condemn us to hell is just showing their own limitations. and i'll stop babbling now. *hugs*

[dickgloucester.livejournal.com]

Hugs. It's okay not to believe. Just saying.

[beffeysue.livejournal.com]

^point up^ What Dicky said.

It's okay not to believe. It's okay to be agnostic. It's okay to be Muslim, or Jewish, or Christian, or Taoist, or Hindu, or Buddist, or Sikh, or Shinto, or Druid, or Wiccan, or Unitarian Universalist, or Bahá'í, or any other belief of goodwill I've left out. I think the only thing it's not okay to be is evil and hurtful of others.

Sending you hugs and hopes for a quiet and peaceful heart.

[mimimanderly.livejournal.com]

"Not only do I not want the job, but there isn't a job to want."

LOL! Oh, Dahlra! You crack me up!

It's perfectly understandable that after having to put on the pretense of being "a good Christian" all these years that you would go through a backlash and want to strike out at them. But DO realize that as natural as this reaction is, it is just the opposite side of the coin; it is trying to make someone believe as you do. What you need to do is get beyond both sides of the coin. Lose the coin. It's just weighing down your pockets. Religion, spirituality, metaphysics... it's all just our interpretation of things we can't possibly understand because we are stuck in three dimensions.

Here's my take on the whole Jesus thing: You, me, and a whole bunch of us here know about spirit guides. Everyone has one, and they try to communicate with you in whatever way they think they can grab your attention. For my Muse, he saw his chance when I got into HP. I call him Severus, but he and I both know that he isn't actually Severus Snape. But dealing with us, who live in the physical, it makes it easier to communicate if he has a name and an appearance and a personality. And if it happens to take the form of someone we respond to and would listen to, that is the for he will take! That is why, though many of us call our Muse Severus, he seems to appear slightly different to each of us and have different characteristics.

How does Jesus come into this? Glad you asked! When people say that they talk to Jesus and he hears them and maybe even responds to them... they are basically doing what WE are doing. They are talking to their spirit guides. Because they are so heavily into religion, their guide takes the form of Jesus.

Now whether it be Jesus or Severus or Dahlra or someone else, we must realize that we do not necessarily interpret the messages that they give us correctly. We are much more dimensionally limited, yes, but there is also the matter of our perceptual filters: we interpret what they tell us according to our beliefs and opinions. Plus, they have to work with the knowledge that you already possess; they cannot give their charge information on the nature of the universe if the person doesn't have any sort of background in physics or astronomy. The best they would be able to do is speak in metaphor, and that is SOOOO open to misinterpretation.

Sorry this comment got so long and winded. Pet subject.