Coping Skills

disclaimer; this is going to be a post where I talk about my personal faith journey. If you believe differently, it’s not for you. I fully support and advocate for your right to call me wrong, but I’m a little raw so if you have to, do it politely and respectfully. If this isn’t your thing, the back button is a very effective workaround.

I don’t know how many apostate Christians have this experience;

You wake up on a Sunday morning, and you’re feeling so blah about everything that you put a church service on the screen. Every song, every plea for donations through the meat and potatoes of a church service remind you of what is wrong with Christianity, and why you are an apostate. Then the sermon comes around and speaks specifically, frustratingly so to where you are in your faith journey. Often times prayer seems like a one sided conversation, and talking to others about faith is all we get in return.

Simply put; I don’t expect anything out of God. ANYTHING to be clear is more than I expected. I don’t doubt his ability, I doubt his initiative and willpower because I’ve seen prayers he answers, and those he lets die and it isn’t remotely predictable. Today’s subject was “cancel the funeral”, all about not giving up on your dreams. See, Hope is a toxin I already overdosed on. I can’t actually believe it is going to get better unless it is. We’ve got to work with where we are. God can be part of that conversation, in fact I welcome and beg him for such participation, but in my life it’s been sporadic.

Irony (or not) giving up on trying to work with the fundamentally broken society I live in is my one suicidal dream. I’m trying to do it without dying, and it isn’t easy. What I’ve figured out is that the majority of normal people are fundamentally complacent. They believe that things will work out well, because if they didn’t they’d end it because it’s a pretty darn bleak world. That’s toxic, and trying to call it faith is fooling yourself. Lying to yourself is not growing closer to God, it’s putting in things that will hobble your relationship.

Not that I have any room to claim a healthy relationship with God. For the past eight years I have not tithed, attended church regularly, or any of the “active efforts” Christians are supposed to do. I’m functionally agnostic, because I don’t get how throwing away 10% of my income elevates the kingdom of God, when most churches spend it on newer buildings, concert quality broadcast equipment, coffee shops in the lobby. In short, I’ve yet to find a church that is faithful with tithes as they expect their followers to be. It’s all hollow Reagan era self aggrandizement.

So this is me; ready for God whenever and however he wants to manifest, but not capable of betraying my basic beliefs to be part of a hypocritical movement.  I get better compassion and empathy out of atheists and other agnostics, because THEY understand why people are leaving the church. There’s a great hunger for an honest faith, but Christianity is a long way away from being able to see it.

I’ve always struggled with insomnia? But lately it has evolved. I am not sure when it became my primary coping mechanism but it is like an anchor now. It stops me from being pulled down river but if a big wave comes I almost drown. The longer I’m awake the slower life goes. I feel like everything moves so quickly and I can’t keep up. Like I’m picking between two types of drowning.

So I choose to steal quiet moments in exchange of my sanity. The less I sleep the longer my days. The less I sleep the longer I can avoid dealing with the next day. I know it isn’t healthy but I just need something that feels familiar. I feel so helpless.