- Apr 30, 2013
- 30,564
- 18,498
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- United Ch. of Christ
- Marital Status
- Legal Union (Other)
- Politics
- US-Democrat
I have come to realize slowly in the past year that I feel confusion in my life after the election of Donald Trump as president. I have struggled with anger and dismay, and I have been feeling alienated from my Lutheran congregation over the past year. It feels like a different tribe to me. I have had issue with their allowing security teams and firearms in the worship space- the church no longer feels like a sacred space.
I grew up a Methodist who attended church a few times a year, and was not deeply religious. In college, I became irreligious altogether. At one time in my life I was a Mahayana Buddhist under the lineage of the Ven. Master Thich Nhat Hanh. I later explored Eastern Orthodoxy also but ultimately I was at odds with the church's authoritarian, anti-humanist approach. So I left the church and became very alienated from Christianity. When I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, I considered myself ex-Christian, and I took refuge in Amithaba Buddha. I hung out with a few folks online and received guidance in the Pure Land teaching, which was mostly shaped by a hybrid of Chinese and Japanese teachings of various sorts, and I would spend some time twice a day burning incense in front of an icon on an altar in my room, listening to chanting of the Buddha's name, and holding prayer beads and focusing on the gratitude I had in my life. I accepted that I was a fundamentally foolish and weak person and entrusted myself to primordial Wisdom and Compassion expressed in Amithaba Buddha.
Some time later (and after more medical tests revealed I did not actually have cancer), I fell in love with a woman who was disabled, not unlike myself, and I eventually moved in with her. She was ex-Pentecostal, she had come out as transsexual years before and was forced to leave her church. She had struggled with alcoholism. I was impressed by how her faith helped her to give up drinking. Eventually, we decided to try going to an Episcopal Church together, which was OK at first but eventually they had a controversy where people in the church expressed objections to baptizing the child of a gay person. I decided to leave because I felt hurt by the church's intolerance, and afraid for my own family, and we started going to an ELCA church where the pastor said I was welcome and nobody would be forced to leave. But after a few years, I started having real problems at the church, I just do not mesh with white evangelicals very well, even the more tolerant ones, such as are at in my congregation.
And I still struggled with irritability and I started having panic attacks at church. So, I decided to go back to at least working with biofeedback, so I bought an emWave machine from HeartMath and I learned how to use it. And very soon afterwards I came to the realization I was not happy at my church so I stopped going. My partner still goes but I don't. I might go to the dinners but I really have differences with the pastor and the church council that I am not sure how to resolve.
It was around this time that I learned that Master Thich Nhat Hanh had fallen ill over the years and probably won't be alive for much longer, and I remember feeling a sense of gratitude for his teachings, aware of how much learning to be mindful had helped me to see the truth more deeply. So, I became interested in meditating again, connecting with something that had been a source of strength in my life that I owned for myself, and I can see I have benefited from that in the past month.
My perspective now is probably closer to a very liberal Protestantism or liberal Mahayana Buddhism... and I am far away from the Lutheran confessionalism of my pastor's background, and much of the congregation I am a member of (I consider God a symbol of our deepest intuition, but my metaphysics are probably closer to Process thought or Mahayana Buddhism). I am very much concerned about environmental issues, and my church doesn't seem to focus on this issue much, but I have read a little bit about TNH's teachigs about environmentalism, and what he says just makes sense: environmentalism is a spiritual problem, not a technological problem, that comes from alienation, from people that have a delusional view of the self that does not also include their relationship to nature.
I also want to read Laudato Si by Pope Francis, on the subject of the environment. Some Catholic monks like Br. David Stendahl Rast greatly impress me, but I could not be Catholic due to my living situation, and at any rate I don't agree with their teachings about LGBT people. So Catholicism is not an option for me, even if I feel affinity with Catholic monastics.
Years ago I had a moving experience walking in the woods, during a period when I was alienated from church. I can't put it into words fully, it was almost animistic (like St. Francis canticle). I am convinced connection to nature is important spiritually, and I simply can't take seriously a religious ideology that seems to objectify nature.
I grew up a Methodist who attended church a few times a year, and was not deeply religious. In college, I became irreligious altogether. At one time in my life I was a Mahayana Buddhist under the lineage of the Ven. Master Thich Nhat Hanh. I later explored Eastern Orthodoxy also but ultimately I was at odds with the church's authoritarian, anti-humanist approach. So I left the church and became very alienated from Christianity. When I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, I considered myself ex-Christian, and I took refuge in Amithaba Buddha. I hung out with a few folks online and received guidance in the Pure Land teaching, which was mostly shaped by a hybrid of Chinese and Japanese teachings of various sorts, and I would spend some time twice a day burning incense in front of an icon on an altar in my room, listening to chanting of the Buddha's name, and holding prayer beads and focusing on the gratitude I had in my life. I accepted that I was a fundamentally foolish and weak person and entrusted myself to primordial Wisdom and Compassion expressed in Amithaba Buddha.
Some time later (and after more medical tests revealed I did not actually have cancer), I fell in love with a woman who was disabled, not unlike myself, and I eventually moved in with her. She was ex-Pentecostal, she had come out as transsexual years before and was forced to leave her church. She had struggled with alcoholism. I was impressed by how her faith helped her to give up drinking. Eventually, we decided to try going to an Episcopal Church together, which was OK at first but eventually they had a controversy where people in the church expressed objections to baptizing the child of a gay person. I decided to leave because I felt hurt by the church's intolerance, and afraid for my own family, and we started going to an ELCA church where the pastor said I was welcome and nobody would be forced to leave. But after a few years, I started having real problems at the church, I just do not mesh with white evangelicals very well, even the more tolerant ones, such as are at in my congregation.
And I still struggled with irritability and I started having panic attacks at church. So, I decided to go back to at least working with biofeedback, so I bought an emWave machine from HeartMath and I learned how to use it. And very soon afterwards I came to the realization I was not happy at my church so I stopped going. My partner still goes but I don't. I might go to the dinners but I really have differences with the pastor and the church council that I am not sure how to resolve.
It was around this time that I learned that Master Thich Nhat Hanh had fallen ill over the years and probably won't be alive for much longer, and I remember feeling a sense of gratitude for his teachings, aware of how much learning to be mindful had helped me to see the truth more deeply. So, I became interested in meditating again, connecting with something that had been a source of strength in my life that I owned for myself, and I can see I have benefited from that in the past month.
My perspective now is probably closer to a very liberal Protestantism or liberal Mahayana Buddhism... and I am far away from the Lutheran confessionalism of my pastor's background, and much of the congregation I am a member of (I consider God a symbol of our deepest intuition, but my metaphysics are probably closer to Process thought or Mahayana Buddhism). I am very much concerned about environmental issues, and my church doesn't seem to focus on this issue much, but I have read a little bit about TNH's teachigs about environmentalism, and what he says just makes sense: environmentalism is a spiritual problem, not a technological problem, that comes from alienation, from people that have a delusional view of the self that does not also include their relationship to nature.
I also want to read Laudato Si by Pope Francis, on the subject of the environment. Some Catholic monks like Br. David Stendahl Rast greatly impress me, but I could not be Catholic due to my living situation, and at any rate I don't agree with their teachings about LGBT people. So Catholicism is not an option for me, even if I feel affinity with Catholic monastics.
Years ago I had a moving experience walking in the woods, during a period when I was alienated from church. I can't put it into words fully, it was almost animistic (like St. Francis canticle). I am convinced connection to nature is important spiritually, and I simply can't take seriously a religious ideology that seems to objectify nature.