poliphilo | Dodging A Nervous Breakdown

Dodging A Nervous Breakdown

Yesterday was Ourdert's confirmation. I didn't have a nervous breakdown, but I realised I was heading for one. I left the party early and went and sat somewhere quiet- by which I mean in front of my computer.

It wasn't the confirmation service that did it . (Though I have to say I thought it was awful; the bishop was a corporate smoothie-chops who made sure there wasn't a whiff of ancient mystery about the ceremony.) This has been building for days.

That meeting with the evangelical clergymen last week rattled me. It's not that I don't respect them, because I do. Even admire them. It's just that their path goes in that direction, and mine goes in this.

They dismiss doubt. Sweepingly. I think of doubt as a very dear friend .

Here's one instance. Ailz said something about needing the divine female. The head clergyman replied that it was an issue that didn't arise. And I do believe he made a sweeping gestiure with his arm as he said it.

It may not arise for you, mate- but it certainly does for me.

I am not "a priest in spite of himself". Every time I've tried to function as a priest it has ended in tears. Yesterday was an early warning. I'm slipping into the role- which for me is a temptation not a vocation- and losing my true self. I need to squash this nonsense now.

It isn't Christianity that's the problem. It's organized religion. Organized religion is poison to me. There's no way I can act as its agent and stay happy and sane.

I can't bear to be organized- and I can't bear to organize other people.

I've started reading the Hypnerotomachia again- the 15th century novel from which this journal takes its name. Call it a return to basics. It was written by a guy called Francesco Colonna, aka "Poliphilo" - a monk who lived in the community and dreamed about Roman architecture and blondes.

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It isn't Christianity that's the problem. It's organized religion.

While I have discovered within myself a deep-rooted skepticism of all things spiritual (not just Christian spirituality/divinity, either), I couldn't agree with you more. In fact, the ills of organized religion are what hardened me against accepting and believing the spiritual things organized Christianity claims are true.

I wish I knew why I keep getting sucked back in. Organized religion both attracts and repels me. I suspect there's some unfinished karmic business going on.

I keep trying (at least on talk...actually getting active in a Christian community outside of sending financial support is more than I can bear, right now) because of an underlying fear, "What if they are right and I simply did not try hard enough?" I can admit to myself I am far happier when I am not telling myself I "need" to go to church and get active therein. But I was indoctrinated from the cradle, so the thought of walking away altogether is anxiety-producing.

It's wicked what religious people do to their children.

I know what you're talking about. I grew up in a comparatively gentle form of Christianity, but I still had a terrible job tearing myself free of it- and - as you see- I still have to keep chopping away at the groping tentacles.

This had to happen, and it is so interesting to see how your honesty and intuition about what is true and what is not have intervened.

This is a pilgrimage, and you are accompanied by your very wise Self who illuminates the way for you.

(And Ailz, with her own honesty and wisdom: what a loss of a fascinating dialogue for the priest who dismissed her uneasily with a wave of his hand--he was uncomfortable. I have seen the same thing happen in my church when Bishop Spong's writing is mentioned--one woman held up her hand in a stop signal and said "My son is ill; don't shake my faith!")

Last night in Evensong we prayed that very odd Anglican prayer in our prayerbook, in which we ask God to save us from the Great Judgement Seat of Christ," and then two lines later add that we totally trust in Christ our Lord."

We might as well be speaking nonsense words, but I find myself loving the candles in the windows and the joy of singing what I always find the best and only prayer: My soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit rejoices.

I don't understand all the mumbo jumbo, but my soul knows what is true.

Part of what is true is that we are all children in the dark.

Most of what is said in church sweeps over me. It is nonsense- though a lot of it is very beautiful nonsense.

Of course some of it- that judgement seat stuff, for instance- is also wicked nonsense.

I think I may have to just stop going to church. There may be no may to break the addiction except cold turkey....

I got distracted on my own pilgrimage by what I thought was a need for spiritual direction, which really was just a need to talk about the renegade direction my own intuition was taking me, so I made appointments with various recommended priests! How quickly I learned that they really had no answers except what they had been trained to say, and one gave me a wide-eyed stare and then said (as if shielding himself, or saying a Protect-Me mantra): "I believe absolutely in Jesus Christ."

Like the priest who waved off Ailz's statement as if shooing away a gnat, I found that what most spiritual directors wanted to do was replace my own questioning thoughts with their own pat answers that came out of seminary.

It was such a relief to know that no one had "answers," and that the most interesting and alive way to continue my own quest to "know God" was to just keep coming up with new questions--the scariest and most miserable thing to me is to have a flat statement, a Truth delivered to me that feels like concrete--

You talk about the possibility of karmic unfinished business--when I was recessing with the choir last night in the dark church, singing The Day Thou Givest Us Lord Has Endeth I felt this great happiness (rare for me) that I was in the right place doing exactly what I loved most--for all my pain in the nonsense words, the organized Episcopal church is part of my life's journey, maybe the most important part, as I love it very much.

There is, for me, a communion that takes place when I am there (not the actual outward one, which I rarely receive)--

(At Pentecost they hang balloons with helium all around the church for the birthday of the Church, but I like to see them as moving in the air, the negative space that is the Holy Ghost, whatever that is that moves).

I had moments when I first returned to church when it felt like the right place to be. I haven't been getting them recently.

I like the people. I've made one or two good friends. I've renewed old friendships. On the other hand I suspect the environment is toxic for me. It takes me away from my true self. I become smiley and fake and priestly.

I feel like I need to wrap up the business I've got in hand and step away.

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You're welcome, Ree. :)

I've ended up as a Zen Quaker, which works for me. Basically I feel that Buddhism has a lot more to say to me than church-style Christianity, but I also bounced off all the Buddhist groups I tried. It seemed to mean just swapping one male-dominated, patriarchal organisation for another, more exotic one, which was not what I wanted.

So I attend an unprogrammed Friends meeting, where we're quietly spiritual, without, necessarily being Religious with a capital "R".

I like Zen. And I've got Quaker ancestors.

I don't know where I go from here. Perhaps back to being- and doing- nothing in particular.

You are a born priest, that much I can see. Whether or not the church that calls for you has been created yet is another question!

Is it possible to be a priest of Nothing in Particular or- to put it another way- a priest without a Church or a God?

Don't know the answer to that :)

my friend had her baby "dedicated" at church yesterday. i haven't been to church in years. going yesterday made me remember why i haven't gone. it was horrible, he droned on and on about the "spare the rod, spoil the child". i didn't hit my kids and its just because i couldn't do it. i loved them, but this guy was all for it. no more church for me.

Bah. How disgusting!

And what on earth did he think hitting children had to do with the gospel of Christ?

Millstone. Neck.

I seem to recall Christ being quite clear about what happens to those who hurt children.

'S'right!

can't image jesus walking around whacking a kid with a spoon.

"Suffer the little childen to come unto me- and I shall discipline them with my spoon." No, it just doesn't work, somehow....

funny...i'm trying to imagine jesus with a spoon...

Did they use spoons in first century Palestine? I guess they did. Probably made of horn.

I think feminism rather than atheism is the huge stumbling block for the church. Women are no longer prepared to accept inferiority.

I hope you get the chance to meet some clerics who are not like the ones you have met. What was their nationality? Some of the African churches can be quite robust in these matters! (tho not all I hope)

These people are all English. Correction: one of them is Pakistani.

You could be right about feminism being the biggest stumbling block. I've called myself a feminist since the '70s. I used to wear a feminist badge on my clergy-robes.

My problem- my personal problem- is not so much how other people behave as the way I find myself behaving. The more I get involved in the church the more I feel my integrity and independence slipping away.

That is why God directed you towards Ailz, who provides the gentle correction :-)

Yes :)

I've been involved with my own struggle around churches and organized religion. My faith is secure, but my "churchianity" is without a firm foundation. I have lately been thinking about the Christian hermits of the deserts, and the Holy Men of Hinduism, who walked alone with their god(s). I also recall Thomas Merton who retired to a Buddhist lamasary toward the end of his life.
Jesus himself did not seem to be at home in his synagogues, preferring to withdraw from people altogether to refresh himself spiritually.
So I say: enough ritual and meaningless chitchat. Outside of the walls of the churches there is ample opportunity to minister to others and to worship God, either alone or in the presence of others.
I remember this saying from Sunday school: the church is not a building -- the church is the people. Very true.

I've been to Gethsemane- Thomas Merton's monastery- it's a delightful place.

In another place and time I would have been a monk (or nun). Perhaps I was.

The priests we're familiar with are employees - not of any God but of a corporation. Rather than helping with peoples' questions in an empathic way and helping them to find their own answers, they spout the party line.

You work at empowering others to find their own answers. Your own spiritual nature shines out of you - always has - it's what drew me to you - and ... well you know what I mean ;). You try very hard to support people who are in spiritual need, but all the other stuff that goes with being a priest just isn't for you.

Thank you.

I don't know where we go from here. I like our church- I like the people- but sitting in a pew week after week is fucking with my head.

Then stay away Tony for your own sanity. Everything Ailz has said is true. Personally i dont think going to church makes anybody 100% religious, i pray anywhere anytime i believe god is listening. I dont need priest's bishop's or any religious body telling me anything i believe what i believe. And some of my believes are from listening to you. Thank you

Thank you, Carl.

Ailz is happy to go to church without me, so I think I'll let her.

I dont think one needs to define what
one is or can do or what the meaning of
ones life and way is ,too closely...
or perhaps I mean it also can be the sense
that one ought to be able to do these
things which makes one feel a little alarmed
in the presence of people who put things in
more clear cut ways...
as it was said "to his(speaking of me and you
too) own master he stands or falls."
-Lord you made me, you know what I am and what
I can be if you will be and do and will it in
me, so that's all I ask...

as to church perhaps to focus on the bread and
wine...?

and that book by poliphilo is one of the fascinating
puzzles ,it togther with plenty of mutatis mutandis(ed)
colleridge's biographia literaria and still more
mutandised the arabian nights, are on the list of
books I would like to spend time with...

This is true. We can't know who we are. We can only make intelligent guesses.

The bread and wine? I know what you're saying. But I think right now I need to walk away. Go smell the flowers or something. Clear my head.

The Hypnerotomachia is like no other book I know. It's to be taken in small sips, I think- like a fine wine or liqueur.

bread and wine are what
we share on sunday no?
or in most churches it is...
but many other things can seem
central yet that is eternal

I used to focus on the eucharist. It was very much the centre of my spirituality back in the day. And, yes, I know there is that which is eternal at the heart of the Christian faith. It's just that- right now- I think I need to look for the eternal elsewhere. Sitting in that pew just isn't conducive to my mental health.

well ...if each of us is a glance
from the eye and mind of God into
this lot, the universe etc then the
relation to God is primordial and
also unique...
so the thing with unique is what can
one say to another etc but perhaps
there are also things which are,
primordially ,in common one supposes...
there had better be of course...

I am thinking several things, and dont
worry I am not spending my time thinking
about your spiritual journey but as a
live journal friend one responds to what
the friends offer...one that in speaking
of a ,what was it, medieval kowtowing there
is ...is what? well thought is faster than
word and a certain mental chess shared can
save the words...

but I think for me as much as for you and
therefore I can say it without being somehow
over any line, an issue is whether it is about
me or about God. But put that way there is
again every possible objection... let's mental
chess past that to the thought that the
acknowledgement(=eucharist) of God is that
which accompanies the recognition of the
impossiblity of the line we draw around our self
separating ourselves from our shadow and all that
other good stuff as we know...but it is the
recognition of God that allows one to be at
resolution with all these impossible paradoxes...

my journey, my development, my thought ,are
all interesting but also trivial too...the I
and the my are the seed growing in the night etc
what remains but 'acknowledgement'

well "block that metaphor" in the phrase
(ring lardner's? of a running feature in the
new yorker magazine over the years) the glance
has become a seed.
boggles the mind.
bows out the livejournal friend
in contrition.

+Seraphim

I don't think I'm right and you're wrong- or anything as simplistic as that. I accept that symbols, practices, modes of being that don't work for me may be deeply satisfying for you. It's like food, I suppose. Or taste in art and literature. I can't stand the Iliad. I refuse to go on reading it. I can give reasons for this. But at the same time I have to acknowledge that the Iliad is a masterpiece of World Literature- and that my private taste and opinion hardly matter.

And so- I am what I am- as God made me- and I must follow my own path. I'm glad it seems to run in same the same general direction as yours- because- whatever our disagreements- I recognise you as one of the wisest people I know.

On the iliad, coming ashore with this one
item from the shipwreck of metaphors referred to.
I think it is possible to find a way to adjust
the focus and see it at least for a moment in a
new way...
Simone Weil's "The Iliad: the Poem of Force" I
recall was a little pamphlet that did that for
me at my next reading of the poem. now I remember
little of either weil or homer but I suppose it to
be that the central axis of the poem is that force
destroys its weilder as it does its object.

seen that way the poem becomes quite different
but I prefer the Odyssey and when I think of that
I think of our strange old Idaho uncle Ezra's

"And then went down to the ship,
Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and
We set up mast and sail on tha swart ship,
Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also
Heavy with weeping, so winds from sternward
Bore us out onward with bellying canvas,
Circe's this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.
Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller,
Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day's end.
Sun to his slumber, shadows o'er all the ocean,
Came we then to the bounds of deepest water..."

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/canto-i/

I only know the Odyssey through retellings. Some day- perhaps soon- I must tackle the thing itself.

I'm very fond of Old Ez. No-one did more in the last century to "purify the dialect of the tribe".

"I don't know where I go from here. Perhaps back to being- and doing- nothing in particular."
Perhaps doing nothing is a source of your troubles? If you had some kind of all-consuming pastime or occupation you would have less time, and energy, to fret about religion. Just a thought..
To draw a parallel, I've previously spent a lot of time reading and fretting about politics, and the way the world is going. I finally realised it was stressing me out, so I now try to let it wash over me and get on with life. It's refreshing.
In short this comment would read "don't worry, be happy".
Tom F

Religion is my all-consuming pastime or occupation. Stepping away from the Church isn't going to alter that. I shall continue to pick away at the issues it raises. This is what I do and what I am.

Politics interests me too. I've been loving the expenses scandal. But politics I can walk away from- just as you have done. Religion (for me) is different.

I would say that things that we find hard to step away from are not always good for us.

Maybe a rest from religious thinking would do you good and help clear your mind. After all you did start this post speculating about a nervous breakdown.
Tom F

One doesn't choose to step away from the things one loves. :)

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Dodging A Nervous Breakdown

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bread and wine

Re: bread and wine

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the Iliad. setting aside all that other business.

Re: the Iliad. setting aside all that other business.

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