Dodging A Nervous Breakdown
May. 11th, 2009 10:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloYesterday 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.
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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Date: 2009-05-11 12:49 pm (UTC)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.