Dodging A Nervous Breakdown

[poliphilo]

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.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

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....

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

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).

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

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.