It's Been a While

I haven't posted anything on this site in quite a while. I don't know if it's because I haven't been making any progress along this journey or what. I think I burnt out. I overloaded on information, opinions, perspectives and I needed a break.

During this break I felt motivated to go to church once. I feel like a spectator when I'm there. The longer I am away, the stranger the "place" seems to me. I recently saw a commercial of a priest eating a Father's Day Carvel ice cream cake that the "sisters" had bought for him. There was the implied joke that he's not really a "father" but he wanted the cake. It made me think of being in church and being referred to as "daughter" by a pastor or two. It made me cringe. From my spectator vantage point, I am bewildered by what it is that causes reasonable, rational adults to subjugate themselves to the leadership of a man who gets to tell them how they should live. And further baffled by said voluntary subjugation to someone who blantantly makes it clear (by calling you daughter) that he thinks you are inferior to him in some way. It annoys me.

I don't think I'll ever be able to do church on the terms I've done it all my life (especially the last 9 or 10 years) ever again. The idea of church really, really annoys me right now. I can't put my finger on why...and I guess I'll be working on it...but it really does. And it's not as simple as, "you will never find a perfect church". That's not it at all. It's not A church that bothers me right now...it's CHURCH as a concept. It feels smothering. I feel myself enjoying living independently apart from what I perceive as an institution (maybe a community) whose goal is to acheive conformity, to make everyone think the same thing, believe the same thing, be the same thing. That bothers me tremendously.

Yet, I would still consider myself a Christian. Probably not the best example of a christian (if you are looking for someone who looks, acts, speaks like she's supposed to look, act, speak). I'm a pretty raw christian right now. And, while that's ok for me, for where I am in the journey...it's not cool for a bunch of christians. I don't know why I care, but I obviously do because it keeps coming up in my rants.

Here's a good example of where I am:

I'm in the process of evaluating some "next steps" for myself regarding career paths. I'm at a point (in the process of divorcing) that I have to face the real possibility of facing life alone, and therefore have to make choices for my financial stability. As I am weighing the options, I already know that I will scream at (and probably smack with a wet dishrag) the person who says, "have you prayed about it?" or "What has God said about it?" or any derivitive thereof.

That's just where I'm at. What can I say?