Sacred Sunday: Releasing Unforgiveness, Abusive Mothers, Prejudice

On Sundays I sometimes like to do personal work on issues that are troubling me. Today I went for a long walk and worked on releasing prejudice, unforgiveness, anger, and hurt. There was a lot more than I thought to process, but I felt better afterwards. Such big things will take a lot of work to fully let go of, I'm thinking, but I do feel like I made a lot of progress today.

The issues I worked on today had to do with mothers emotionally harming their children. I've changed the names for privacy.

The first mother I focused on is someone I'll call Nelly. I wrote about her last month in my post called Enemies. I want to release the negative feelings and judgments I have towards her. Nelly is a pious fundamentalist Christian mother who taught her children that God had enough people doing good for others; she wanted her family to work together to help God deliver his punishments to others. She set about doing this vigorously as a life mission--a judgment-based crusade with Nelly as The Judge. She included in her crusade her ex-husband, oblivious to the fact that this would cause her children to reject a part of themselves as they rejected their father.

Today I worked on forgiving Nelly, knowing that she would have to be stunted emotionally to consider such actions. I wouldn't expect someone who is so deeply emotionally developmentally disabled to be able to do more. At some level she probably loves her children. She may even have no idea what she is doing. If she ever does wake up and realize what she's done she may not even be able to handle it.

My part in this is that I am one of the people Nelly thinks deserves ongoing punishment for my sins, administered by her and her children. I worked on expressing anger towards Nelly first, then forgiving her. I worked towards trying to send blessings and healing energies her way.

Now as adults not all of the children still follow Nelly's ways, but some do. It hurts me to see this way of thinking passed down. I am powerless over all of it, though, and can only send love their way.

Next came Minnie. Minnie is a very self-righteous woman, someone I grew up with and cared greatly about. Minnie and Nelly share a worldview in that they are both fundamentalist Christians. Minnie thought that it would be better to alienate her children from people who didn't have "Christian lifestyles" that measured up to Minnie's standards. This would protect them, she thought.

I was one of those people that didn't measure up in Minnie's mind. At that time I was a Christian, but just not the right kind. So Minnie made sure that her children had no contact with me. I disagreed with this and it hurt, especially since I was related to Minnie and her children.

Now as I try to forgive Minnie, I can see that her intentions were good. She was trying to protect her children from someone with dangerous ideas (any ideas that were different from hers) and with ways of being in the world that were threatening to her worldview.  I experienced a lot of hurt and sadness as a result of her actions, and continue to experience it even now because Minnie's adult children continue in her lifestyle as adults.

I followed the same process here: first anger, then feelings of sadness for the loss of relationship, trying to establish some empathy, forgiveness, then sending love.

Then came Queenie. Queenie is a mother who tries to control her children and everyone else. She also is a Christian, therefore many things are done because it seems to her that this is the way God wants it. She did some things to one of my family members that tore their family apart, and caused them to lose custody of their children because she lied. Queenie is a really hard person for me to forgive. I have a thing about lying, and really struggle...

Anyway, she has nothing in particular against me; it's just that if you don't let her run your life, you'll be very sorry. She bullies people into doing what she wants.

More of the same here for me: releasing resentment, forgiveness for so many things, struggling to send goodness her way.

Empathy helps. I have never done this type of thing to anyone, but if I really felt like I had to have control to the point that I would die or implode, I might. We are all capable of anything, I believe, given the right past, the right experiences, etc. I don't believe that I'm any better of a person than Queenie--or for that matter, than Nelly or Minnie. I just have had a different past and am a different person.

Then I focused on my own mother. She was verbally and physically abusive to us. I went through the same process with her because it just felt like I needed to. This is probably why I feel so keenly about mothers who hurt their children--because it happened to me.

Even though she hurt her children deeply, I'm sure she didn't want to. I'm sure she would feel devastated to know the damage she did. I remember her crying each time afterwards, telling me how much she loved me and how sorry she was. What a life to live--to beat and verbally abuse your children--to hate yourself, and then get up the next day and do it all over again.

When you are abused and you survive and you still love your parent, it shows you that you are strong enough to make it through, and that you have an amazing ability to love. I don't know that I have much love left for my mother (mostly just relief that she is gone--she died over 30 years ago) but I don't hate her anymore, which I think is a good thing. I know that she did many good things for us and did the best she could.

Lastly, I thought about another mother I know who I'll call Bunnie. I had a long conversation with Bunnie this week, and she is a different kind of mother than the ladies above. Bunnie loves her children--really loves her children. She had a difficult upbringing, but had a mother who truly showed her all the love she possibly could. She told her every day that she was special and made her feel loved and valued. Bunnie was truly mothered.

Bunnie has taken a different approach to raising her children. Instead of "protecting" them from family members with different beliefs, instead of lying to them to alienate them from people she disagrees with, instead of manipulating people to try to control her children's experiences, instead of insulating them from life with religious beliefs--she has loved them. She's had integrity in how she has cared for her children.

But she learned how to love from her mother. She was taught well. Nelly, Minnie, Queenie, my mother--none of them had that. All of them were repeating what they knew and trying so hard to get it right.

Understanding this, putting all of this in perspective really helped me in being able to forgive. Of course, I'm not done yet--this is a process that will take a long time, but I feel freer, as though I've made an excellent start.

Today's work also helped me to release prejudice towards fundamentalist Christians. I've written about this before. This is something I really need to deal with. All Christians are not like Nelly, Minnie, and Queenie. People like these three ladies are attracted to all kinds of groups and spiritual systems that can make them feel good about their actions; fundamentalist Christianity just happened to be the one they picked.

I used to be a fundamentalist Christian, and I was really doing the best I could. I wanted to be a loving person. I couldn't see that judgment and unforgiveness had no place in Christianity. We called it "discernment". We thought we were right. We thought we were righteous. We would project our feelings onto others--all of them that we had no room for--which were quite a few of them. The feelings that we did have, we were told never, ever, ever to trust. Still, there is no basis for me to judge a whole group of people based upon my bad experiences and my experiences with these mothers. They could have picked another kind of group and achieved the same results; it just was easy to pick Christianity because it was there.

Not sure why I wanted to share this all with you, but I did. I hope that there is something to be gleaned from it. I hope that perhaps I might inspire you to forgive those you want to forgive. Or maybe you have some prejudice against some group of people that you want to release. Or maybe it's just to validate that you are a mother who really loves her children, like Bunnie, and is not too emotionally developmentally disabled to show it. Maybe it's to be grateful that you are the person you are, someone not trapped in some weird psychological knot that causes you to act out in destructive ways and hurt those around you. Maybe it's to show more empathy to those people you know who are trapped.

Thank you for listening today, Sacred Sunday, xoO

Celebrating Martin Luther King Day...But What Is Going On?

Today is Martin Luther King Day in the U.S. and I wanted to share some quotes with you:

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963 ~Tweeted by @CatholicDems RT by @alcreationwaits

It's good to remember Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. today. We need people like him to be on the side of the poor, the marginalized and excluded. ~Tweeted by @alcreationwaits

Particularly inspiring blog posts today for me that celebrate Martin Luther King were this one from Brene Brown and this one from Lori-Lyn Hurley.

The above views reflect my values and honor Martin Luther King and what he accomplished in his short life. Yesterday in church we celebrated Christian Unity in honor of other celebrations going on in the world and in honor of Martin Luther King.

Yet at this time not everyone is celebrating. Not everyone is honoring. Yesterday I got a truly bizarre email from someone I know who is in a small group I attended when I went to my previous church.

I didn't read the whole thing, just enough to tell that it was a long rant that was negative and bigoted. It gave me the creeps big-time. It was absolutely hate speech, and it shocked me that it came from someone I knew. I immediately emailed the individual involved and addressed the situation with him so that I won't be getting any more emails and to let him know that it was offensive. He was prompt in replying and in removing me and gentlemanly in his handling of the situation. Which makes the whole hate speech thing even creepier to me. It feels like someone who looks just fine--normal--just like me--on the outside is exposing their heart to me and what I see is scary and ugly and dark and gangrenous and maggoty.

Something is very wrong in our world. It feels to me like people are coming out of hate-filled closets, wanting to share their views with the world, and wanting to destroy what they disagree with. And not just mentally ill people, either. I don't know if it is just my perception or not, but it feels quite pervasive--more common that I guess I thought. It makes me wonder who else looks nice and clean and well-mannered but who deep down thinks this way.

I will post a follow-up to my last post about my diagnosis soon. But I wanted to share these thoughts with you on this holiday. What is your experience of MLK Day? How do you deal with the experience of hate intruding into your world?

A Christian Journey: Part 6

I wanted to share with all of you a new and exciting spiritual development in my life--I have found a church where I can finally "belong". I thought I'd share it with you over Christmas in several short posts instead of one big long one. I can't wait to hear what you think. I'm hoping you'll be excited for me, and perhaps encouraged about finding spiritual community for yourself, if you've not found somewhere yet. 

Part 6 of 6:

(...continued from Part 5)

One belief in particular will cause many (mostly my family members, but that's okay) concern, but I love this belief: 

Invitation to Intimate Commitment: The experiences and insights of laypersons are nowhere more needed than in the area of intimate human relationships. We believe that the gift of sexual union is a source and celebration of love for couples, which allows for the special and safe sharing of intimacy. We consider it a danger to marriage and other intimate relationships to be denied sexual sharing. This has significant implications for Catholic practice, particularly as it applies to divorce and remarriage.

I am not sure of all of the implications of this, but I know that one thing it implies is that sexual unions between people are holy, and are to be respected. Another type of holy sexual union (and more) is marriage. These are two different things, both to be honored, both very holy. I have acted upon this belief, which I have held for others and even for myself at times, while “officially” believing something else. But deep down in my heart, I believe this. 


I know that there is something very, very holy about sex. It is the act itself that is so holy, and so abused in our culture. But not by all--some people do honor and respect their union--and oftentimes before marriage have sexual intercourse or even live together and share their lives in a way that eventually leads to marriage. I believe that this is much more sincere than serial marriage. Or the game that many Christian couples play of engaging in sex while purporting not to, feeling guilty, thinking that no one knows, and doing it all over again. Everyone knows and we all pretend not to. At least in the Christian cultures I’ve been in, this is what we do. 


So I've been going to this little church for the last few weeks. There is a male priest and a female priest and a very small congregation. It was intimate and lovely and very welcoming. I got to receive communion. I participated in the service. I felt good about being a Christian for the first time in a long time.

I feel like I've found a spiritual home, at last.  






~Photo by LoveHubbie Mark

A Christian Journey: Part 5

I wanted to share with all of you a new and exciting spiritual development in my life--I have found a church where I can finally "belong". I thought I'd share it with you over Christmas in several short posts instead of one big long one. I can't wait to hear what you think. I'm hoping you'll be excited for me, and perhaps encouraged about finding spiritual community for yourself, if you've not found somewhere yet. 

Part 5 of 6:

(...continued from Part 4)

So that means that I also believe in an open communion table. This means that I believe that all Christians should be able to come and receive communion, whether or not they belong to the particular church. This is quite controversial in some faiths. 

I don’t belief in original sin. I believe that people are just born. Not born good or bad, just born. I learned this from my wise nephew. So that means all kind of unorthodox spiritual things to some people. It leads many to call me “not a Christian”, which is okay, I suppose. There is nothing much I can do about that. I know that many people don’t believe in original sin and don’t let it bother them if their church believes in it and derives its theology from it. This is too hard for me to do, and it leads to many other beliefs I cannot accept. 

I have a love for liturgy and for mystery, and I love communion especially. I sound like a Roman Catholic; however, I object strongly to aspects of the Catholic Church, like papal infallability, strong demarcations between religious orders and laity, and annulments. I also object to women not being allowed to be priests, to the taboo on most methods of contraception, and many other things. So I wouldn’t make a very good conventional Roman Catholic. 

However, recently I came across some information about a "renegade" Catholic denomination called the Ecumenical Catholic Communion (ECC), which they say is  “an alternate way to celebrate your Catholic faith”. I know that the term "renegade" is pejorative, but to me in this case, being renegade is delightful. The ECC is gay-welcoming. It does not accept the authority of the pope, but of a local bishop. It allows congregations to choose priests, not be assigned them, and the priests work with the people together in the congregation.  And the priest can be a woman, too, married or single, gay or lesbian. It does not require annulments for divorce and remarriage, although it grieves the breakup of any marriage. It allows contraception to be decided privately by the couple involved. It is concerned with justice issues. It has an open table for communion.

It accepts the orthodox Catholic creeds, and the orthodox Catholic faith, even if not the ways the faith is lived out today. 


I'm guessing you can tell how much I like this church :)

(To be continued...)




~Photo by LoveHubbie Mark

A Christian Journey: Part 4

I wanted to share with all of you a new and exciting spiritual development in my life--I have found a church where I can finally "belong". I thought I'd share it with you over Christmas in several short posts instead of one big long one. I can't wait to hear what you think. I'm hoping you'll be excited for me, and perhaps encouraged about finding spiritual community for yourself, if you've not found somewhere yet. 

Part 4 of 6:

(...continued from Part 3)

LoveHubbie and I have always tried to attend church together, no matter how hard it was for one of us to compromise with the other. But recently, events have changed so that I’ve decided to venture out on my own. My first criterion in a church, the most important one, other than that it is Christian, is that it is gay-welcoming. Not gay-accepting, but gay-welcoming. I want a church that is really excited about having gay people there. And having other people there who are also marginalized in our culture. A church where all are welcome. But especially gays. Because when a group welcomes gay people, they tend to have a lot of other values that are the same as mine. 

Jesus welcomed everyone. He wanted everybody there. He did criticize the Pharisees--the righteously religious people of his time, and didn’t seem to like them too much. But I’ll bet if they had dropped their self-righteous stance he would have liked them too. He was attacked up one side and down the other for hanging out with tax collectors, prostitutes, Samaritans, women, the poor, the downtrodden, and others...and he himself was homeless. 


I have many, many reasons for believing this, but overall, I figure that it’s good to be like Jesus and just accept everybody. It’s what feels right to me. Some faiths are exclusive but Christianity wasn’t one of them. 

(To be continued...)




~Photo by LoveHubbie Mark

A Christian Journey: Part 3

I wanted to share with all of you a new and exciting spiritual development in my life--I have found a church where I can finally "belong". I thought I'd share it with you over Christmas in several short posts instead of one big long one. I can't wait to hear what you think. I'm hoping you'll be excited for me, and perhaps encouraged about finding spiritual community for yourself, if you've not found somewhere yet. 

Part 3 of 6:

(...continued from Part 2)

Now that I have thought about this for a few months, I realize why. I’d have to change myself too much to be accepted and approved of, and I just can’t do that anymore. I am who I am and I believe what I believe. And I just don't enjoy being around people who don’t think I’m a good or decent person or who don't think that my opinions or beliefs are valid. I don’t want to waste my time or theirs. 


It has taken me a long time to give myself permission to accept what I truly believed deep in my heart. The Bible can be interpreted in so many ways. For me it's important to take the Bible as a whole, then select the interpretation that seems to us to resonates most with who Jesus was and who God and the Holy Spirit are. It is always a gamble as to which interpretation is correct, but we gamble with our lives then, don’t we--all of us--and with our eternal salvation too. I know I’m gambling, but so is each and every person, when they choose what they believe. So this year I allowed myself to figure out and then accept  what I really believed in--first--and then tried to find a church that was enough like that set of beliefs that I might find some community there. 


(To be continued...)


~Photo by LoveHubbie Mark

A Christian Journey: Part 2

I wanted to share with all of you a new and exciting spiritual development in my life--I have found a church where I can finally "belong". I thought I'd share it with you over Christmas in several short posts instead of one big long one. I'll be traveling unplugged (as in without my computer--yippee!) for part of the holidays, so I'll be auto-posting and responding to your comments later when I return. I can't wait to hear what you think. I'm hoping you'll be excited for me, and perhaps encouraged about finding spiritual community for yourself, if you've not found somewhere yet. 


Part 2 of 6:


(...continued from Part 1)

Then I went to Maui in March. I heard a sermon on the beach. I remembered something...I knew deep down inside that I did want Christ, even if I didn’t want to belong to the group called “Christians”. So I rededicated my life to Jesus and enjoyed the very loving church in Lahaina. That was great. But then I had to leave Lahaina eventually, since my vacation ended. I found a nice church here at home, had a hard time adjusting to it, and joined a Life Group (a subset of the main church--small group of up to 15 people in which everyone can get to be more like community to each other than in a huge church). I kept trying to fit in. 

Eventually I had that extreme withdrawal reaction I get in many different social situations. I just could not force myself to go to Life Group, and eventually, to church. I didn’t want to go at all, even though I longed for spiritual community. I really wanted to fit in, but I could not. I wanted to belong. To me, “fitting in” is when you twist and contort yourself to meld with a group. Belonging is when you discover a tribe that thinks like you and values what you value. I couldn’t "belong" to this Life Group, as nice as they are, and as much as a part of me wanted to. 


(To be continued...)


~Photo by LoveHubbie Mark

A Christian Journey: Part 1

I wanted to share with all of you a new and exciting spiritual development in my life--I have found a church where I can finally "belong". I thought I'd share it with you over Christmas in several short posts instead of one big long one. I'll be traveling unplugged (as in without my computer--yippee!) for part of the holidays, so I'll be auto-posting and responding to your comments later when I return. I can't wait to hear what you think. I'm hoping you'll be excited for me, and perhaps encouraged about finding spiritual community for yourself, if you've not found somewhere yet. 


Part 1 of 6:

For a long time, I’d wanted to return to Christianity, but the attitude of many Christians stopped me. I knew that I had done a lot of personal work since I’d been away from any formal Christian group (about five years), including discovering a peaceful lifestyle and beliefs, and coming to cherish the values of kindness, tolerance, and love. I had no desire to affiliate with anyone who promoted hatred in any way. 

Most people I’m related to one way or another are Christians of various types. There are nominal Catholics, Pentecostals, mainline Christians, non-denominational Christians, etc. Not all of them, but to be honest, quite a few of them, are some of the most backward-thinking, emotionally repressed, uneducated (no matter how many years of formal education they have), bigoted, and just plain nasty people I know. I would never want to be lumped in with them. I would never want someone I cared about to assume things about me that were inaccurate, and especially things that were hateful, simply because they discovered I was a Christian. 

I don’t think that these family-type folks are accurate representations of Christ or of Christianity in it’s normal form. I think that our American culture distorts many things, plus lots of hurting people find Jesus (yay!) but never grow up (boo!), and in addition my family is also unusually dysfunctional. I think these people are caricatures of Christianity that have been twisted and tweaked and I’m not quite sure who or what they are. But you know that you have met people like this, right? Haters. And then they say they are Christians and you just know you never want to be that. 


I definitely never wanted to be that. 


(To be continued...)


~Photo by LoveHubbie Mark