There are so many good lines in this post that I'm going to print it and highlight those lines. I especially appreciated your question about whether the anger these characters express towards you is a reflection of a deep fear that they could in a similar manner loose their faith. Aloysia in "Brothers Karamazov" is the perfect evangelist. He loves every person with whom he comes into contact and regards them all as his equals. He impacts their lives by being like Christ.
Well, I'm honored to have walked this journey with you via your articles and substack, and feel I've benefited in many ways. Not least is the catharsis of reading thoughts I myself have had in secret expressed boldly in the light. I look forward to walking many more miles with you through your future writing.
By the way, I noticed from the pictures of you as a young man that we are both former THGs (Tall Handsome Guys). Ha ha. Pounds and gravity!
Steve, you sound like my own son. And you are right, in that the people who should know better, act like demons. And I’m so sorry. I’m sure it means nothing to you coming from a complete stranger, but your words are my son’s words, and hearing you helps me to understand him. And please know for as ignorant as I am, I believe that we were in the wrong sector of Catholicism…it wasn’t even what it is supposed to be these trad groups…and I just appreciate your brutal honesty. My heart hurts for you. Meanwhile, please keep writing. We will keep listening.
It certainly does not mean nothing. The people saying these things are mostly perfect strangers, too, which is why it sometimes bothers me so much that folks who have never shaken my hand or looked me in the eye feel so much animosity towards me. I just think, "You don't even know me. You don't know who I am as a person. How can you reach such staunch conclusions?"
So thank you for speaking up, and I'm glad I can help you understand your son. If I can help more, please let me know.
I always feel like I failed you completely. I don't know how to adequately articulate the reasons I believe, even though I've experienced similar things and had similar doubts. It's partly the difficulty of the typing interface. You can't really talk to someone you care about by typing about serious and important things. I think there is a paradigm problem that is at the core of your difficulties (apart from the very difficult emotional issues) that I think I could at least begin to get across if given enough time in real flesh-world. Perhaps with the help of a lot of beer. Maybe I'd fail. But I know there are things you don't know, and have never really encountered, that you've had a weird, distorted and truncated version of the faith taught to you and that you - and nearly everyone else in our time - have had the real meat of the matter withheld from your awareness. And that's not all the "Oh, everything sucks since Vatican 2" problem. These are things that I've only found out myself since associating with monastics who pay a lot of attention to the ancient sources - the sources by the way that were never abandoned in the East. You are a victim of some very large and very old problems that the Church has allowed to grow to this catastrophic point.
I don't know how I can help you from this distance, with only the stupid typing interface to communicate with, except not to abandon you. As you know, it takes some hefty personal betrayals for me to walk away from a friend. I don't have any family, so friendship tends to mean quite a bit more to me than to most people. I can't afford to lose the good ones.
But I will say this: "I do not belong to you, " - as a fellow professional online person, I found the attitude of a lot of people that because they read you they own you in some way is deeply offensive. This is especially true of the people who donate and consider that it gives them editorial rights or some right to your interior life, your personal life or even your time in real life. Someone wanted once to tell me what to write because he'd sent me ten bucks once five years before. Then there was the time someone actually showed up at. my. house. and became offended when I asked him to please go away. Boundaries, people! They're a thing.
I just want you to know that I know you've been with me the whole time. Sometimes your approach to my objections annoys me, but I see the way you just give me space to be angry and work through it, and I appreciate it. You are not one of the people I'm thinking of.
I worked with all these theologians and experts, the people who were really supposed to know the faith. I told some of them before I came apart at the seams that I felt it going and I needed help.
One guy was just too busy to even hear me out. Another guy got so offended by my questioning that he stopped talking to me, because somehow he took my frustration with the theologian's canard of "technically, this isn't a violation of this doctrine because" when the reality is the teaching in question was being trampled all over. A third guy was just too caught up in his own image and couldn't even be bothered to tell me he was worried he'd get cooties from me. He just kind of stopped showing up.
I needed to be able to hit big brains with big objections and say, "What am I missing? How am I getting this wrong?" and then actually get some kind of answer that made me reconsider. But even when I could have those conversations, I'd get these looks like "How can you even ask that" instead of "That's a tough one, and I see why you're struggling with it."
A friend of mine who wrote occasionally for 1P5 and left the Church at the same time as me actually had a good conversation with a certain well known FSSP priest who he said openly admitted that if you don't start with an a priori belief that God is good and just determine to hold to that no matter what, you're not going to believe any of the rest of it. He said the priest told him the Church can't gloss over the objections people like he and I have, and admitted he could not explain certain things (like why God decided blood sacrifice and death were what was needed to heal the wound of sin.) My friend didn't enjoy the catechismic answers, or the idea that "yeah, it doesn't make any sense, but it will when we finally get to heaven," but he at least felt he got empathy and understanding, which helped some. (He's still adamant that the Catholic faith he once championed is utterly false, but it still mattered to him to be treated like a human being by a ranking trad priest.)
Your last part, the ownership part, actually went to a level I wasn't even thinking about -- the whole "I paid you so you do what I say" -- but I do wonder how much that's part of it. I've seen fiction authors talk about this phenomenon too, like they owe their readers the stories they're expecting because they paid for earlier books in a series. It's such a weird thing.
One of the problems is that all the Big Brains you know are of the internet kind. I know people who might help, but they're difficult to reach, especially from a distance.
Steve: We are engaged in a rabid round of devouring each other. The Web, and I think particularly X (Twitter), has allowed people to freely unloose their darkest natures with no fear of real consequence or retribution. People post the fist thing that comes into their minds as if they had the answer to all questions.
I feel for you and pray for you every day. Raised in a conservative, Catholic home, at fifteen I was an atheist. Could not see God working in this terribly messed up world. The Jesus story seemed to be a pleasant myth. The Catholic Church, even with the changes of Vatican II, seemed remote and antiquated. Shortly after my eighteenth birthday I had an encounter with God. There were no shining lights, no voices, no visions of angels. There was only a sense that God was there. I was loved and things would be o.k. That was fifty-two years ago. Although I have ignored it at times, that sense has never left and has often been the guiding force in my life.
This walk would lead me to a belief in Jesus as messiah, in the reality of the Eucharist and, grudgingly, back to the Catholic Church with all its flaws and incongruities. (And they are great in number.)
I don’t know why this happened to, or for, me. I certainly did not deserve it. I have never fully lived up to it. Yet, here I am, sensing that God is walking with me. I am loved and not alone.
In encountering people who do not have this sense of God, I do not look down upon them. I do not call them apostates. I am sorry that they do not seem to have experienced what I have experienced. I pray that they will somehow, some way encounter, the living God. I try, and often fail, to reflect to them the love that I have found in the hope that they will find it as well.
My hope for you is for you to find God, and I for one will not disparage your search.
Thanks, JT. I suspect that feeling that you didn't deserve that consolation only enhanced your sense that it was real, and important. I know there's a possibility that God is stripping away from me all the accumulated distortions pertaining to religion that built up for me over a lifetime, so that he can replace them with something better. But considering that my faith started to go several years before I left the Church, and now I'm three years out from leaving, I'll be coming up on a decade soon of feeling abandoned by him. The longer this goes on, the less inclined I feel to ever believe again. All I can see now are the flaws in the stories we tell ourselves about him, the contradictions, the corruption, it all just makes the whole thing feel like another mythology in a world full of mythologies.
I will never stop pursuing the truth, but the bitterness that comes with feeling used and cast aside hardens over time. It will be harder to reach me in a few more years than it would have been when I started asking. Not sure what to do with that.
"I know there's a possibility that God is stripping away from me all the accumulated distortions pertaining to religion that built up for me over a lifetime, so that he can replace them with something better" — this is exactly my opinion, and I see it happening in your life. God often works in decades, not years. Don't be discouraged; I think you're on the right track. I don't think God hasn't answered your prayers, I just think either he's waiting to answer them, or answering them in a way you can't recognize.
I appreciate your laying bare your heart in this article. It's why I subscribe. I am sorry for all the awfulness you have experienced. I don't have all the answers for you and won't pretend to. I don't know why God has not revealed himself to you. He has revealed himself to me many times in very clear experiential ways. All I can offer is the hope that there may be "baggage" in the way that God is clearing away so you can experience him. He's purifying you, and it hurts. Be patient; be patient with yourself, and with God. He plays the long game.
I think you bring up excellent points about evangelism. Thank you for the important reminder.
Continue to pursue humility and accept what humbles you. That is the key!
The hardest thing to read was the part about your parents. I don’t know what to say other than ouch how hurtful that sounds. As a mother and a daughter… it’s as mysterious as much as it is cruel. Hopefully they’ll get a chance to reflect.
What I don’t understand at all is how people forget basic manners and care for souls and questioning things are all part of the Catholic tradition. Ask, seek, knock… I don’t get why people have a problem with you or anyone doing that.
My parents fully believe that they love me tremendously. I think they really do *feel* that love for me.
But they have always had a poor self-awareness about how that love is expressed, what their priorities are, and how their own brokenness came out in forms of abuse that severely damaged their kids -- particularly me, as the oldest, and the one who bore the brunt of my father's anger and my mother's immaturity and irresponsibility. I was always a deeply sensitive child, and it really wounded me in ways I'm only just beginning to understand.
But when the faith matters more to you than anything else, it can also blind you. When I confronted them on not asking about me leaving, about a year after the fact (when I was still speaking to them) I got a curt, "Well, we didn't think you'd want to hear anything we had to say."
I got so much love and support and empathy from total strangers. My inbox filled up with messages from people who didn't know me from Adam. But the people who were supposed to love me most decided on my behalf that I didn't want to hear from them, and so they never tried. Just saying that out loud, it really stings. It says so much about the dysfunction in my relationship with them, and my family in general. I have a cousin who says our whole extended family is just incredibly well-versed in denial.
It seems to me that Christianity forces people to know things that they just can't possibly know at all. Maybe somewhere in the back of their minds this gnaws at them and frightens them. As you know, losing faith is a terrifying thing, and fear doesn't usually bring out the best in us. Far too often Hell is the prime motivator in religion, not love, that's just how I see it.
Reading those Twitter posts pissed me off so much, it's too insufferable to read without my blood boiling. Life is too short to have people decorating it with their bullshit. After watching countless videos of people telling their deconversion stories, one thing they all seemed to say was, after leaving Christianity they learned how to have empathy. As a Catholic that's crushing to hear, we can't do this to people. IF the gospel is good news and IF God is love, then we should be the happiest most charitable people on Earth.
It really does seem that empathy and orthodox religious belief are at constant cross-purposes, doesn't it? When you believe that you have to do X, Y, and Z or burn, it doesn't bring out the best in people.
I disagree, there is no such 'force'. A basic feature of human psychology, the desire to avoid uncertainty, is the central 'force' at work here. It's not just Catholicism or Christianity or religion in general. We see this everywhere. What is so annoying about Christians is we know this is not how Jesus talked to prostitutes and tax collectors.
I think I understand what you mean by a desire to avoid uncertainty, there seems to be a fear of the unknown that's universal to humanity. My frustration is, too often Christianity is presented as "believe in this claim that you can't verify with certainty or else be cast into eternal darkness." It really does feel like a gun pointed at your face. But I know there are sunnier quarters of Christianity that don't present the faith this way, and of course there are individuals who would never say it that way. I'm saying in general, the former has been my experience, not the latter. Either way, good to hear from you, thanks for the reply brother.
I think this is also manifest in the refusal of most people to engage in statistical thinking. In life such thinking requires the acceptance of uncertainty.
Steve, I have been watching “The Chosen.” It has given me hope.
Those people that couldn’t be bothered to take time to talk to you…they’re called Pharisees, and portrayed skillfully in “The Chosen.”
I think in the beginning of the Christian life, some get stuck on rules, rituals to an excessive point. The best things you can do for these people is 1)stay away unless they change (YOU can’t change people; it is between them and God), 2)pray for them, 3)let God do the rest.
Does this sound like the 12 steps? Summary of first 3 steps(paraphrased):
1)I can’t
2)God can
3) I think I’ll let him.
I was raised by alcoholics. I spent 7 years in Alanon. The reason that I left is that I am autistic and I never felt like I fit in. (The meeting booklets do tell you to take what you like and leave the rest.) It was a good introduction to Ignatian discernment.
I feel like I am on the outside looking in.
I know the traditional culture of which you speak. I was told that I needed to pray more when I mentioned anxiety; I WAS praying. I actually think my anxiety is more medically based. (I have been through medical Hell trying to figure out what was wrong with me. It was like a pre diagnosis long dark night which I wouldn’t wish on anyone; however, I came away much less afraid of dying. One of the signs of atypical anaphylaxis can be a feeling of impending doom.)
I saw the former director of a homeschooling program get mocked online a few years ago. We have ALL been in the shoes of someone who has sinned. I wish that I hadn’t seen the article; I wish that if there had been an article it would have been more of a St Therese praying for her Pranzini type thing. The Web makes it easy to vilify, destroy.
Telling people that scrupulosity is a sinful form of pride is one of the most damaging religious messages ever devised. Take a person with uncontrollable OCD, give them a religion that compels them to constantly inventory their sins through examinations of conscience -- including interiorly "sinful" thoughts never even acted upon, get them really feeling guilty and ashamed for these intrusive thoughts -- then tell them that this uncontrollable guilt they feel is actually also sinful.
The utter disregard for a proper understanding of mental health in the traditional religious space is so unbelievably destructive.
You need to check out autism consecrated. This is something that the co founder and I have talked about. I have been called scrupulous by a former director. I was told to receive Communion before Confession.
I’m still that way. The last Confessor didn’t understand what a trial Examen is for me, and I was mildly told to make a list. This put me in a pre Christmas funk. Christmas is hard anyway, with expectations from family, children, etc.
Some days I feel that I shouldn’t write anything. I realized that one of the people I was thinking of (and was angry at)was the earlier me. But the earlier me was scarred. I shouldn’t be angry at the earlier me; indeed, the earlier me needed God. No human could fix me. Therapy does help, but it’s not everything. It did save my life.
I've watched this happen to someone I love very much. It was traumatic to be up close and personal with the biting scrupulosity that turned this dear person (blessedly not forever) into a shattered shell. I can only try to imagine how much worse than witnessing it experiencing it must be. It put some distance between me and the church that hasn't yet fully closed.
I suffer from free floating anxiety as well. I try to offer it up, figuring I'm working off some Purgatory. And if there's anything "left over," let my "anxiety suffering" relieve someone else's Purgatory, I think. Physical exertion also seems to dispel stress, anxiety and depressive moods. I also find hobbies and music and walking around observing nature an anxiety/depression buster.
There's a lot of alcoholism in my family tree, too--been around a lot of it, and it's so tragic and perplexing.
Steve, I frequent a lot of good Catholic sites, and I recognize not one of your inquisitors. Not one. I hope you keep the door open to come back, and I am sure you won't pass by any of these people if you should.
I'm reminded of an elderly couple I met at an SSPX chapel. They refused to speak to their grown daughter because she sometimes uttered profanities (!) in their home. Surely their souls are spotless, and they would never do such a thing. But here they are, doing far worse, too blind to see it. Perhaps I'm doing similarly right now. its_all_so_tiresome.jpg.
Much of Christianity is about bridging gaps. If you stare at the cavernous gap between yourself and who you should be long enough, you eventually stop judging others for their faults. Most people just lie to themselves and think they are who they should be. Then, when someone tells the truth about what he really thinks, cognitive dissonance demands vicious attack in defense of their lies.
Thank you Steve for telling the truth. The vicious response you've gotten is a sign that your criticisms are very valid and desperately need to be addressed.
The Desert Fathers have a lot of convicting things to say about judging anyone for anything. This is in my opinion one of the top two sins (apart from idolatry) to avoid: judgment and unforgiveness.
I appreciate your honesty, your prose, and an understand a bit about where you’re coming from. I left 25+ years ago and it was bloody. Standing with you wherever the journey leads. And you have my prayers.
I fell away from about age 16 (there was drift, not a real demarcation line, but by college I was quite hostile to the notion of God) to around age 24. Reading almost all of C.S. Lewis (nonfiction and some fiction) brought me back into the fold. I remember going back to mass the first time probably around age 23, and I felt literally like arms were dragging me back from entering the church! And I thought "Why does this feel so hard to do?" But I persisted, and there was no "phenomena," just Lewis. Then, at age 38, I had a conversion experience in a confessional with a priest whom I later realized was charismatic (i.e, he seemed able to "pull down" the Holy Spirit even though there was the screen separating the penitent (me) and the priest--it was all very shocking to me). This is what must have happened to converts when St. Paul would lay his hands on someone like, say, St. Timothy, I imagine. I am 71 now and a Third Order Carmelite. What happens when one becomes a 3rd order? Ah, one starts working one's way through St. Teresa's "Interior Castle." I think I'm in the 4th mansion (most of the time), but this is a guess.
I want to recommend Rod Dreher to you if you aren't already familiar with him. He has a new book coming out in October that you might like (and a substack).
You were quite handsome, Steve (as I am sure you are still now). I am sure you caught the eye of many of the ladies you evangelized, ha ha. (Smile please.) I hope this hasn't been too long.
Thanks, Anne. This is a better comment. I can be a bit direct (my wife tells me sometimes she thinks I'm on the spectrum) but I can only say that I really bristle at unsolicited spiritual or personal advice that comes across as preachy or condescending. You have a tendency, in my opinion, to sort of hold court in the comments and just lecture from your own experiences, or push religious answers at a guy who is clearly feeling very allergic to them, and it can really rub the wrong way.
But this felt sincere and personal, and I appreciate that.
Actually, in many ways I'm deeply insecure, but not in the faith (any more), and I can't take much credit for that. I just gave up trying to please other people because... because it's actually quite hard to figure out exactly what they want. And even if I did figure it out, would I be able to give that person what they want? I doubt it.
So, to your question of why would God want to have a death of His son by torture as a reparation for sin, all I can do is refer to Lewis, who said that it was mysterious and hard for us to fathom, that he'd sort of thought of it as humanity having a huge debt that could not be paid. Jesus paid our debt.
Have you read Rod Dreher? My bet is you're familiar with him. So, there's an interview he gives on youtube about his new book in which he describes an experience he had in 1993 thereabouts. You might find his mystical experience interesting. I'm not going to post the youtube here--it's sort of a preview of his new book coming out in October. If interested, just search for Rod Dreher on youtube--there is not very much about him, say, 2 or 3 videos max. He has a very active substack which is pretty heavily free. Dreher has gone through a lot of turmoil and suffering, so I find him quite relatable. He is living in Budapest with his son, but his family broke up, which is a source of deep anguish for him.
I find it gives me some ideas and some comfort to see how another person grapples with their problems.
There are so many good lines in this post that I'm going to print it and highlight those lines. I especially appreciated your question about whether the anger these characters express towards you is a reflection of a deep fear that they could in a similar manner loose their faith. Aloysia in "Brothers Karamazov" is the perfect evangelist. He loves every person with whom he comes into contact and regards them all as his equals. He impacts their lives by being like Christ.
Well, I'm honored to have walked this journey with you via your articles and substack, and feel I've benefited in many ways. Not least is the catharsis of reading thoughts I myself have had in secret expressed boldly in the light. I look forward to walking many more miles with you through your future writing.
By the way, I noticed from the pictures of you as a young man that we are both former THGs (Tall Handsome Guys). Ha ha. Pounds and gravity!
All my best to you and your family Steve.
Thanks, Father. I'm very glad to have you here.
Steve, you sound like my own son. And you are right, in that the people who should know better, act like demons. And I’m so sorry. I’m sure it means nothing to you coming from a complete stranger, but your words are my son’s words, and hearing you helps me to understand him. And please know for as ignorant as I am, I believe that we were in the wrong sector of Catholicism…it wasn’t even what it is supposed to be these trad groups…and I just appreciate your brutal honesty. My heart hurts for you. Meanwhile, please keep writing. We will keep listening.
It certainly does not mean nothing. The people saying these things are mostly perfect strangers, too, which is why it sometimes bothers me so much that folks who have never shaken my hand or looked me in the eye feel so much animosity towards me. I just think, "You don't even know me. You don't know who I am as a person. How can you reach such staunch conclusions?"
So thank you for speaking up, and I'm glad I can help you understand your son. If I can help more, please let me know.
I always feel like I failed you completely. I don't know how to adequately articulate the reasons I believe, even though I've experienced similar things and had similar doubts. It's partly the difficulty of the typing interface. You can't really talk to someone you care about by typing about serious and important things. I think there is a paradigm problem that is at the core of your difficulties (apart from the very difficult emotional issues) that I think I could at least begin to get across if given enough time in real flesh-world. Perhaps with the help of a lot of beer. Maybe I'd fail. But I know there are things you don't know, and have never really encountered, that you've had a weird, distorted and truncated version of the faith taught to you and that you - and nearly everyone else in our time - have had the real meat of the matter withheld from your awareness. And that's not all the "Oh, everything sucks since Vatican 2" problem. These are things that I've only found out myself since associating with monastics who pay a lot of attention to the ancient sources - the sources by the way that were never abandoned in the East. You are a victim of some very large and very old problems that the Church has allowed to grow to this catastrophic point.
I don't know how I can help you from this distance, with only the stupid typing interface to communicate with, except not to abandon you. As you know, it takes some hefty personal betrayals for me to walk away from a friend. I don't have any family, so friendship tends to mean quite a bit more to me than to most people. I can't afford to lose the good ones.
But I will say this: "I do not belong to you, " - as a fellow professional online person, I found the attitude of a lot of people that because they read you they own you in some way is deeply offensive. This is especially true of the people who donate and consider that it gives them editorial rights or some right to your interior life, your personal life or even your time in real life. Someone wanted once to tell me what to write because he'd sent me ten bucks once five years before. Then there was the time someone actually showed up at. my. house. and became offended when I asked him to please go away. Boundaries, people! They're a thing.
They think you do belong to them. Definitely.
I just want you to know that I know you've been with me the whole time. Sometimes your approach to my objections annoys me, but I see the way you just give me space to be angry and work through it, and I appreciate it. You are not one of the people I'm thinking of.
I worked with all these theologians and experts, the people who were really supposed to know the faith. I told some of them before I came apart at the seams that I felt it going and I needed help.
One guy was just too busy to even hear me out. Another guy got so offended by my questioning that he stopped talking to me, because somehow he took my frustration with the theologian's canard of "technically, this isn't a violation of this doctrine because" when the reality is the teaching in question was being trampled all over. A third guy was just too caught up in his own image and couldn't even be bothered to tell me he was worried he'd get cooties from me. He just kind of stopped showing up.
I needed to be able to hit big brains with big objections and say, "What am I missing? How am I getting this wrong?" and then actually get some kind of answer that made me reconsider. But even when I could have those conversations, I'd get these looks like "How can you even ask that" instead of "That's a tough one, and I see why you're struggling with it."
A friend of mine who wrote occasionally for 1P5 and left the Church at the same time as me actually had a good conversation with a certain well known FSSP priest who he said openly admitted that if you don't start with an a priori belief that God is good and just determine to hold to that no matter what, you're not going to believe any of the rest of it. He said the priest told him the Church can't gloss over the objections people like he and I have, and admitted he could not explain certain things (like why God decided blood sacrifice and death were what was needed to heal the wound of sin.) My friend didn't enjoy the catechismic answers, or the idea that "yeah, it doesn't make any sense, but it will when we finally get to heaven," but he at least felt he got empathy and understanding, which helped some. (He's still adamant that the Catholic faith he once championed is utterly false, but it still mattered to him to be treated like a human being by a ranking trad priest.)
Your last part, the ownership part, actually went to a level I wasn't even thinking about -- the whole "I paid you so you do what I say" -- but I do wonder how much that's part of it. I've seen fiction authors talk about this phenomenon too, like they owe their readers the stories they're expecting because they paid for earlier books in a series. It's such a weird thing.
One of the problems is that all the Big Brains you know are of the internet kind. I know people who might help, but they're difficult to reach, especially from a distance.
Yes, but two of the three I'm talking about are people I know in real life.
I was thinking of Fr. Cassian, the founder of our monastery specifically. But he's difficult to get to see even if you live in Italy.
https://youtu.be/KUvZHuM6mmw?si=1P181VxgAw2XF8BQ
Speaking as a 20+ year actual missionary, John 13:35. The people throwing rocks have a relationship with religion. Not with Jesus.
I have written about making an idol of the Church. I think I had a tendency to do this. But yes, this is an apt distinction.
Steve: We are engaged in a rabid round of devouring each other. The Web, and I think particularly X (Twitter), has allowed people to freely unloose their darkest natures with no fear of real consequence or retribution. People post the fist thing that comes into their minds as if they had the answer to all questions.
I feel for you and pray for you every day. Raised in a conservative, Catholic home, at fifteen I was an atheist. Could not see God working in this terribly messed up world. The Jesus story seemed to be a pleasant myth. The Catholic Church, even with the changes of Vatican II, seemed remote and antiquated. Shortly after my eighteenth birthday I had an encounter with God. There were no shining lights, no voices, no visions of angels. There was only a sense that God was there. I was loved and things would be o.k. That was fifty-two years ago. Although I have ignored it at times, that sense has never left and has often been the guiding force in my life.
This walk would lead me to a belief in Jesus as messiah, in the reality of the Eucharist and, grudgingly, back to the Catholic Church with all its flaws and incongruities. (And they are great in number.)
I don’t know why this happened to, or for, me. I certainly did not deserve it. I have never fully lived up to it. Yet, here I am, sensing that God is walking with me. I am loved and not alone.
In encountering people who do not have this sense of God, I do not look down upon them. I do not call them apostates. I am sorry that they do not seem to have experienced what I have experienced. I pray that they will somehow, some way encounter, the living God. I try, and often fail, to reflect to them the love that I have found in the hope that they will find it as well.
My hope for you is for you to find God, and I for one will not disparage your search.
JT
Thanks, JT. I suspect that feeling that you didn't deserve that consolation only enhanced your sense that it was real, and important. I know there's a possibility that God is stripping away from me all the accumulated distortions pertaining to religion that built up for me over a lifetime, so that he can replace them with something better. But considering that my faith started to go several years before I left the Church, and now I'm three years out from leaving, I'll be coming up on a decade soon of feeling abandoned by him. The longer this goes on, the less inclined I feel to ever believe again. All I can see now are the flaws in the stories we tell ourselves about him, the contradictions, the corruption, it all just makes the whole thing feel like another mythology in a world full of mythologies.
I will never stop pursuing the truth, but the bitterness that comes with feeling used and cast aside hardens over time. It will be harder to reach me in a few more years than it would have been when I started asking. Not sure what to do with that.
"I know there's a possibility that God is stripping away from me all the accumulated distortions pertaining to religion that built up for me over a lifetime, so that he can replace them with something better" — this is exactly my opinion, and I see it happening in your life. God often works in decades, not years. Don't be discouraged; I think you're on the right track. I don't think God hasn't answered your prayers, I just think either he's waiting to answer them, or answering them in a way you can't recognize.
I appreciate your laying bare your heart in this article. It's why I subscribe. I am sorry for all the awfulness you have experienced. I don't have all the answers for you and won't pretend to. I don't know why God has not revealed himself to you. He has revealed himself to me many times in very clear experiential ways. All I can offer is the hope that there may be "baggage" in the way that God is clearing away so you can experience him. He's purifying you, and it hurts. Be patient; be patient with yourself, and with God. He plays the long game.
I think you bring up excellent points about evangelism. Thank you for the important reminder.
Continue to pursue humility and accept what humbles you. That is the key!
The hardest thing to read was the part about your parents. I don’t know what to say other than ouch how hurtful that sounds. As a mother and a daughter… it’s as mysterious as much as it is cruel. Hopefully they’ll get a chance to reflect.
What I don’t understand at all is how people forget basic manners and care for souls and questioning things are all part of the Catholic tradition. Ask, seek, knock… I don’t get why people have a problem with you or anyone doing that.
My parents fully believe that they love me tremendously. I think they really do *feel* that love for me.
But they have always had a poor self-awareness about how that love is expressed, what their priorities are, and how their own brokenness came out in forms of abuse that severely damaged their kids -- particularly me, as the oldest, and the one who bore the brunt of my father's anger and my mother's immaturity and irresponsibility. I was always a deeply sensitive child, and it really wounded me in ways I'm only just beginning to understand.
But when the faith matters more to you than anything else, it can also blind you. When I confronted them on not asking about me leaving, about a year after the fact (when I was still speaking to them) I got a curt, "Well, we didn't think you'd want to hear anything we had to say."
I got so much love and support and empathy from total strangers. My inbox filled up with messages from people who didn't know me from Adam. But the people who were supposed to love me most decided on my behalf that I didn't want to hear from them, and so they never tried. Just saying that out loud, it really stings. It says so much about the dysfunction in my relationship with them, and my family in general. I have a cousin who says our whole extended family is just incredibly well-versed in denial.
It seems to me that Christianity forces people to know things that they just can't possibly know at all. Maybe somewhere in the back of their minds this gnaws at them and frightens them. As you know, losing faith is a terrifying thing, and fear doesn't usually bring out the best in us. Far too often Hell is the prime motivator in religion, not love, that's just how I see it.
Reading those Twitter posts pissed me off so much, it's too insufferable to read without my blood boiling. Life is too short to have people decorating it with their bullshit. After watching countless videos of people telling their deconversion stories, one thing they all seemed to say was, after leaving Christianity they learned how to have empathy. As a Catholic that's crushing to hear, we can't do this to people. IF the gospel is good news and IF God is love, then we should be the happiest most charitable people on Earth.
It really does seem that empathy and orthodox religious belief are at constant cross-purposes, doesn't it? When you believe that you have to do X, Y, and Z or burn, it doesn't bring out the best in people.
I disagree, there is no such 'force'. A basic feature of human psychology, the desire to avoid uncertainty, is the central 'force' at work here. It's not just Catholicism or Christianity or religion in general. We see this everywhere. What is so annoying about Christians is we know this is not how Jesus talked to prostitutes and tax collectors.
I think I understand what you mean by a desire to avoid uncertainty, there seems to be a fear of the unknown that's universal to humanity. My frustration is, too often Christianity is presented as "believe in this claim that you can't verify with certainty or else be cast into eternal darkness." It really does feel like a gun pointed at your face. But I know there are sunnier quarters of Christianity that don't present the faith this way, and of course there are individuals who would never say it that way. I'm saying in general, the former has been my experience, not the latter. Either way, good to hear from you, thanks for the reply brother.
I think this is also manifest in the refusal of most people to engage in statistical thinking. In life such thinking requires the acceptance of uncertainty.
Steve, I have been watching “The Chosen.” It has given me hope.
Those people that couldn’t be bothered to take time to talk to you…they’re called Pharisees, and portrayed skillfully in “The Chosen.”
I think in the beginning of the Christian life, some get stuck on rules, rituals to an excessive point. The best things you can do for these people is 1)stay away unless they change (YOU can’t change people; it is between them and God), 2)pray for them, 3)let God do the rest.
Does this sound like the 12 steps? Summary of first 3 steps(paraphrased):
1)I can’t
2)God can
3) I think I’ll let him.
I was raised by alcoholics. I spent 7 years in Alanon. The reason that I left is that I am autistic and I never felt like I fit in. (The meeting booklets do tell you to take what you like and leave the rest.) It was a good introduction to Ignatian discernment.
I feel like I am on the outside looking in.
I know the traditional culture of which you speak. I was told that I needed to pray more when I mentioned anxiety; I WAS praying. I actually think my anxiety is more medically based. (I have been through medical Hell trying to figure out what was wrong with me. It was like a pre diagnosis long dark night which I wouldn’t wish on anyone; however, I came away much less afraid of dying. One of the signs of atypical anaphylaxis can be a feeling of impending doom.)
I saw the former director of a homeschooling program get mocked online a few years ago. We have ALL been in the shoes of someone who has sinned. I wish that I hadn’t seen the article; I wish that if there had been an article it would have been more of a St Therese praying for her Pranzini type thing. The Web makes it easy to vilify, destroy.
“Let those without sun cast the first stone.”
Your anxiety comment prompted a thought.
Telling people that scrupulosity is a sinful form of pride is one of the most damaging religious messages ever devised. Take a person with uncontrollable OCD, give them a religion that compels them to constantly inventory their sins through examinations of conscience -- including interiorly "sinful" thoughts never even acted upon, get them really feeling guilty and ashamed for these intrusive thoughts -- then tell them that this uncontrollable guilt they feel is actually also sinful.
The utter disregard for a proper understanding of mental health in the traditional religious space is so unbelievably destructive.
You need to check out autism consecrated. This is something that the co founder and I have talked about. I have been called scrupulous by a former director. I was told to receive Communion before Confession.
I’m still that way. The last Confessor didn’t understand what a trial Examen is for me, and I was mildly told to make a list. This put me in a pre Christmas funk. Christmas is hard anyway, with expectations from family, children, etc.
Some days I feel that I shouldn’t write anything. I realized that one of the people I was thinking of (and was angry at)was the earlier me. But the earlier me was scarred. I shouldn’t be angry at the earlier me; indeed, the earlier me needed God. No human could fix me. Therapy does help, but it’s not everything. It did save my life.
I’m a mess. 🤷♀️
I’m just going to listen for a bit. I’m overwhelmed and overthinking.
I've watched this happen to someone I love very much. It was traumatic to be up close and personal with the biting scrupulosity that turned this dear person (blessedly not forever) into a shattered shell. I can only try to imagine how much worse than witnessing it experiencing it must be. It put some distance between me and the church that hasn't yet fully closed.
I suffer from free floating anxiety as well. I try to offer it up, figuring I'm working off some Purgatory. And if there's anything "left over," let my "anxiety suffering" relieve someone else's Purgatory, I think. Physical exertion also seems to dispel stress, anxiety and depressive moods. I also find hobbies and music and walking around observing nature an anxiety/depression buster.
There's a lot of alcoholism in my family tree, too--been around a lot of it, and it's so tragic and perplexing.
Here's a song I like and which lifts my spirits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTFGOO7NMaE
I found a pair of gaming headphones with excellent acoustics, and listened to Steely Dan’s “Aja” album. It was good for me.
I love listening to music with the steel string guitar. Acoustic guitar also very beautiful.
I have a fondness for orchestral and piano music. Some nights I go to sleep with Studio Ghibli’s “Howl’s Moving Castle “ soundtrack.
Steve, I frequent a lot of good Catholic sites, and I recognize not one of your inquisitors. Not one. I hope you keep the door open to come back, and I am sure you won't pass by any of these people if you should.
This really needed to be said! Thank you.
I'm reminded of an elderly couple I met at an SSPX chapel. They refused to speak to their grown daughter because she sometimes uttered profanities (!) in their home. Surely their souls are spotless, and they would never do such a thing. But here they are, doing far worse, too blind to see it. Perhaps I'm doing similarly right now. its_all_so_tiresome.jpg.
Much of Christianity is about bridging gaps. If you stare at the cavernous gap between yourself and who you should be long enough, you eventually stop judging others for their faults. Most people just lie to themselves and think they are who they should be. Then, when someone tells the truth about what he really thinks, cognitive dissonance demands vicious attack in defense of their lies.
Thank you Steve for telling the truth. The vicious response you've gotten is a sign that your criticisms are very valid and desperately need to be addressed.
"If you stare at the cavernous gap between yourself and who you should be long enough, you eventually stop judging others for their faults."
Yes, this. This, for me, was the beginning of significant change.
The Desert Fathers have a lot of convicting things to say about judging anyone for anything. This is in my opinion one of the top two sins (apart from idolatry) to avoid: judgment and unforgiveness.
I appreciate your honesty, your prose, and an understand a bit about where you’re coming from. I left 25+ years ago and it was bloody. Standing with you wherever the journey leads. And you have my prayers.
Fr. JK (Anglican)
Thank you!
I fell away from about age 16 (there was drift, not a real demarcation line, but by college I was quite hostile to the notion of God) to around age 24. Reading almost all of C.S. Lewis (nonfiction and some fiction) brought me back into the fold. I remember going back to mass the first time probably around age 23, and I felt literally like arms were dragging me back from entering the church! And I thought "Why does this feel so hard to do?" But I persisted, and there was no "phenomena," just Lewis. Then, at age 38, I had a conversion experience in a confessional with a priest whom I later realized was charismatic (i.e, he seemed able to "pull down" the Holy Spirit even though there was the screen separating the penitent (me) and the priest--it was all very shocking to me). This is what must have happened to converts when St. Paul would lay his hands on someone like, say, St. Timothy, I imagine. I am 71 now and a Third Order Carmelite. What happens when one becomes a 3rd order? Ah, one starts working one's way through St. Teresa's "Interior Castle." I think I'm in the 4th mansion (most of the time), but this is a guess.
I want to recommend Rod Dreher to you if you aren't already familiar with him. He has a new book coming out in October that you might like (and a substack).
You were quite handsome, Steve (as I am sure you are still now). I am sure you caught the eye of many of the ladies you evangelized, ha ha. (Smile please.) I hope this hasn't been too long.
Thanks, Anne. This is a better comment. I can be a bit direct (my wife tells me sometimes she thinks I'm on the spectrum) but I can only say that I really bristle at unsolicited spiritual or personal advice that comes across as preachy or condescending. You have a tendency, in my opinion, to sort of hold court in the comments and just lecture from your own experiences, or push religious answers at a guy who is clearly feeling very allergic to them, and it can really rub the wrong way.
But this felt sincere and personal, and I appreciate that.
Actually, in many ways I'm deeply insecure, but not in the faith (any more), and I can't take much credit for that. I just gave up trying to please other people because... because it's actually quite hard to figure out exactly what they want. And even if I did figure it out, would I be able to give that person what they want? I doubt it.
So, to your question of why would God want to have a death of His son by torture as a reparation for sin, all I can do is refer to Lewis, who said that it was mysterious and hard for us to fathom, that he'd sort of thought of it as humanity having a huge debt that could not be paid. Jesus paid our debt.
Have you read Rod Dreher? My bet is you're familiar with him. So, there's an interview he gives on youtube about his new book in which he describes an experience he had in 1993 thereabouts. You might find his mystical experience interesting. I'm not going to post the youtube here--it's sort of a preview of his new book coming out in October. If interested, just search for Rod Dreher on youtube--there is not very much about him, say, 2 or 3 videos max. He has a very active substack which is pretty heavily free. Dreher has gone through a lot of turmoil and suffering, so I find him quite relatable. He is living in Budapest with his son, but his family broke up, which is a source of deep anguish for him.
I find it gives me some ideas and some comfort to see how another person grapples with their problems.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qfL4W7Ogl3c&skip_registered_account_check=true The joy, beauty, lightness, and harmony of this piece and others like it lift me up and shed quite a different light on the matter.
Sometimes good sacred music is a better apologetic than any Thomist has ever dreamed up.
Along the lines of Eastern Christian music, this one is great, too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_geq1hqJSwI&ab_channel=DanielVodenitcharov
I'm also a big fan of Frank La Rocca's O Magnum Mysterium:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SMLinOVi7c&ab_channel=FrankLaRocca
Nice song.
It’s far from over Steve. Don’t despair.
You’re going to do fine longer term!
🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Guhhhhhh… SIN. I meant sin!