Speaking of God ...

Sorting through papers in preparation to move is the biggest time-consuming part of my move (blogging while procrastinating about packing and cleaning is the second).  Going through papers brings up so many old memories.  I must say, the culling mood I'm in at the moment, part of me feels like just throwing it all away.  Leaving the past to itself.

So much Christian stuff I had printed off the net over the past 12 or 14 or so years, and now I look at it in horror. Horror that I ever fell into thinking that the disgusting, modern-day, American version of Christianity had anything in it for me.  A sort of shame that it seems I fell into the trap even while at the time I didn't think I was.  Reading all this evangelical stuff makes me realise how far I am away from that version of things and how utterly creepy it all reads.

Makes me feel dirty.

What also makes me feel dirty is reading my own stuff I've written about God.  I have had this urge to journal ever since I was a teenager.  And it doesn't matter what year it's written, or if it's written last week, but so much of the stuff I read back that I have written just makes my toes curl.  There's this Pollyanna tone that comes through that makes me want to gag.  So much that I read, I think, "Yes, I know that this is the real Sue who is writing this.  But in comparison to the real Sue who was walking round at that time, how close is this writing to that?"

I feel sort of like so much I have written over the years has been a product of trying to find my own voice, my own authentic voice.  And part of what I have written has been overcompensation for what I felt I couldn't express out in the world.  I came across an assignment I wrote for uni in 2000, a non-fiction opinion piece (about time - some things never change.  A fascination for me even now).  And yet again, there was that toe-curling inner screech as I read this little piece of didactic fluff that felt so ... so me, but so not me.  How long it has taken to find my own voice (and today, I'm not even sure that I've done it yet).

As for God, I am pretty cool with where I am at with God these days.  I feel like God is woven so close into the weft and woof of the universe, of us, that we often can't tell the difference.  I also believe in the concept of a Higher Self (all those references to "being seated in the heavenlies with Christ" in Christian circles but then you talk of a Higher Self (especially if it's non-Christians you're referring to of having a part in that) and all of a sudden you've got 10 different shades of blasphemy going on.  Bah. Christians know less than they/we think.

And so I've been feeling pretty cool with what I think God is, and how universal God is, and have reconciled for myself how childish the concepts of heaven and hell are, how pagan they are (I have no problems with paganism.  My reference here is an ironic one - so many evangelical Christians who are so convinced that they are on so much of a higher spiritual plane, balk at anything that vaguely whiffs pagan.  And yet so many of the religions that they would claim to be pagan had a god that would send its people to eternal hell as a concept.  I can't think of anything more childish than that sort of a version of a god who would be so spineless and masochistic and unable to act, so bound by his own narcissism that he would be unable to do anything but to send paltry humans to hell forever.  What a pathetic concept it is!

Those earlier ways of life were in touch with things in ways that I'm sure they would find us unbelievably naive on so many levels.  It's like we've sucked all of our shit up into our heads into tedious lifeless religiosity and conformance and wanting everything to be as easy as possible that we wouldn't know how how to live colourishly if it came up and bit us on the arse.  But I digress, again.

So as I was saying, I feel like I'm pretty cool with what I am perceiving and what I have learnt and the tiny bit of wisdom I've gained through the whole vortex of Christianity.  I feel like the small portion I am taking on with me is beautiful and precious and wonderful.  I've felt like that for several years.  But still, when I read back on journal entries talking about God or to God, or even blog posts written here, even over the past couple of years, I still feel so creepy when I read those words written about God.  It's like I know what the experience felt like, but in the process of putting it into words it lost all of its lustre, and what was left is almost the opposite of how it felt.  This is how it feels when I read back on it.

And so I have come to the end of the words when talking about God.  That is so unbelievably frustrating to me.  And completely delightful at the same time :)