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Back, Again
By Jay Colle
September 4
Dear Pastor Enzo,
It is with all of the seriousness I can muster that I write
this letter to inform you I am done with Christianity. Obviously, that means I
will no longer be attending the church. I want to make it clear this has
nothing to do with you so please don’t take it personally. I am not
disappointed in you or your teachings although you and they did contribute to
my decision but only a little bit. I will not be attending another church so
don’t bother asking. As far as I know, Ellen and the kids will still be
attending but I can’t confirm that. Understandably, my wife and I are suffering
some communication issues right now. I wish you the best of luck as you lead
your flock into the future. I will chart your progress from afar.
Till whenever,
Earl Benton
Chapter Two
I had mailed the letter to my pastor days ago. I hadn’t
heard from him and didn’t think I would. What could he say to me? I doubt there
are many classes offered at seminary that taught future pastors how to respond
to longstanding members of their congregation that decide the whole
Christianity business is a sham. My initial dilemma had more to do with timing
than anything else. Did my new, heathen life officially start the minute I
wrote the letter and proclaimed the announcement in print? Or did it start once
the pastor received the letter, thereby having an officer of the church duly
notified? Not exactly a blessing but almost. Hard to say and, honestly, I don’t
think it mattered all that much. After all, it was my decision and it became
sanctioned the minute I said it was sanctioned—mentally, verbally or otherwise.
The fact that I pondered that question at all showed I had a lifetime of
built-in authority issues to claw through.
My decision to abandon Christianity wasn’t a knee jerk
reaction to some catastrophic event or the result of an unexpected death of a
loved one. That would have made the decision superficial and doomed to fad
status, here today and probably not here tomorrow. The initial germination may
have been budding inside me my entire life. I’d always been a ponderer, someone
who thought and worried too much, and my spiritual life was by no means off
limits to my internalized dramas. Of course, I say that but, thinking back, I
probably put a mental governor on my creeping reservations because, according
to a lifetime of teaching and indoctrination, doubt was a sin and hell had
special vats of boiling oil for those who turned away.
With that hot liquid in mind I could only imagine what my
wife was thinking when I caught her staring at me, eyes wide, lips mashed
together, unable to verbalize the angst winding through her emotional reserves.
I had made it a point in our 23 years of marriage to try and share with her
whatever was on my mind, no matter how inane or odd. And boy, did I ever have a
lot of thoughts in both categories. This verbal sharing habit served the duel
purpose of making me more endearing (in a “it must be a wonderful little planet
that you live on” kind of way) and scaring her to the point of tears (in a “if
you follow through with that I will never speak to you again” kind of way). For
both of those reasons I decided to keep my developing thoughts about abandoning
Christianity to myself. When I first started toying with the idea I managed to
scare even myself so I didn’t dare drag Ellen into the process. Maybe it was a
subtle form of spiritual chivalry but I didn’t want to haul her through my
mental flipping just for exercise. She deserved to be spared. Of course, my
gallantries made the impact of my announcement pack a much larger whollop than
was probably necessary but I’m not sure anything would have sufficiently
prepared her. She hadn’t spoken to me since I told her, which was probably best
because I had 45 years of habits and processes that needed to be adjusted. Her
silence gave me a chance to gain a toehold in my new life of heathenry.
On Tuesday I woke up at 6:01, the same time I had been
waking up for as long as I can remember (when it wasn’t 5:30). I always enjoyed
the mornings because the house was silent and it gave me some time to enjoy my
domain without interruption. The kids varied school schedules required a
complicated matrix of alarms and wakeup calls, but I had routinely given myself
15 minutes of quiet before the whistles of water pipes and the screeching of
clothes drawers broke the calm.
Ever since junior high school I had spent those minutes
reading the Bible, praying and writing in my journal. The omnipresent specter
of The Quiet Time has hung over the followers of Christianity for hundreds of
years. Sunday School teachers and Small Group Leader’s have waved it like a
club over the heads of believer’s young and old. Approach any spiritual
authority figure with a problem in your life and the first response is usually,
“How is your Quiet Time? Are you being faithful in your Time With the Lord?”
The tilt of the head, furrowed brow and softly bitten lower lip only added to
the seriousness of the unspoken accusation. In the areas of prayer and Bible
study, the laity are guilty until proven guiltier. And we are guilty, because no one, not even the exalted accuser, can keep
up the torrid, expected pace of Daily Devotionals every morning of the week.
Those that came close were either cripplingly legalistic or bucking for a
Perfect Attendance With God plaque from their Sunday School class. And really,
at 14 years old, in my darkest hour of need, I could never understand why the
Quiet Time question was at the top of the response list when I had just
confessed of my paralyzing desire to see the preacher’s daughter naked.
Over and over we were told by the adults–either from the
pulpit or in casual conversation in the Church parking lot–habits can be formed
in 30 days. “Give it a month and you will be amazed at how easy it is to get up
in the morning and dive right in. Before long you will find yourself jumping
out of bed and, odds are, you will experience a bad day if you don’t have your
Quiet Time.” When I was in high school, one teacher was honest enough to admit
he couldn’t get through his without a cup of coffee but, in his easy
rationalizing style, he figured God made the coffee beans and that rendered
special dispensation on caffeine. The thirty-day theory never worked for me. I
remember thinking it was because I had been inconsistent with my start times or
maybe I had carried out the Quiet Time a couple of mornings when I’d rather
been sleeping. I’m sure insincerity counted against you just as much as
caffeine counted on the positive side of the holy ledger. I also remember
thinking how it was unfortunate that I wasn’t allowed to drink coffee in high
school and that my parent’s should be held partially responsible for my
inconsistent Quiet Time. At least I was learning rationalization from my
teacher.
Until today. Rationalization was unnecessary. In my foggy
journey to the edge of the bed I realized I had no reason to be awake. No Bible
to read, no journal to record sad and sappy thoughts and D.J., my daughter,
wasn’t due her wake-up nudge for another 30 minutes. I threw everything into
reverse and dug into the comforter for another half hour of heathen sleep.
But I couldn’t pull it off. The minute my head hit the
pillow I was wide-awake. I could not have been more alert if someone had
splashed me with cold water. Lying on my side, double pillows stacked under my
head, I started receiving mental snap shots from some deeply hidden crevice in
the section of my brain responsible for doling out memories. The stills started
cross-dissolving slowly and I could distinguish details from each one. I was
young, usually reading, sometimes drawing, but always alone. As each picture
was replaced by another, the pace of the flips quickened. For a brief period of
time the speed allowed me to see myself in flip-book animation style and it
looked like I was eating books and then passing them through the back of the
chair. After a few minutes watching myself power read, the transitions were
flipping too fast and the whole thing disintegrated into an origami egret and
flew away. I spent the rest of the time staring at the floor fan, praying, no,
hoping the egret would not return. At 6:30 I climbed out of bed and began my
day.
© 2012 Jay Colle
