Advent for those deconstructing their faith - Day 9

What is this?

This strange nothingness I feel…?

When I proclaimed my God dead to me, and I dead to Him, I thought I would be all-consumed. I thought that lightning might strike me down or the world suddenly burn up around me. Even though I said God was big enough for my doubts and my fears, there was a part of me that still believed I had the power to disappoint Him or to make Him upset with me or to make Him mad.

But, there’s nothing.

My faith imploded – an internal eruption of volcanic proportion – and, yet, I’m still here.

Shouldn’t I be feeling a fury inside? Or shouldn’t my life feel meaningless and hopeless and stale, like I had always thought atheists felt?

Instead, I feel neither here nor there, kind of like I’m floating. The turmoil I have experienced for so long has suddenly vented itself and now there’s a softness and lightness… like the calm of a sea after the storm has raged and moved on.

I’m so confused.

All these years, I believed that knowing God gave me peace. But now that I’m here in this strange god-less place, now I wonder if I even knew what peace was. Because this weird in-between, at least momentarily void of emotion – void of the constant shame and guilt of not good enough – seems eerily quiet and still. It feels like a burden has been lifted off of me.

Could it be that the God I knew was actually really a weight, a set of beliefs, I was never meant to carry?

“Come unto me all ye who labor and are heavy-laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your soul.” ~Matt. 11:28-29 KJV

My faith was suffocating me, drowning me, and now I can breathe. Was that God, or is this God? or is there no God? I don’t know what the answer is, but somehow, I am, for once, ok with not knowing.

Words to contemplate:

In this present moment
I am free,
or,
I am trying to be
free
and empty
of all that
I have done and seen.
Meister Eckhard, “Book of the Heart: Meditations for the Restless Soul” (as collected and translated by Jon M. Sweeney & Mark S. Burrows)

The 2020 Advent Series