As I dive more into nondualism, I’ve been having random thoughts about hippie Jesus. About communion being psychedelics. About death and resurrection and getting “born again” being reincarnation. About us all being “children of God” as us all being the Universe itself.
And it excites me, to rewrite the story and take away the fear. Not that I find it to be “truth” but to have it take away the message that can be used for oppression.
But then I read this journal entry from a year ago and I can’t make amends with any form of Christianity. I can’t let any good from it bring me back to this place. I remember why I can’t go back.
"And I’m tired of losing people. I’m tired of not being able to tell the people in my life about the pain I’ve been through at the hands of religion
Religion made me believe I was a burden to everyone in my life, including myself.
Progressive Christianity didn’t free me. It was the death of God, the death of my abuser, that freed me. I want them to know the religion I loved was what almost killed me. That letting go of the wrathful God wasn’t enough. That letting go of the damning God wasn’t enough. That even letting go of hell wasn’t enough.
It was in letting go of heaven
Letting go of my Savior
Letting go of the Good News
It was the good God that almost killed me
It wasn’t the tyrannical God that held me captive because of fear.
It was the love. The love that justified the guilt and shame it heaped on me.
It was my screams of “but HE LOVES ME” that wouldn’t let me leave.
It wasn’t the “I am nothing, I am broken, my flesh is weak” that held me down.
It was the “but he loves me anyway” that forced me to stay
If I was that broken, where else could I go? If he had the words of eternal life, even for me, where else could I run to?
Love as a weapon is the most painful of them all."
