For the very positive responses, comments and feedback from my recent blog about ‘1000 days since leaving Church‘ which I published just over a week ago.
I did not quite realise, though had I thought about it, I may have also realised it, quite how common my experience has been.
Thank you for reading, sharing and commenting on it, thank you.
Its been very apparent in the comments, both public and private to me, from youth workers, pioneer folks, leaders in churches and denominations, for how many folks, they had to leave church, to re-find God, and find a faith.
I guess I wasn’t brave enough to do it all those years ago.
I guess I still wanted something about what ‘organised church’ could offer, anyway..
So, thank you.
Thank you for reaching out, thank you for encouraging me on the same journey.
And that’s just it, its a journey. Cliche alert.
I haven’t ‘made it’ , neither have I the answers, and any certainty expressed sometimes comes back as vulnerability or a lesson to be learned.
But something feels more coherent.
I found home in myself, in a way that I was trying to find home elsewhere.
There was a hole in my life and heart – it wasn’t God shaped, it was because of childhood abuse, because of neglect. That God was an external being to surrender to and lose myself to – despite an internal ache that never went away.
Haemin Sunim says this:
We must cultivate all three intelligences for our overall health
Critical intelligence, emotional intelligence and Spiritual intelligence
If one falls to the wayside, it slows the growth of the other two
Haemin Sunim, Things you can only see when we slow down.
If I were to do a 3 way audit of these three intelligences at different times in my life – what would I have found – how might this pie chart look like?
Something like this, probably
And that’s 5% emotional intelligence and awareness on a good day.
In fact I was scared of those weird things like emotions, best to stay disconnected from them, dissociate, and stay in my head. That was the safe place. Critical intelligence to the absolute full. God is to be understood and not felt.
But without all three, no growth. No heart. Or peace. Or Joy. Or love.
What I had been looking for, was closer than I realised. Everything I needed was within, and I have just had to be given permission, and the tools to see it. I just Am. (as are you)
I like this from John O’Donohue too, on coming home to yourself:
May all the is unforgiven in you
Be Released,
May all your fears yield
Their deepest tranquilities.
May all that is unloved in you
Blossom into a future
Graced with love.
So…..Thank you , I am very grateful and appreciative, I really am.
When the light around you lessens And your thoughts darken until Your body feels fear turn Cold as stone inside
When you find yourself bereft Of any belief in yourself And all you unknowingly Leaned on has fallen
When one voice commands Your whole heart And it is raven dark
Steady yourself and see That it is your own thinking That darkens your world,
Search and you will find A diamond-thought of light
Know that you are not alone And that this darkness has purpose Gradually it will school your eyes To find the one gift your life requires Hidden within this night-corner
Invoke the learning Of every suffering You have suffered
Close your eyes Gather all the kindling About your heart To create one spark That is all you need To nourish the flame That will cleanse the dark Of its weight of festered fear
A New confidence will come alive To urge you to higher ground Where your imagination Will learn to engage difficulty As its most rewarding activity.
At least for me it can sometimes feel like it, I dont always know what I’m going to pick up, or what is going to stick. Or the importance of some of those small insignificant moments at the time.
Or the way in which one persons journey inspires my own.
Its that thing, what I learned I pass on to others, but also, by sharing my story could end up being someone else survival manual.
So this one starts with a Sword.
Because if there wasn’t a sword, there wouldnt be a story.
And if there wasn’t a story, many millions, including myself wouldnt have found the life sparkles, glimpses of God, love, destiny and power as described by Paulo Coelho.
But my story of Paulo Coelho started in a headmasters office in Billingham, near Middlesbrough in April 2018.
I was doing a piece of community work for my then employers, FYT, in which I was conducting a community profile, including a semi structured questionnaire with , I think a headteacher or deputy headteacher in their office, at around about 4pm or so, school was empty. I remember the interview going well, and the headteacher had a number of unusual inspirational quotes on their wall. Now up until then, like a good youth worker, the only Paulo’s that I knew of were Paulo Maldini (Italian footballer) and more obviously Paulo Freire. I dont remember the quote itself, but I do remember liking it, writing it down on a notepad and then having a conversation with the headteacher about Paulo Coelho, he said that he was a Brazilian writer.
It was an unexpected seed that stuck to me like velcro. At a time when I didnt realise how soon I might start having life revealed in the ways in which Paulo Coelho talks about it.
I can honestly say that reading to understand and reading to see life have been so part of my healing process, from within the dark times, and also since.
But sometimes the way in which some things have found me have been as mysterious, gifts from the universe, that are so difficult to explain.
Fast forward less than 9 months.
I am travelling from Sunderland to South Shields, from the friends house where I am staying, to my therapists office. It must be maybe my 2nd or 3rd session. Definitely not the first one. I have little money, though I have just started a new job. But one of the things I realise that I have started to enjoy is taking myself out for coffee, with a book. Enjoying the introvert life.
But this was slightly less relaxing as I’m in a strange place that I dont know, I’m nervous about therapy, and I have probably 30-40 mins to spare. So I park up, and walk into the town, and noted that as I drove past there was a community cafe/centre that was open.
I go in. Its basic looking – ie its a community cafe, its not Costa or Starbucks or a trendy independent coffee shop. It sells instant coffee in a polystyrene type cup for about £1, perfect. Luxury coffee would be too much when pre therapy angst was in the air.
They do have, however, a second hand book stall. Second, third or fourth hand, but that’s ok. Two books grabbed my attention. They shone to my attention. They were ‘The Alchemist’ , and also ‘Veronica Prepares to die’ both by Paolo Coelho. I pay only slightly more for these two books that I do the coffee. They appeared to me, at that right time. Even as I bought them I could sense some kind of universe destiny about them. As if they were a gift to me, as I started the long road of recovery , here was a gift, a guide along the way. I would have no idea about Paulo Coelho if it wasn’t for that Headmaster office in Billingham, but it was such a compelling moment that these books were calling for me at that time. And me being open to that nudge. To follow that mysterious calling…
I dont remember what happened in that therapy session. But I do remember that I started to read the Alchemist straight away. And…
Id like to say that I had a wonderful experience reading it, but it didnt quite resonate in the way that I half expected it too (given its very high popularity and readership), yes some nice phrases and it wasn’t that I didnt like the story, I just found it a bit to remote, too much in a world that I didnt understand yet to connect with.
Though I loved ‘Veronica prepares to die’. Maybe because at that time I needed to read something about dignity and life, and about facing the reality death, and in this moment life.
Paulo Coelho has accompanied me (and also Christelle) throughout both our healing journeys and our relationship together, we have read at least 8 books of his together , some I have read alone first, some we’ve read together. Some have shown us about love, about life, about power, about death, truth, victory, and also about faith, spirit and God.
We also re read The Alchemist, and it made more sense the second time, it resonated in a different way. But then again dont many books when we read them again? When we have changed, we see things differently.
And that’s the beauty of Paulo Coelho.
So, along with the many ‘self help’ reflective books I have read in the last few years,. and there’s been a lot – there hasn’t been more than a few months when I haven’t read a Paulo Coelho book, or even re read one.
I realised, that his journey, across the strange road to San Tiago, Spain, started with his search for his sword.
And as a consequence of searching for his sword, found more besides, and as a consequence of his journey Paulo, then wrote, stating in the Authors note afterwards, how this journey inspired him to write. His self discovery started with a sword, a faith, The Tradition.
I realise that many of the Paulo Coelho books have found me, its been rare that I have searched them deliberately. At least 5 have been ‘found’ in second hand bookstores, in places where I was only there momentarily, Dundee, Stockton, and those two in South Shields to start off with. Its like gifts from the universe. It makes me realise how much it has been a variety of books that have accompanied me along the way, and Paulo Coelho’s fiction has almost balanced my desire for understanding and knowledge, and provided a different kind of wisdom, through story, as story. Some of Paulo Coelho, is his story.
As Coelho says, ‘The universe conspires to help the dreamer.’
Sometimes that ‘help’ has been in the form of therapists, or self help books, friends and gifts. Other times its been the stories of Paulo Coelho that have prompted my heart, soul and spirit, they have been spiritual experiences in themselves. Ill write this elsewhere, but he is definitely an author I feel safe with.
I used to think there was only one Paulo (Friere) that was worth reading, now id say that my life is fuller because of the universe gifts from Paulo Coelho.
Who’d have thought this would have started from a headteachers office in Billingham?
” When you want something, all the universe conspires to help you achieve it”
(Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist)
Im trying in a way to describe something that feels very deep and meaningful, but strangely dont have the words. Maybe its because the depth of Paulo Coelho is there for those who want to read him for themselves. Ive loved being led and guided by his journeys, maybe you will do too?
I often get the question; ‘What was it like growing up with your parents?’ – especially those who have read my story.
Ill tell you. In a moment..
Im just reading Oprah Winfrey and Bruce Perrys book ‘What Happened to you?’ in which they describe what it would be like to ask this question (as opposed to ‘whats wrong with you?) in regard to responding to situations of trauma in society – especially amongst some of the most judged in society (notably young people). It has given me much food for thought, especially in regard to youth/community practice, and ill share more on that on my other blog.
But the book also touches on a personal level.
So Ill give you a trigger warning, Emotional and Parental Abuse.
There’s a beautiful story near the end of the book in which Oprah recalls a friend of hers cutting up a strawberry in the kitchen in which the friend delicates cuts up the strawberry for the daughter in the shape of a rose, and calls them rose strawberries, it is in this moment that Oprah thinks to herself:
This is what a mothers love is
Oprah Winfrey, 2021
It is when Oprah sees the example of love that she realises what she didnt have, that she grew up ‘without’.
Without a Mothers Love.
I have written before about how growing up with psychopathic parents meant growing up Alone. It was also about growing up ‘Without’ .
Yet it was a bizarrely hidden ‘without’ .
It was a ‘without’ behind closed doors. Behind the doors of respectability that didnt include any of the so called ACES (adverse childhood experiences), it didnt involve moving houses, countries or cities, or being in care. It didnt involve divorce or unemployment.
It was like existing without care, protection, love, nurture, support.
It was without being seen, being visible.
It was without being able to ask, for anything
It was without.
It meant learning to exist with a shield, strength shield of ‘learning to cope without’ or denying the need of any of these things.
Which is why I sought refuge into my head. And pretending that everything was ok. That I was ok.
And buying mothers days was an activity filled with falseness, real birthday cards were blank ones.
When I grew with a fear of seeing to be selfish – then I understood not to ask when in need of anything – to go without
When I grew up told off for being ungrateful – then I understood not to ask for something in case it would appear that I wasn’t content with what I had.
When I grew up without praise or affirmation – then I learnt to keep working harder without reward, in case there might be one.
Growing up without meant – amongst other things – without pocket money (that’s what Granny does and I dont do that, also ‘you’ll just waste it’) . Money and possessions are a big deal with the psychopathic/narcissist, everything belongs to them.
Without meant turning up to school with arm patched up clothes, packed lunches, and when the dentist suggested braces and travelling 11 miles to get them fitted and fixed every 3 months being told ‘ No you can’t have them that bad as I’m not going to do that’ .
When I grew up trying to understand how to survive every action or moment without being told off, or ‘upsetting the mother’ – then realising what isn’t there love, care, attention, affection, visibility, nurture, protection doesn’t even figure. There was no giving only taking.
Oh and it extended well beyond childhood.
There was no offer to contribute towards any studies, (even though there was insistence to attend 1 graduation) , neither was any support , housing or financial during my marriage separation 4 years ago (but there was upset that I didnt ask) . These were experienced, without.
It was also a without so many things, and yet as I use this phrase it reminds me that ‘with’ was one of their phrases around food. It would be after some fairly disastrous first course, that a second (pudding) would be unleashed. It would be some kind of over baked, under fruited, or reduced priced pie/crumble or equivalent, and to hide it various additions would be trailed out of the fridge, to hide the original monstrosity/admission of undervalue – so ice cream (value/vanilla usually), evaporated milk or custard – or at Christmas cream or the squirty cream – the ‘with it’ was a show, a covering. It was over done, to hide ‘without’ . At this point the challenge was to be true and ‘go without’ because what looked like ‘a lot’ – a table with 5 of cream, ice cream or custard – was lacking something core, but to deny it was to appear ungrateful, because there was a weird kind of choice on offer. Gifts were toxic. So actual need requests couldnt be asked for.
That’s what growing up in a psychological abuse home was like.
It was without care. It was without heart, soul, safety, space, or fun.
There was ‘with’ – but it came at a price.
So I read Oprah and Perrys book, and realise that what I have wanted to be able to give, I had to learn, but was not what I had any experience of. Growing up emotionally alone, meant going without, existing without, surviving without, making life work for me, despite them, not because of them.
Growing up ‘without’ meant too that I was completely susceptible to any care and attention from others, I didnt have a ‘God shaped hole’ in my life – it was more emotionally psychological than that (not that I knew at the time, most of the time) , but I certainly filled this with ‘God-shaped’ activities, in becoming part of a church through my teens and beyond. Neglect is one of the biggest issues in Child Safeguarding.
That ‘without’ has then played out in so many ways.
As I grew up ‘without’ I had to force myself to consider valuing myself.
To ‘treat’ myself
To ask for help – and know it could be trusted
To realise I couldn’t do it alone
To realise too that I could receive love, blessings, hope and be able to see, feel and experience the love of the universe, God and others.
Over the last few weeks I have realised that I would have struggled to read, or dwell in the ‘Blessings’ of the book that I bought a few weeks ago (by John O Donohue) – I would have discounted these as weird, ‘new age’ , ‘not very christian’ – all to hide the real truth, that I didnt want to accept that I could receive something good, or feel something good, a blessing.
Learning to live ‘without’ – has meant having to now come close to and notice those things, notice, accept, and know. Sometimes I get angry that I realise how much I was fucked up by my parents. Sometimes, like this moment with Oprah and a strawberry it gives me an opportunity to pause again, face a truth, and remind myself, compassionately of who I truly am. To be grateful of how I survived, and my strength in doing so. To be compassionate on my wounded heart and its capacity to love.
There are many scarcities in life, and shame is one of them, its anti dote is self compassion. So, as I close…
May I breath in the love of the universe, kindness, goodness and generosity, may I be healed through attending to myself, and holding myself with warmth. May I hold myself with warmth as I attend to and discover what happened to me.
Every moment acts as an opportunity for self compassion. This journey keeps on giving.
Thank you and bless you for reading. May you receive and give love.
In a week when its been revealed that 50% of the UK is no longer christian, no surprise really, tbh… but I have to ‘confess’ something:
I dont go to church anymore.
It just stopped.
I just stopped going.
About 1000 days ago. That’s over 150 potential Church going Sundays.
Oh and by the way, its also about 1000 days since the start of the March 2020 lockdown.
But, my last Sunday Church Sunday was over a month before.
A month before everyone was doing it.
I just stopped going.
And…. I haven’t gone back.
On one hand that no one contacted me from the church I was going to at the time, revealed to me something, but I know the world was gearing up for a major crisis at that time, and me not going to church was barely that. Im glad in a way though, as it meant I didnt have to deal with any conversation about not going.
So here I am, 1000 ish days later.
To say id been drifting away from church for a long time before was pretty accurate. I knew I didnt want to commit to a church, something was stopping me, and had for a while.
Also, though I wrote this piece in 2016/7, about falling off the evangelical cliff, and the resources I gathered along the way, what I hadn’t quite been able to do was ‘stop’ going to church.
‘Church’ had been part of me for , well, a lifetime, and ‘not’ going at that time was too much, I think. I still needed it, for the things that it gave me, identity, some influence, even a space to be creative, music and the odd preach. But in another world I was dynamic, edgy, liberal, yet I still ‘went’ to church in quite a conforming way.
So I still kept going. Just.
So, not going had been on the cards for a while.
It took a bit of courage to finally stop going. Two Sundays of guilt. But that was it.
Then I stopped, I thought it might be for a few weeks.
But then no one went to church for months.
And neither did I.
And… it was ok…
And…I am still alive…
What I lost by not going was some of the people who went.
But what I gained was significant time for me.
I also gained coherence, and the time I didnt waste in trying to justify something to myself, doing something I felt I ‘should’ do, and had always felt I ‘should’ do. But then Sundays became another day at the weekend to walk, another day for me.
I gained many other things too, and I think they are for future writing.
And, in the last 1000 days, I have so needed those days.
As, what I have come to terms with and dealt with in the those 1000 days has been the extent of the abuse I suffered as a child, and the effects of ‘self-loathing’ evangelicalism, and the impact of rigid, moralistic, closed minded evangelical faith on me as a child.
Also in those 1000 days I began and recently ended a process in challenging that abuse, and in that process constructed significant boundaries from them, yes, finally 28 years after wanting to do it the first time, I have effectively divorced my parents.
I took time to undergo therapy for those events, and their impact.
It has been significant, and hard.
And, from a spiritual perspective, through these discovered something about myself that has been profoundly impactful, about the spirituality that has been revealed that exists on my inside – and that’s for another day in terms of writing about it, but it has been a beautiful life filling awakening spiritual journey. (Do have a look in the menu above to see some of the resources that have guided me during this time on this, especially Lucia Cappacione, Eckhart Tolle, Haemin Sunim, Richard Rohr, Gary Zukav, as well as the Daily Northumbria prayer book, The CCA daily readings, and more recently John O Donohue)
In 1000 days, or more specifically, since I started a 2nd bout of therapy 2 years ago this week, unbeknown to what I thought I was going to therapy for, I discovered a coherency to my spiritual life that I hadn’t encountered before. And I feel significantly better for it.
God makes more sense too, because actually God makes less sense, but I feel God and this is a whole new mysterious love that is deeply connectful. God seems everywhere and in everything and also deeply within. Maybe that’s what Colossians was about all the time. Reconciliation of all things.
( See.. I haven’t rejected faith)
I have enjoyed in the last three years experiencing a number of ‘online’ churches, with the most coherent, deep, soulful and peaceful being a Jewish Bar mitzvah and the Buddhist meditations, and these I have gone with with Christelle, who I also introduced her to anglican services too with Gemma Sampson (then in Hartlepool).
I didnt expect to not keep going to church, in the same way that I didnt expect that going to therapy became the beginning of a spiritual journey, via some of the dark nights of my own soul. And also, discovering that soul too. A soul, a life, a ‘James’ that had been left behind and adapted into a type of existence.
And this is before some of the other things that have happened to me in the last 1000 days, including marrying my beautiful Christelle a few months ago – changing jobs, flats and cars in that time too.
As I look back on these 1000 days I now notice that its been a time of shedding of the old, and some of that was very painful, some less so, some shedding, like the proverbial Onion involved tears, and other sheddings gave space for the new to emerge.
And some of that is for the future.
But for today, its to recognise that its now about 1000 days, especially in a week when the christian faith in the UK has been brought to the attention, it prompted me to share a little.
Maybe I’m now in the ‘spiritual’ and still slightly religious category, maybe I’m just realising myself and the spirituality within me, within the universe and the divine love that connects all, maybe….
Maybe its just about becoming me, and that required a deep emotional and spiritual cleanse.
So, tomorrow, its Sunday… where shall I go for a walk?
Im reading the book ‘What Happened to You?’ Conversations on Trauma, Resilience and Healing, by Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey, at the moment, its a powerful conversation between them that includes stories of humanity, and the effects of trauma. Worth a read, and ill put a link to it in the resources page above.
But this, for today is what I thought id share, on page 216, after Oprah shares a story of how a man who was exposed to childhood neglect then acted violently began to change whilst in prison.
What would it look like if we asked -‘What happened to you’ rather than ‘Whats wrong with you’ – or had the attitude that wanted to listen…How would this change my life, and those around me?
It has been these words that I have reflected and mediated on this morning, waking up early enough to see the sunrise and to hear the birdsong through the mist.
Take time to notice your very presence today.
Awaken to the mystery of being here, and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.
Have joy and peace in the temple of your senses
Receive encouragement when new frontiers beckon.
Respond to the call of your gift and the courage to follow its path.
Let the flame of anger free you of all falsity.
May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame.
May anxiety never linger about you.
May your outer dignity mirror and inner dignity of soul.
Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.
Be consoled in the quiet symmetry of your soul
May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.
Yesterday I shared one of John O Donohues blessings for the morning taken from his book ‘To Bless the space between us’; as I read the next few pages of his book this morning I discovered this, its entitled, ‘For a New beginning’
Maybe this is for you, maybe this is for me, every day is a potential new beginning, do share with others whom it may be helpful to.
James Ballantyne 