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.
Falling off the Evangelical Cliff
‘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?
James Ballantyne 