I love this time of the year. Its the time of year when I wake up and drink coffee looking out of the window and see how the dark blue early morning light changes through the colours into the sunrise, admitted today it is just a grey light giving tree branches a dark effect. I love this time of the year, because this all happens at a reasonable time of the morning.
Yet, I do the same thing every morning
I turn on the light.
I flick the switch
So I can see.
So that I can get on with..whatever the day brings, requires light
Coffee, breakfast, reading, work….
Its as if the darkness of the night needs to be escaped from, obliterated, and eyes drawn to the comfortable of the kettle, the sink, the phone, the laptop, the busy, the things, the activities..
Night Walking with Scouts when I was 13 taught me about not using the torchlight until it was impossible not to see with my own night vision. My eyes could adjust. At 13 I would need lights for my bike on early morning paper rounds, so cars could see me, but I could see ok. ‘It’s not as dark as we make it out to be’ when we step outside light infused buildings into the natural light of the streets, the parks or the moonlit infused sky of the open field.
‘The people in darkness will see a great light’
I used to the love the darkness of the streets, the towns the cities, as I walked them, as I had conversations with young people as a youthworker in them, the darkness often meant more interesting conversations than in the summer time, the dark autumn and winter nights full of adventure, adrenalin and unpredictability. That was a darkness, that was a terrain I was comfortable to explore in, and rarely needing a torch.
Far easier to explore the outer terrain of the darkness, than explore the terrain within.
The terrain within, the darkness within so full of shame, hurt, pain, not to be touched, not to go there. To be afraid, to let it have power.
To be afraid of the dark.
To become aware, is to see the light (John O’Donohue)
Yet that often truthful voice of darkness remains, at times shouting, at times cajoling, at times fearing, at times reminding, and for so long it dominated my everything, and it may do you too.
I thought I could maintain appearances
I thought if I could just do something everything would be ok
I thought if I did the right things, other people would change
I thought that ……
Yet the ache of darkness pained within, prowled, festered, and was fed daily. Telling me truths, that I tried to block out, cover it with busy, distract with drama, soothe with food, fill that aching pain of darkness. Pretend it wasnt there, false masking in life, the energy it took to keep the James show on the road, numbing the pain.
Afraid of the inner dark.
The inner dark maintaining its place, loving the self destruction, never wanting to be exposed, never wanting to be seen, self torture and blame its oxygen, self destruction its goal.
Morality is often the enemy of growth (John O Donohue)
We dont want to go there. It feels painful.
I didnt.
So accustomed to the light, so sometimes spiritually accustomed to God being equated with light, that darkness is shamed, darkness is rejected, darkness is suppressed, darkness is moral failure. Darkness is to be avoided.
Yet, thought you and I may walk in the shadows, I will be with you, you will not be alone (Psalm 23)
He will be called Emmanuel, God is with you….and with you always…
In the dark, and not just to transform it, but walking with you through it, through the torture of trauma, through the torture of the voices that dont go away, through the torture of daily abuse, the self soothing and addiction, through the torture of feeling small, trapped, alone… through, with, alongside.. In…yes in the darkness
About three weeks into recovering from my emotional breakdown of 6 years ago, I was reading the Anglican Morning prayer with my friend, and though I cannot remember or find the exact passage, it was something about ‘God appearing in the clouds’ it was in Isaiah somewhere, I can’t find it. And my anglican priest friend just said to me, ‘James, God will meet you in the cloud, whatever path you need to go on, God will be close, even when the cloud mystifies, hides, soaks the path, God will be there, and will appear to you, in the cloud itself’
It gave me ‘spiritual permission’ for want for a better phrase to continue the very tentative process then of the inner walk, revealing and uncovering, that God, that I believed in was light, love and joy….was also in the darkness, also in the bewildering hidden space between. Also in the cloud.
Like today. No mystical sunrise beyond the blue. Just grey light as grey as this screen is im typing on.
In the darkness we are confronted with the unknown, peering cautiously around the corners, tentative steps with tiny courage, falling at hurdles never seen in the light… but thats ok.. its where courage gets tested, its where resolve gets made, its where, honestly, its where love finds us. The more we shame the darkness the more it destroys us. Thats not the path of the God of the bible, its not the path of love, its not the path of healing, its not the path of joy.
That darkness is not us. It is not your identity. It is not who you are.
The darkness might help us, in ways we are unable to see…yet.
The darkness might be shielding us from too much shiny light (s) that seem false, seem unreal, seem artifical
The darkness might be reminding us of part of our truth, a truth to be be faced, faced so that it doesn’t continue to have power over us . Faced so that we can realise that we are bigger than it. Faced so it’s a friend and loved, not a prickly pain in the corner, festering, faced so it has the possibility of transformation.
The darkness helps us to grow, if we have the courage to turn, to, like my eyes on scout trips, adjust to it, feel our way around it, become friends with it, accept it, and love it. Slow, eye adjustment, not blinding torch. Darkness needs hugs and warmth, and whilst it tells you otherwise, you have more than enough love to give to it.
The people who walk in darkness will see a great light… They will, and you will, and I will..and from the shadows light will emerge.
I have written before about a certain pink coloured book (link here to that post) that I consider to have changed my life, in terms of how I could see what had happened to me, and the behaviours of others.
However.
There was another book that I had read 6 months previously that had as profound an importance.
At the time, my bookshelf was a mixture of Youth work, Theology, Mission and Social Justice books.
My head was full of ideas.
My life, however, was, and had been falling apart and I was in denial.
I felt completely alone, no where to go, emotionally or physically.
With no one to talk about what was going on.
I was already unemployed at the time, what I didnt know was that I was about to be out of the family home, with no family support, and about to battle to save a marriage. I had barely any friends, and had at least 1 breakdown in that summer.
I have no idea when I bought it, or how it got there, but there was a copy of Richard Rohr’s book ‘Falling Upwards’ on my bookshelf. I may have read 1 RR book previously, but I can not for the life of me remember when I bought it. However, I do remember picking it up to read from my bookshelf in about the April of that year (2018), and thinking to myself that it was a bit ‘woolly’ , a bit not ‘academic’ enough, for the James that wrote blogs on books and theology, this wouldn’t cut it.
In August of that same year, with cracks opening wide, beginning to expose the fragility of my situation, I noticed it on the bookshelf. It was more that likely that with no money I could only read the books I had, so it was this books turn.
To Summarise, Rohr outlined the two halves of life. The first he said was about achievement, making it, ego, and accomplishments. The second, he said was about becoming real, about to being true to the person who was actually inside, and not the masks, identities created for those accomplishments.
He said that to get from one to the other, there is often something seismic, the wake up call, the breakdown, and this could appear/be in a number of ways.
It all depended on how we responded to it.
If I’m honest, I didn’t recognise the first part of what he described, even if I did see bits of me ‘being an internationally known youth worker’ or ‘well known for writing’ all of these things seemed even at the time, I didnt feel like I had achieved, or made it, or anything, I was full of shame, fear, self doubt, and emptiness, trauma I hadn’t dealt with and running away from and bottled up for a day I never wanted to arrive.
But.
I could recognise the middle bit.
The breakdown. The situation of desperation. The need to be vulnerable. When everything that I even thought I had did begin to be stripped away.
And as I picked up the phone to a friend to ask for a place to stay, and cried in relief when he said yes, I kind of knew.
I knew that I was now in the beginning of this phase. I knew, and I could choose how I would respond to what was going on.
I knew it was time.
I said to myself on that very day of that very call,
‘I do not know what is going to happen now, but I am going to learn, I am going to face it’
It may well have been the words from a book.
(and there’s tears in my eyes today as I write this, recognising my journey in all this)
It didnt matter. Because, ‘Falling Upward’ gave me a roadmap, it gave me something to cling to, it gave me a sense that it will be ok, and a sense that what I was about to go through wouldn’t destroy everything (and at that point I needed to know that there was something theological/spiritual about whatever was going to happen). I could hang what was about to happen on a process, (which has subsequently included amongst other things, 4 separate sessions of therapy, a considerable amount of time seeing, understanding and processing and healing from deep psychological childhood trauma, my own coping mechanisms from this, and facing the inner demons, all over the last 6 years). In short, it gave me a structure, and it gave me hope.
Hope because at that moment, and had been for a considerably very long time, life had been dark, shadowed, avoided and I was in perpetual survival mode feeling trapped. But now I had hope. Hope that there might something beyond what I was about to start the process of going through.
Hope because I knew of no one, and heard of no one who had walked a similar path, yes I had heard of ‘mid-life crises’ but I was already in crisis, but no one who shared their story, it felt as though I could hope because the path wasnt completely unheard of, tiny, frightened alone me, walking, falling, held with hope from a book. But it was hope none the less.
Hope, because at that point no one had told me I was going to be ok. I just had to believe it for myself, and now this book shone a light on the possible future.
But that I had to face, encounter, deal with, and not avoid everything that was about to arrive. For though much was taken, and I had to cling on at times, in a way, I started from a very low point already.
And as I walked on the top of Roker cliffs a few weeks later, having received two weeks of safety, and care, that learning process was starting. It would do, and continues to this day.
Where did that resilience come from James?
Asked a friend of mine a few weeks ago when I was telling them this story.
I think it came from when I was 12.
When I told myself the same thing.
I knew that that point that if I am going to make it in life I am going to have to do it on my own. I could not ask for help, have needs, have dreams, ask for money even, or support, I was alone and had to make it. 28 years later, and with the framework of a Richard Rohr book and a safe place to sleep in I dug deep into that survival and determined resolve, the lowest point had been reached already. I was broken, but not beaten, and that moment of vulnerability and seeing the path, was already a very small, but significant positive fall upwards.
Richard Rohr, Falling Upwards, Thank you. Actually, you probably did save my life. You were probably my first Angel on this path.
Those of you who have followed my writing for a while have either read or endured a few pieces from me about my faith, notably my evangelical upbringing and also more recently my stepping back from going to church.
At least, what I’m beginning to realise and see is how emotionally complicated my relationship with God (and the church) was, and that is all written above.
Yet, at the same time, I dont think ive really had a process though my various breakdowns, rebuilds and healing journey of being angry with God, there wasn’t a sense of ”Why?’ God did you let this or that happen’ not recently; I had internalised personal responsibility, having taken that on implicitly as the little rescuer of my parents emotions, and then becoming a christian aged 10 in which somehow I implicitly then gave Jesus my ‘Sin’ (which were survival strategies) and for forgiveness for them. I wasn’t sinful aged 10, yet this was the pattern I then implicitly believed in. This is appropriate here:
It’s been more of a gradual shift.
Mainly because over the last few years I have realised that there was good and well meant good in the community of many of the churches I have been involved and and certainly the church of my teenage years, and tbh many of them were as scared of or had experience of the same monster. (Except the ‘old dears’ , the ‘old dears’ would have had special visits by them, having been ‘popped around to be seen’ and so, the ‘old dears’ every week at church would be like ‘How are they, how are your parents’ . It was a lovely first question as a young person to face in church. For some reason it was old people in churches who they gravitated to, to be ‘helpful’ and ‘charming’.)
Anyway. I digress. 2 paragraphs in and a pre-amble and I’m no-where, where I thought I would be.
I have began to notice something.
The things I needed for myself, were things that I ascribed to God for.
Here are a few examples from well known evangelical songs from the 1990’s…
Jesus is Alive (mostly on Easter Day)
God is Strong (You are mighty/ Our God is an awesome God)
God is love (various)
God is Powerful (There is power in the name of Jesus, Show your power)
God is in or is the quiet space (Be still, The Lords my shepherd)
God is the place of Joy (The Happy song)
God is the exclusive way to hope and healing (In Christ alone)
I trust in God alone
I found Jesus
Im definitely not here to say that these things aren’t true.
But what I have realised is that by ascribing to God for these things, these were not things that I felt I could be, they were the what God can do and be, and not what I could do, be or have. I know this sounds complicated.
I have discovered that I have needed to know my own Power and Strength, that I can have healthy power, and not stay weak.
I needed to find myself, not wait to be found, or look for something other.
I have discovered that I have needed to find my own capacity to love, for self love, compassion and self gentleness, not sink in the swamp of self loathing.
I have discovered that I have needed to find safety as an important part of everyday , to heal.
I needed to be able to trust myself (not my mind)
I have discovered that I can be alive and joyful.
I have discovered too how my inner self is both spiritual and creative, that tender person within, that needed nature and care and attention.
These have all been important components of my healing process over the last 5 years. For too long I believed that these were only possible ‘because of God’ and therefore ‘unattainable for myself’, or that ‘I could carry on, or suffer without them for myself’. I dont think that these were the intentions of the song writers by the way. The other thing of complication is that the same powerful God was also the God of those who were and had harmed me – so whose side was he/she on?
I am at peace in using different language, it feels right and whole to me to talk about ‘the gifts of the universe’ or ‘love’ or ‘magic’ and to feel the earth, the sea and the waves, to wonder at ‘consciousness’ and ‘being’ , to be still in the present of the moment and seek alignment to the deep truths. Maybe it’s the language of the heart and soul. Maybe it’s the innocent faith of the child, the inner child, and not the rules of the organisation. Maybe it’s the language of the mystics. Maybe it is just language that describes very similar things but with different agreements and expectations upon them. Maybe I decided I prefer or need or enjoy different agreements and expectations. Maybe the gentle attentive love of the Celtic contemplatives has spoken, restored and awakened my soul. Maybe these gave me the assurance of peacefilled mystic giants whose earnest shoulders I could sit on and be held by.
I didnt wrestle with God, it all just awakened for me, it just started to appear, moment by moment, book by book, journal by journal (that I wrote). It started to make sense, it started to feel like love that until then had been mostly only cognitive knowledge. Maybe emotional breakdown and spiritual awakening were intertwined. Maybe it was about unlearning and learning. Maybe it was already there all along.
I noticed that I was becoming more and more whole, more and more coherent in myself, less fractured and fragmented, less desperate in need of a God to save me, more balanced in knowing, loving and enjoying my flawed, but created and incredible self.
So more broadly. Maybe it’s time to rethink the way of christian songs, or the implicit messages from the lecturn. Maybe a trauma aware church might reflect on these things. What if loving our self, was what Jesus meant all along, and not just our neighbour. What might life in all its fullness mean, and the good shepherd leads sheep to come and go freely. Maybe the sheep dance too. Maybe they play and run around. Maybe the sheep are happy. Maybe thats what’s its been about all along.
I attended my first ‘religious’ service for quite a long time yesterday, I haven’t gone to ‘church’ for a long while, though I used to, weekly. But yesterday in my team meeting, as I work for the methodist church, we shared communion. A number of the team brought something to share, including songs, poems and prayers, and we used the Celtic Daily Prayer liturgy, including, because it was the 1st February the reflections of St Brigid. It was a genuine moving experience, because it felt as though we were all spiritually and theologically in a very similar place, it was gentle, provocative and deep, reflective and peaceful.
Yet in the context of my inner healing journey, two phrases stood out.
I make the cross of Christ upon my breast
over the tablet of my hard heart
and I beseech the living God of the Universe,
may the Light of lights come to my dark heart
so that I may live in the power of your love.
Celtic Daily Prayer, Vol 1
The phrase stood out, because, it was what I believed.
I believed my heart to be dark. To be hard.
I believed that my core was full of selfishness, hatred and impurity
I believed that
I believed that for far too long.
I believed it so that I needed a Saviour.
But let me be fair on this one. Maybe this liturgy was written at a time when heart just meant ‘everything inside’ , and not ‘heart’ full of emotions and feelings, distinct from the mind. Maybe it was written from ignorance of ‘heart’ and not deliberation. Maybe, it was written by the powerful, who might struggle to open up their heart, and felt like a modern day Pharaoh (who it was said closed his heart/God closed it so that Moses had to return many times to let the Israelite slaves free). Maybe the ‘heart’ was something at the time of writing was misunderstood, maybe heart feelings/emotions was seen genuinely as dark – can I include a witchcraft reference here, for 1600’s Britain was rife with ‘sensitives’ or women deemed as witches who ‘sensed’ things. So the ‘heart’ could be feared, but it’s almost talking about cleansing a dark one, not calming a fired up one. Im just pondering. And I love the northumbria community, and contemplative practice.
Yet the Evangelical christian faith I grew up with was full of the dark heart stuff…
‘Dont let my heart grow cold’
‘Purify my heart’
And I get that there might be different/newer understandings of the relationship between our minds and hearts, our feelings, emotions and thoughts. I’ll reference a few TED talks below and other references are in my resource library. This is one of the best, by Lisa Feldman
There’s so many angles on this ‘dark heart narrative’ that I could reflect on, here are 4, briefly…
It lets our minds off scot free. Maybe the mind was seen as neutral, as dominant and unquestioned, the ‘heart’ can get the blame. The Heart may be hardened, and unable to feel, because the mind is making too much noise. It is the mind and its search for satisfaction for its thirsty ego that causes the most damage.
It causes us have less reverence for our inner workings and body. As many Spiritual people and mystic argue, spiritual awakening is through the body and not away from it (Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now), not outside of the body or in denial of it. It’s unlikely to produce wholeness and a fragmented/fractured sense of self and body.
It individualises the problem (if only I can get my hard heart to open/be more faithful/pray more/ do more church) rather than consider the external causes of these, and the body’s natural responses such in its need for self protection and survival. ‘It’s my cold/hard heart thats the problem, not the actual reality that ive been mistreated’ - an understanding of external stimuli/trauma here might be helpful.
Only God can save. Because my heart is so hard that there’s nothing in it to be able to love/care for myself… how does this marry up with being ‘wonderfully made in the image of God?’ Where is my heart then?
A heart is the source of emotions and feelings, which make us who we are, denying or hiding these is so so unhealthy.
There could be essays on all of these, and thats not for now.
My journey of healing, spiritually and emotionally has been a process of healing my inner self, including my body, and its wounded parts. Its been a journey in which, spiritually I have found the descriptions of the spiritual life, in Eckhart Tolle, Richard Rohr and John O Donohue to resonate deeply, and all take the body, the heart and the mind seriously and kindly in the process.
My heart wasn’t impure, dark or hard all along.
In fact, I needed my heart to be able to be self compassionate
I needed a heart to love, myself
I could love and care for myself
My heart just couldn’t feel
My heart had been stolen from
My heart had been broken
My heart had been wounded from birth
My heart had never been nurtured or protected, it had never been loved.
My heart had to be protected, sealed and enclosed – to protect myself
My heart wasn’t dark, it was there all along – being told that it was.
My heart could love and heal – as can yours
My heart just wanted to feel, to be healthy, to be part of me – just like yours does
My heart wanted safety to cry, feel and rage – just like yours
My heart was never dark.
It had had its flame squashed and buried
It was hiding underneath
It was screaming
It wasn’t ever dark – it was love all along.
It was me.
I had to begin the process of peeling gently back the layers and wounds, and I could only do that gently because of love and my heart. I had to learn to love my body, my heart and create safety for my feelings. Listening to my heart, listening to my core and what it needs. None of this would have been possible had I continued the pattern of believing I was broken and my heart was core to that brokenness.
May you be blessed with good friends
And you learn to be a good friend to yourself
Journeying to that place in your soul where
there is love, warmth and feeling
May this change you
John O Donohue, ‘For Friendship’; To Bless the space between us
Im in the middle of reading this quite brilliant book, The Fifth Agreement, by Don Miguel and Don Jose Ruiz. I guess freedom must be on my mind as ive also just finished Edith Egers book The gift, on discovering personal, emotional freedom. More to follow.
But im just reflecting on , if Faith in myself is the real faith, and I am true.. what did I place too much energy and faith in before I discovered myself and who I am?
If you’re not in any way religious you might want to look away from this piece. If you are in any way religious, especially Christian, you might not like it.
I want to share something about how Evangelical Christianity suited me. More to the point, how it was perfect for me.
It’s also the story about how I left my emotions at the door of the church. Well, again, thats an inaccuracy, it was more that there was almost no necessity to show emotion in church, and that made it perfect for me. Perfect to mask and hide. But also, because of my parents influence in it, I had no choice.
When I think about the places of my childhood, I think about school, about church, about the clubs like swimming or scouts, and also the ‘free’ space in-between.
School was a place of intellectual development, primarily. And once I got my untidiness sorted, I did quite well. Once I realised I wasn’t going to be supported or helped, it was me or nothing, so I got on with it – despite my parents.
Swimming Club as well as football training and the school badminton club were all physical, Scouts was a bit of physical, and other survival activities, in which I was woeful. (I wasn’t taught how to survive life, I had to work this out, strange that) . In TA terms, my adaptive child was taking over, big time, so that I could fit and belong in these adult environments, like church.
Church was ‘Spiritual’. Yes there were physical elements, like the youth club, and badminton group, and social. But it was barely emotional. Actually.
It was anti- emotional.
I grew up Evangelical, and letting emotions loose in church was seen as ‘inferior’ , ‘scary’ or almost what ‘cult’ like churches did. As a very young child I remember not being able to breathe or make a noise sitting through the very boring service, with only a bag of toys to play with under the seat.
As an older child I was rewarded by what I knew. Memorise the verses, memorise the books of the bible, find verses quickly, find the animal/fruit in the bible verse. Do reading or learning homework. Volunteer in the Sunday school. Know things. Do things.
When I had moment of despair in my room, aged about 9, and I tried to pray, I wanted so desperately to feel something. Feel that God was listening. Feel that I was about to have some kind of divine moment that I thought I was supposed to have, then have an amazing testimony, about how God came close and I felt something. But the prayer I despaired and felt like kicking the wall, closing my eyes and ending it all felt like it didnt go any where. I remember desperately wanting to feel something. And nothing came back.
When I was 10 1/2 I ‘became’ a christian – I prayed a prayer because I had in my head all the ‘sins’ I had been made guilty of committing (I was selfish, spoiled according to my parents – oh and I felt guilt for even thinking of suicide age 9) so I prayed that ‘my sins’ were put in an bin and got rid of.
I was asked what I felt about this big decision I made. I felt nothing. I knew that I had done something. But I didnt feel any different – was I supposed to start feeling things? Maybe I got a sense of feeling a tiny bit spiritually clean, from things I had no reason to acknowledge were mine to carry in the first place. God I sound screwed up psychologically.
The adage was true though, in the main most people are sinned against than sinners, but you know, lets play on the individual sin in the guidebook for encouraging guilt, then dependence, and an easy victim to it. Trauma in the family that a child may have experienced is far too difficult to deal with.
I digress, back to the ‘knowing’….
I remember the songs, from Sunday school and beyond.
‘Be Still and ‘Know’
‘For this is ‘Know’
‘Knowing you Jesus, there is no greater thing…..’ (The ‘Kendrick’ Abba song, knowing me knowing you…Jesus..)
Dont get me wrong, there were some songs about being happy (The Happy Song) and dancing too. But these seemed forced…no one ever felt like dancing…
Songs, Sermons, remembering information. Engaged the brain.
Space for silence, space to feel, limited.
Then, when I was 13 I discovered this:
It was in a tract by Agape Ministries in the UK, and my church undertook the ministry of it (and I did as a young leader and keen one) , to do a course on evangelism, that included 5-6 weeks on it, and then use a tract, ‘Knowing God Personally’ – that described the ‘bridge’ and the had this train on the back.
The premise of the train was that Faith was based on Fact (and not feelings) and that feelings somehow were the carriage that followed on behind. Facts. Knowledge were important.
Feelings followed.
Faith was based on fact, because, it was important to know the bible, know the facts, know that it was historical, know that it was true – historically, know so that an argument could be ‘won’ , know so that faith was subject to what was described as the ‘turbulence’ of emotions.
It also meant that even if I didnt ‘feel’ happy – or ‘feel’ that God was close, that I ‘knew’ that God was and that this provided certainty… apparently.
As a young person who knew their trains. As a young person that had disconnected from their emotions – this was all great.
Feelings were just an added bonus extra and not to be regarded at all.
I could hide having feelings even more. And when I did have any feelings or emotions in life, over the next few years, or more – I could then ‘know’ that these weren’t what God would want me to have – feel shame for having them – and then consider it to be sinful to feel – and then ‘get back to knowing’ . Read the bible, Read, dont feel. Learn.
If you know, you know – but the ‘Toronto Blessing’ stuff made things interesting for a few years. My ‘knowledge’ orientated church was cautious, compared to more charismatics. People ‘felt’ in the church for the first time, and it made them weird. And I went along to some of the weirdness, and I was determined that I wasn’t going to ‘feel’ the hype. It was the only time that permitted feelings came to church in my time. And it was pretty mad. And for those who for whom it was too mad, they retreated back to the safety of knowledge and facts.
For me?
I went on to become a ‘leader’ in churches, and so I had to be ‘responsible’. Therefore showing emotions wasn’t part of it. I had to be mature, I had to know things, I had to lead, inspire and have integrity. I had to cope. I could be professional. I could be ‘adult’. I could leave all and any child behind.
As someone who had a disconnected sense of self, (and what I learned about ‘self’ spiritually is a whole other post) , church could easily be a place where I could hide emotions, where praise was heaped for stoical behaviour, and the pursuit of knowledge.
Maybe now I have language for all of this experiences, growing up even in the early 1990’s where there was no conversation about emotions…anywhere, especially not for boys. Adapting into ‘Adult’ life as quickly as I could was what I needed to do, run away from childhood asap, and leave behind what that represented, emotions, play and curiosity. Was feelings free Christianity really what was on offer? Maybe thats not what was intended, but it meant that I could negate that carriage of the train, in regard to my spiritual life.
I wonder now what the cost is and has been. I wonder how common this is in other denominations around the UK or beyond. I wonder whether emotions in church are ‘just’ for the hysterical or depressed, and how these are to be ‘got rid of’ or ‘discarded’ for being uncomfortable or in some way unspiritual. Im not blaming the church I grew up in for what it didnt know, but I also know that there were many in that church who were as bewildered and scared of the same monster that I had to encounter every day.
Maybe it all goes back to way before the ‘Fact Train’ , Karen Armstrong writes about how the myth of the sacred story was turned into a desire for objective fact of the Biblical narratives, around 400 years ago. The feeling of the camp fire story making way for the cognitive reading, but this isn’t a general history lesson on theological feelings and emotions, its about how I could leave feelings and emotions at the door of the church, but in reality, I could leave them buried deep down, hidden away, and mask the childhood emotional abuse that happened.
It has been a long road, a long rail even. It has been one for me in which I have begun to let the feelings and emotions out of the shadows, and be accepted as part of me.
If you’d like to read more on my Spiritual Journey, or the resources that have helped me to reconnect my emotional life with my spiritual one, do have a look at the resources above. I particularly recommend Eckhart Tolle, and Gary Zukav, though there are others too.
James Ballantyne 