My Head Hurts - Dissociation and the State of the World

First post here in a very long time. There's such a lot to tell you. It's been a very full year with lots of highs and lows. I end the year having done plenty of things I thought were impossible for me. I also end it on a waiting list for treatment for a complex dissociative disorder (some form of DID or DDNOS) that we uncovered in psychology appointments this year having fought for those appointments for a very long time. Tonight - after a bad day in which parts in my head have not made life easy. It's not an easy head. But I've also managed an autism group in Gateshead and have got to choir and at home have gone through the comedy part of a play I'm performing in this week. The play is just another "impossible" thing. I need to write a list of all the new things this year. This life building thing can be achieved and I have a few long term goals. But my head is more than a challenge too. This year we've discovered part of the reason why. Next year we can start to deal with it in therapy. I've had mental health issues for all my life and have tried all kinds of ways to overcome them. It turns out the this complex disorder is the kind of thing to maintain all the other mental health issues. Everything I've tried has in effect been a bit like deciding I hate leaves on trees and chopping them all off manually in the autumn before looking proudly and happily at a leafless tree, believing I'd solved the leaf issue. There's a good chance that this year has revealed the areas we need to look at in order for the mental health issues to not be maintained. It's going to be bloody difficult to look at them. But at least we know they're there and I will have a good help in the place I've been referred to. What's been consciously revealed is tough. Unbearably tough sometimes. But it's incredibly positive to have revealed it. ... Owwwwwwwwww.

This head hurts so much but we're proud because we made choir and did a good job.

We are struggling so we're going to write a garbage post which will make us sleepy enough to turn to sleeping. It's been too much this afternoon and tonight but we did well at choir and it is always good to see the people there. I don't know them as well as I'd like but every one of them is marvellous. And we're fiercely feminist too. The national media said so.

Also hurting:

That we have the government we have.

That my head and my mental health is infinitely more strong and stable than the current Conservative regime.

That the USA has an even more crap head who has a tantrum when the country doesn't want to pay for a stupid and racist wall that he promised another country would pay for as one of his unbelievable number of false points in his garbage verbal campaigning.

That every Brexit option stinks but 52% (2 years ago before we all knew more about it that wasn't just lies and spin from the likes of Boris, a man who has only been sacked for lying several times and whose welcome to other people includes words like piccaninnies and I can hardly believe he got away with that one. "Sorry I'm a fucking racist shit." "Oh, that's alright, here be foreign secretary." Would a supposedly non-racist PM make a fucking racist shit foreign secretary? Boris may look lovable and cuddly (or not - I wouldn't. Yuck) but so does a puffer fish.

That too many Americans fell for Trump. That too many British people fell for Boris. That most of us fall for shit things a lot of the time.

That our government deliberately chooses poverty for the most vulnerable members of our society and thus deserve less than zero respect. Mrs. May and all other Christians in the party should be beaten round the heads with hardback copies of the Peace and Justice Study Bible. And as for Jacob with his justice and love denying brand of Catholicism, anyone who does the no abortion thing (which I don't agree with but understand within Catholic belief systems) but doesn't do the preferential option for the poor thing (which I do agree with and understand within Catholic belief systems) has made themselves into a devil and the Bible itself says they won't be accepted by God because of works - in verses quotes in the Catholic Catechism.

Climate change. We have 12 years so stave off total collapse and ensure a bit of suffering is limited. And already there are mutant hybrid species of puffer fish coming into existence. In a month we can say we have 11 years.

Fundamentalist creationists who deny evolution ask bloody stupid questions about whether anyone has ever seen a new species come into existence. There are many millions of these people in the USA. See its even more crap head.

Racism. Trying to understand racism hurts my head. Not its effects. Those are understandable. But its existence. My head can't fathom hatred based on anything even slightly linked to melanin.

The way far right activists critique Islam, sometimes in ways that ex-Muslims and reformers agree with, but in such a way as to demonise a billion people rather than to just be philosophical religious critique without which religion stagnates. And how acceptable and important rational critique of things becomes unacceptable when extremist and prejudiced tosspots transform it into fear and loathing of people who should not be feared or loathed.

The way the moderate right has become closer to the far right and how the far left is polarised in other ways that aren't realistic or inclusive.

That it does no good to point out glaring errors in conspiracy theories or in posts by people who believe them because what good are facts in the face of conspiracy? Even when things are glaringly wrong and when a bit of research and reading gives ironclad proof that they're wrong there's still no point granting to a conspiracy theorist the results of that research. They have stuffed their ears with more cotton wool than you would think possible.

That sometimes I do that research and point out the glaring errors that I could prove in the strictest court of law were errors, even though I know it won't do any good at all and that anything said against a conspiracy theory won't be listened to by the theory believer because it's like a fundamentalist religious belief where cognitive bias and so much else won't entertain the possibility of error.

It didn't for me when I had a fundamentalist religious belief. We saw doubt as weakness of faith. I've read other religious people since who see doubt as a place of strength.

So many things can make a head hurt.

Tonight and today it's been the interplay and argument between different parts. And that one of them has hit me too much even while another was trying her best to stop him. I hope the waiting list for therapy isn't too disastrous.

"Not-God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and the courage and energy next year to be more involved in activism to change the things I can ..."

My Pastor Gazed At Me And Said, "Wow! You Were REALLY Fucked Up!"

To begin, a photograph.  I've taken this from a Messianic Christian page about faith in God.   The page argues, through links to many articles, that atheists should become Christians because that would be the sensible thing to do given the "evidence."  On the right of the screen there's an offer for a free book.

It's called, "I Have A Friend Who's Jewish ... Have You?"  Sounds riveting.

Today I've been sorting some files on my laptop.  It shouldn't have taken long but I got quite distracted by my past.  In the process of sorting I've found myself looking at Christian books and documents I saved. I've been looking at some of my own writing too which covers much of my Christian life. I still have the text of sermons preached in the year 2000, all kinds of documents from when I was an enthusiastic Catholic, and some really strong Protestant conservatism I briefly clung to after leaving the Catholic church and wondering how I could survive without it.

I found a document containing my prayer diary through a week almost exactly ten years ago. During that period I was undertaking the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola in daily life, with one to one spiritual guidance from a woman who was part of the outreach team of Saint Beuno's Jesuit retreat centre in North Wales.

That particular week included this exciting day trip in London: It took in 3 churches, 2 cathedrals, a church centre, 2 Catholic bookshops and 2 masses.

In the same document I wrote about other days in this two week period in May 2007.

These days could and would include more hours spent kneeling in front of the "blessed sacrament", daily mantra and meditation prayers, praying the Office, rosaries, chaplets – including that of Divine Mercy, the triple colloquy, litanies, the Ignatian spiritual exercises, consideration of the "Mysteries", biblical meditations, Bible verses turned into daily prayers.

These were all happening on the same day.

You read that correctly. On. The. Same. Day. In my most ardent periods I could pray for six hours a day.

And what comments did I give? Many. They include these:

I wanted to enter more into the pain of Jesus. (Because some saints or spiritual writers recommend it.)

I asked of myself, "Could I be Judas?"

I said, "Not much progress in prayer."

I said, "Much need for change and for grace."

And the classic, "Not enough praying in the house."

Honestly. I wrote that. You read that correctly too.

I didn't believe I was praying as much as I should. I certainly didn't believe I was praying as well as I should. After all, hadn't I consecrated my entire life to Jesus? Hadn't I also made an act of total consecration to Jesus through Mary, in the manner of Saint Louis Marie de Montfort? Shouldn't I be praying more? Studying more?

That's what I thought anyway. Because I was utterly lost. Trapped. Despairing. Still self-hating. And when you self-hate it's hard to love others. Not truly and deeply.

As I've looked through some of the books as I've been clearing them out I find similar words from "heroes of faith" canonised by Rome. These men and women were also giving everything they possibly could for their God. And they still beat themselves up for it - mostly emotionally and mentally but sometimes physically too.

I was utterly screwed up. My ex-pastor from MCC used the phrase “fucked up.” But I was being reinforced in being screwed up and fucked up by the books I read, the spiritual writers, the saints.

Was there any hope for someone so screwed up when he was told that the grace to ask for that week included, “Shame and deep grief because the Lord is suffering for me.” And “Faced with the suffering of the Passion, I may have to pray even for the gift of letting myself want to experience it with Christ.”

I arrived screwed up. I left screwed up.

There were happy events.  There were some smiles.  But underneath it all I was screwed up.  Constantly.

I am immensely glad to become free of all that horror.

I am also glad that on my way out of the faith I discovered some Christian spiritual writers who didn't beat themselves up and who had a Jesus who could and would smile. Some people even have a Jesus I like. I recommend someone like Jim Palmer – a Jesus follower but pretty much an atheist. Or the writings of someone like Gretta Vosper – a Jesus follower but an atheist. There are even some theist Jesus followers I can cope with and dip into.

I'm glad they've found a faith around Jesus that's full of good things. No original sin. No exclusivity. No false gods. A view of the Bible that doesn't try to justify it having plenty of horrific things in both Testaments but just says, “The writers tried but got it wrong.”   I even know very happy Christians.  And I know Christians whose love and service to others is a big example to me.  I am glad they have found inspiration for that in the versions of the Jesus story people once wrote.

As for me, the pain is too deep, too long-lasting. It's hard to find any comfort at all in the Galilean preacher and peasant who was elevated to the sky by his followers with the accretion of pagan myths and superstition, a man whose very words were mostly put into his mouth by his followers and whose miracles were inventions. Yes inventions. Arising from the way religion was done then and often is now. In the quest for the historical Jesus, which some say is doomed from the outset, the New Testament narratives are in many places worse than useless no matter how many fine words they contain.

As for me, my question is what inspiration there is to be found in what is true and in the wonder of being - and the wonders of this cosmos, this earth, and humanity - without appealing to a very faulty ancient book that tells of a man who we can't know much, if anything, about.  As such I plan, after six months of putting it off, to attend a humanist meeting tomorrow night.  I want to see what answers they give.  I want to see too whether they offer new ways of questioning.  I'm looking forward to it and the talks at the meetings always sound fascinating.

It's pointed out to me that Jesus said (or is alleged to have said) some very good things. I can only agree with that. But I don't see that as any reason whatsoever to follow him or call him Lord.  He said (or is alleged to have said) some rather more problematic things too.  In addition, lots of people have said very good things. I've met some of them. I don't call them Lord either and some of them aren't holding onto and speaking with an ancient world view and in words arising from primitive superstitions and ancient pagan blood sacrifice cults.

Why would I want to be a Jesus follower – whether a red-letter Christian or an atheist without a sky god – over and above any other guide and inspiration? Why? I don't see a reason. I certainly don't see any unique claim of salvation power being valid. And I don't see the Jesus way as superior to all other ways although I recognise the inspiration and excitement many people find in him. I am told Jesus is about growing into freedom. I see that some people manage that. I missed the boat on that one!

For me, I need – at least for the present – to keep any version of Jesus at arm's length.  Any version. Even the Jim Palmer inner anarchist version. I was hurt in the churches, hurt by the Saints, hurt by Scripture.  Hurt in self hatred and there being enough in that faith to justify my self hatred even while talking of a God of love.  The second biggest selling Christian work in history is The Imitation of Christ.  In it we learn the call to despise ourselves.

I couldn't see it then. I couldn't see how damaged I was by my faith because my faith was the reason I clung to for continuing to exist and my hope that there was a better future if I would only persevere in faith until the end.  I believed in mercy.  And I was thankful because I believed that without the blood sacrifice of Jesus that mercy wouldn't be given to me who, like everyone else, deserved hell - either in fire or separation eternally from God.

I couldn't see how my faith strengthened my despair for this life.

I see it now.

I see it increasingly clearly the more I explore outside of my old faith.

At this time I am grieving for all the lost years.

But I am rejoicing for my future, wherever that may take me.

Outside of the certainty and shame of my Christian faith it may take me anywhere.

And by his lack of stripes I find I am being healed. (Isaiah 53)

If you pray I would ask you not to pray that I return to Christianity. I would ask that you not hope I return to the flock.

I would ask, if you pray, to pray that I may find the way that is right for me, the way that leads me into the fullest life I can live. If there eventually turns out to be some Jesus in that then so be it. If not, that's great. And I would ask that your hope is that I will be free to be myself, to grow in myself, and to rejoice in living and learning to love in ways that were impossible when I was trapped in religion.

At this point I am an atheist. I have no sky god to pray to.  That picture again.

But the statement “I am an atheist” tells you as little about me as it would tell you if I said “I believe in God.”

I apologise for this: I'm not going to expand on the statement any further today.

On An Encounter With Fundamentalism. And On The Wonders Of The Human Race.

I chatted with some preachers in Sunderland yesterday.  I wasn't meaning to.  I was just wanting to finish my ice cream in peace.  Damn you preachers, you thwarted my quiet ice cream enjoyment.

But once they began talking at me, and because I am still utterly obsessed about God things and think about them a heck of a lot, and because I wasn't at that point falling to pieces mentally, I talked back.  It's still a novelty to me to be so far on this side of the dogmatic fence.

We talked about a lot of things.  All of them may bore you.  Some of them you may find strange.  Some of them will make you wonder why Christians sometimes don't even love each other let alone non-believers.

I am no longer a Christian.  I'm not.  But I am still fascinated by it all.  It's a special interest.

So as someone with a deep fascination, I've done the talking.  So you don't have to!  There.  Aren't you pleased?  You will know, when you encounter such people, the kinds of things you are happy to be missing by not having a conversation with them.

I have to give this disclaimer:  Not all Christians are like the ones I chatted with.  Quite a lot are very different indeed.  My plans for the day had fallen apart due to my own absent-mindedness, confusion and panic.  But those plans had been to meet with, sit with and relate with a group of Christians.  To talk, share and learn about theology with them.  I'd been looking forward to it too and am sad to have missed out on the experience.  I believe it would have been great.  And I believe that the Christians I didn't manage to meet with would have had nearly as many disagreements with the fundamentalists as I did.

If you did choose to engage a fundamentalist of this variety, a strange choice, what might you talk about?

Image from https://lotharlorraine.wordpress.com/2014/06/14/is-fundamentalism-destroying-christianity/

I'll start with the more boring bits (history and doctrine) and will end with the most interesting bits (humans and my thoughts about the people I met).  Skip through to the end.  Most of this is not exciting stuff for most people, only strange obsessives like me.  Seriously.  This is long.  And it doesn't even cover the full encounter.  Skip through to the part about people.  Because that's the important thing.

We talked a little of church history.

They said there was a church existing sometimes in secret and sometimes in persecuted groups from the time of Constantine until the Protestant Reformation began.  Theodore Beza, the successor of Calvin, wrote about this history.  That's not an uncommon claim among Protestant fundamentalists but it's a laughable one.  Plus Beza, a man who wrote in defense of burning heretics alive, didn't have the information available to write a reliable church history - which might be why he didn't write one!



They gave some examples of the secret church that upheld the "one true faith."

The Cathars

I was informed that this group were Christians with a beautiful Christian faith, part of the true church. They were persecuted because they held the way of salvation hated by Rome.  This is something I find very funny.  Because the Cathars were dualists - they believed in two Gods.  And they believed in reincarnation.  The Cathars were also gnostics and believed in the ultimate salvation of all people.

In all honesty I don't think the Cathar faith was quite the same as that of these preachers!  I tried to tell them that - because I looked into the Cathars years ago when, as a Catholic, I had the same claims thrown at me.  But no.  Everything I had read and learned was a lie.  Propaganda.  Invented by the Catholic Church.

The Albigensians

I was told that this group were also just like beautiful Protestants.  Bearers of the one true faith.  In fact they were a Cathar sect.  Where most Cathars were pretty ascetic, the Albigensians were more extreme than most.  They also believed that Jesus was just human, not God.  For these people to be held up as models of the true Protestant gospel - the proper Jesus - is crazy.

The Waldensians

This is the funniest of all.  I'll say why a little later.

We talked of other historical documents from the early church.  Reputable ones.  The ones for which we know who wrote them.  And when.  Such as the epistles of Ignatius of Antioch to seven churches, written on his journey to Rome where he was martyred in about AD107.  Such as the two Apologia of Justin Martyr, written to the Roman Emperor around AD150 in the hopes of stopping a persecution.  Those documents contain much that wouldn't fit into the Beza history or the preachers' ideas of the early church.  I know.  I read them a lot before becoming a Catholic for a while.  But no.  All of those documents were fabrications, forgeries from much later, many centuries later, written to prop up a false church.  All such documents that the preachers disagreed with were deemed to be completely non-existent or fake.  I urged them to read these early church documents.  See what was believed by these men of faith and see, especially in Justin, how the early church functioned and how the mid-2nd century Christians worshiped.  I didn't say to follow the way of Justin - just to see for themselves that such a way had been followed by early Christians.

The preacher kept on talking about what Beza is meant to have said and how we have to believe Beza and how all the other things were just false and shouldn't be touched at all.  I could see that historically, there wasn't really any wiggle room for a rational conversation.

We talked a little of doctrine.

The Catholics invented Transubstantiation in AD999.  And believes we're saved by works.  And rejects the Bible.  And has a false Jesus.  And a false priesthood.  And Constantine invented it.  And so on and so on.  These preachers don't like Catholics!

I found it strange.  Two days previously I had laid into some of the teachings of the Catholic Church - with full acceptance that I was giving one side of the teaching far over and above the other.  Now I found myself defending Catholicism.  Of course I'm not Catholic now.  But the accusations fundy Protestants throw at Catholics are ludicrous and hateful.

On a personal note, I am condemned for my Catholic ways and if I don't repent of them I will be judged and burn for eternity.  As a non-Catholic learning this came as something of a surprise.

The New Testament was in its final form by the end of the first century because the apostle John made it so.  Er, no.  Just no.

The gospel was preached across the world by the first generation of Christians - because the Bible says so.

This does not include Australia or the Americas because there wasn't anyone there to tell about Jesus then.  I was told that we know there can't have been people in Australia 2000 years ago because the apostolic church didn't go and preach to them.  Honest.  I was told that.

But the gospel was preached in the British Isles in the first century AD.  Oh yes, I was told that.  And I was told who by.  Apparently the Waldensians came here and told the natives about Jesus.  Oh yes, they did.  Now, unlike the Cathars, the Waldensians did have a faith similar to that seen in the ideas that can be seen in the Protestant Reformation.  Some of their ideas and major criticisms of the Western church of their day are not only valid, they are very praiseworthy.

But did the Waldensians bring the story of Jesus to our shores in the first century?  Well, no.  It would have been difficult for them to do so.  Peter Waldo didn't start that movement until the late twelfth century.  It's an interesting story.  But his followers were not time travelers.

On a personal note, I am the antichrist and an abomination.  That didn't come as a surprise to me.  Old news.

We talked a little about ethics and morality.

I was asked if lying is wrong.  I agree, it usually is.  But to me it wasn't a yes/no question.  I posited an extreme situation.  Sometimes extreme cases disprove a rule.  I was in Germany in 1943 harboring a family of Jews under my floorboards.  The Gestapo paid me a visit and asked whether I was harboring any Jews.  I said I would lie.  He said he wouldn't lie and that God would judge me for my sin in lying.  I tried to explain situational ethics 101.  For the preacher the way of righteousness would have been to give those Jews up to the Gestapo - and myself too, I suppose, for protecting them.

We talked about the verses in the Old Testament in which God commands genocide.  He said that he didn't believe God would command his people to commit genocide now because God does things differently now Jesus has risen.  He said that God is holy and commanding genocide was holy.  He said that if God did command genocide now he would take part in it and kill people because it was better to obey God.  I pointed out a group of children who were passing at that moment and asked, "Would you kill those children?"  He replied that he would, if God told him to.

We talked of the times when it's written that God hardened pharaoh's heart after some of the plagues - and so pharaoh didn't let the Israelites like he had planned.  That's in the story.  But that means that the killing of all the first born children of Egypt wasn't necessary.  Which kinda means all that horror is God's fault.  It's there in the text.  If you, like the preacher, want to believe the text.  The preacher didn't like that.  He couldn't accept it was there because it didn't fit into his dogma. Others say God did it so his power could be seen.  Which rather makes God out to be an egotistical monster.

Yes.  The preacher would slaughter the children of Sunderland under some circumstances.  

Holy crap!

We talked of science.

The preachers believe that the universe is 6000 years old.  I asked about the light coming from a supernova 50,000 light years away.  I was being kind to the man giving this number because it's hardly any distance at all in terms of the universe.  Of all the galaxies in this astonishing universe, less than 100 of them are closer than ten-million light years and we have detected supernovae in galaxies far further away than that.   Wouldn't we thus be seeing the light from a star exploding thousands of years before they would say the universe began?  I got the reply that I didn't know what I was talking about because (a) the universe is expanding so the star would have been much closer 6000 years ago, (b) the speed of light is very different in space to what it is here, and (c) there is no time once you leave planet Earth.  Time doesn't exist anywhere else.  I was told that's what science says.

Evolution is of course a lie.  Anything a scientist says that doesn't fit in with the preachers' brand of dogma is a lie given by Satan.

We talked about other Christians.

Because there are Christians I love who have a faith that's attractive.  They said that these people aren't Christians at all and certainly haven't got the right Jesus.  They said that these other Christians need to repent or burn.

The Protestant Church was going well because it had the Authorised Bible.  But then people started making non-authorised translations from the wrong Greek and Hebrew manuscripts.  And then the Protestant Church went wrong.  Any church using the false Bibles hasn't got Jesus.  Any Christian with a false Bible probably isn't a Christian at all and if they are they desparately need to repent and find the true Jesus in the King James Bible.

On a personal level, I am a fool.

We talked of judgement - and inevitably talked of sexuality.

Please note that I didn't bring this up.  They did.

God has judged and condemned nations in the past.  And he's going to judge this one and condemn it if it doesn't repent, especially from the sin of homosexuality.

On a personal level, I am condemned for my sexuality.

And we talked about other human beings.

They told me this of the human race:  All people, from birth, deserve to burn painfully in Hell for all eternity.  All people are at root evil because of sin.  There is no light in them.  Nothing of God.  Nothing of hope.  Unless they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ (and exactly the right version).

I have a confession to make.  I used to believe that kind of thing.  I thought the Bible said so.  And I wanted to believe the Bible.  I wasn't as extreme as the preachers I met yesterday.  But I believed quite a lot of things that I now find either embarrassing, shockingly reprehensible, or both.  I don't blame myself.  I know the reasons why I came to believe as I did.  But I regret many things.  I accepted Christ in a fucked up state.  And in many ways was fucked up further by my Christianity.

As I talked with those preachers I felt myself more filled with light than I possibly ever have been before.  I did.  And why?  Because when I looked at all the people around me, ordinary people from Sunderland, I saw light.  I saw beauty.  I saw magnificence.  If God is light then I saw God shining from each and every person on that shopping street and saw it as plainly as I could see their physical forms.  It was an amazing experience to have that clarity.

Now, I believe that humans are basically good.  No matter what they do, what they've suffered, what they've been taught to repress or embrace.  No matter what they're going through.  They're basically good.  All humans.  Every single one.

We all make mistakes.  We're all imperfect - or perfectly imperfect.  And sometimes we muck up bigtime or embrace views and beliefs that we later may look back on with a sense of regret or shame.  We all hurt other people sometimes.  We let each other down sometimes.  And all of us may become people who say or do horrible things.

All of that is admitted.  We screw up!  We hurt.  We may be in need of healing.  We may be hungry.  We may be scared.  We may be lonely.  We may act badly out of insecurity.  We may get raised in an environment in which we are taught racism or homophobia or some other prejudice.

But.  We are all basically good.  I believe that.  I know I can be rubbish at social skills at times.  I know I can fail to act in love and light - out of laziness or out of my own woundedness or out of lack of resources.  But I do believe all human beings are wonderful.  Yes, even the suicide bomber.  Even the preacher!

I looked yesterday at the people of Sunderland and I saw shining lights.  And it was wonderful.

And I was being told that all those shining lights were evil.  Dead.  Deserving of eternal torment.

And that for me, beyond history and dogma and science and all the rest of it, is the saddest thing about those preachers.  The saddest by far.

As I think about those preachers I feel this:

Sadness for the years of my life in which I would have gone along with at least part of what they believe, including that view of a fundamentally evil human race in need of salvation from Hell.  Sadness for the relationships I missed out on because of my faith.  Sadness for the times I hurt people because of my faith.

Gladness that the rest of my life will not be spent following such a path.  Gladness for all the things that happened in the last five years - some of them very painful and difficult - which have brought me to this point in my life.  Gladness that I have been "set free from the law of sin and death" which I lived under as an evangelical Christian.

And as for those preachers, I pity them.  And I feel deep sorrow for people in their lives who become affected by the results of their dogma.  I won't be leading the preachers out of the darkness in which they now unwittingly stand.  I hope that they find their way, just as I have been learning to find mine.

My other sadness was that the woman I talked to - because she was answering back to a preacher and had really cool hair and seemed nice - didn't have time to come for a drink with me.  And she really didn't.  Lots of shopping to do before a six hour Megabus journey this morning.  She says if I see her again, to ask again.  I think it would have been quite fun to drink tea with this stranger whose life I completely butted into.  It wouldn't be the first time I've done something like that.

Days Of Gratitude - Happy Times in Salford - Reservoirs, Religion and Relaxation

October has begun.  At the end of last year the challenge was set by the Sunday Assembly Newcastle to post something for which you are grateful.  Every day.  Nine months later and I have missed a total of nine days.  The group description reads:

Sunday Assembly Newcastle is all about finding ways to #livebetter, so our 2016 challenge to you is to photograph something every day that makes you feel grateful and share it to this group. 

Every day.  Every day.  The group currently has 129 members some of whom joined recently.  Sharing every day?  Well, no.  Not every day.  Some days there will be three posts.  Including mine.  Some days a couple more.  Sometimes there will be just two posts.  And on a couple of days I have been the only person to follow the challenge.  Even the person who set the challenge only posts sometimes.

But this is me.  It says every day.  And I want to post every day.  It's good for me.  On the days that feel rubbish I can find something.  And on the days that feel good I can find some amazingly, wonderfully, spectularly, beautifully positive things to be grateful for.

Cases in point.  The six days below.  After a couple of weeks of real struggles it was very good to have days like these.

September 30^th

Grateful to be able to hear great talks at an autism event before leaving for Manchester. I hope people listened and will act.

Grateful that the coach driver let me sit in the quiet seats behind him when I was struggling and getting melty while waiting.

Grateful that a side effect of being so delayed was that we detoured across the Saddleworth road which is gorgeous.

And very grateful to be back here in Salford with Amanda.

October 1^st


Grateful for a great day out with Amanda.

We enjoyed Glossop and my lunch was massive. I will go back and find walking routes.

And then we rowed across and around a reservoir.

They just gave us a boat and pushed us away from the jetty without checking to see whether we had ever rowed before.

In the evening we were at the theatre and managed to get two tickets for five pounds - a student and a carer.

October 2^nd


Grateful for a good morning with Amanda before she went to work.

Grateful for some car boot sale and charity shop bargains.

Grateful to have decided to explore a sign I have passed on the bus here quite a few times: Schoenstatt Shrine.

Loved it. I will go back one day just to sit in the peace of the shrine and the community garden.

Sorry. (A lie!). There are far too many pictures.  [There were many more posted in the gratitude group.] And they're all of a Catholic place where they do God quite a lot. But I really was very pleased to have explored.

October 3^rd

Grateful for a lovely day out with Amanda. We played crazy golf, went on everything in the playground, and ate too much ice cream. Happy times.

I only took one photo all day. Here it is. You get quality graffiti in the toilets of amusement arcades in Southport. Or at least in one cubicle.

October 4^th

Grateful for time spent with Amanda.

Grateful for getting some ideas at an autism event in Manchester in the evening.

Grateful for a pretty walk in the day that ended with buying Amanda a unicorn.

October 5^th


Grateful for the days away.

Grateful to be home and to have life here to look forward to.

Grateful to have been greeted by family and my trusted warthog friend.

Also grateful that Blob Thing managed to post on his blog today.

Days Of Gratitude - Hoop Dancing, Cardinals, Cafes, Art And A Little Revelation

The gratitude diary continues into the ninth month of the year.  Two-thirds of the way through.

These were four days in Newcastle between a time away that was wanted and a time away that in so many ways isn't wanted.  As I write this I am still away for that time away and look forward to being home.  It's a necessary time away but a sad and difficult one and it got more sad than expected.  It's all part of life, and I am now gaining a life that I want to live and live to the full.  That's not something I could have said not too many years ago.

Four days.  A lull.  A time that felt a bit unreal.  And a time that demonstrates my current zeal to live.  Days of trying new things and going to new places.  Some of them got listed in the diary.

The day after this I left home for Sussex to help with the final clearing and selling of what was the home of my parents and which was my home too - my only childhood home.  On the day that this post is published I will be leaving that house for the last time.  It's pretty empty now and doesn't feel like my parents' house now.  Contents have gone to the tip, to family, to charity shops, and some to refugees.  More will be taken for family and refugees very soon and the remainder will be cleared by a house clearance firm.

I hope that the new owners and/or residents love it there.  My parents moved there just a few years after getting married and never moved even though they considered it several times and there were a couple of periods of looking at lots of other houses.  We came quite close to moving once but the house we wanted was taken off the market.  My mother said it was good that we didn't move.  Finances wouldn't have worked out well if there was any larger mortgage to pay off.  So they stayed in that house and made it a good home, filled with the things they loved.

So.  Four days, between the joy of Greenbelt and the non-joy of the job-nobody-really-wants-to-do-but-most-people-have-to-at-some-point.

September 1st

Grateful to have taken the plunge.

Grateful to have tried something new.

At Greenbelt I stood and watched a guy play with a hoop. Returning home I find notice of a hoop dance workshop once more.

I have heard of these workshops since they began. I wanted to try. I couldn't.

This time I went for it in full knowledge of my unfitness, lack of balance, stiffness, and of having not really played with a hoop since I was six and was pretty ridiculed at school for being so crap at it.

Yep. Ridiculed. And wounded.

One more kick towards the darkness.

I am grateful that tonight I played again.

One more caress back into the light.

Yeah. I can't do it. Or much of it. I could begin to do a couple of things.

But I can't set a hoop spinning round my middle without it falling to the floor.

Yet.

Yet is a word I didn't used to use of my lack of a skill.

Yet.

I will play with a hoop again. And see what happens.

Does anyone have nice hoops they don't want? I think regular play would be excellent for me physically and mentally.

So Clare had a good time. And if she hadn't? Well that would have been okay too.

September 2^nd

Grateful for the meeting in Broadacre this morning. It may lead to good things.

Grateful for a free evening of meditation even though it all felt a bit cultish possibly. I enjoyed it but my inner siren said "Danger, Will Robinson."

Before the evening, Blob met this priest. A man from Ampleforth, a place currently embroiled in further accusations of sexual abuse and of cover ups, this time unrelated to Basil Cardinal Hume.
Grateful for another priest today - the Anglican Bishop of Grantham. He has publicly stated that he is in a gay relationship. A brave thing for a bishop to do.

Hopeful for a church future - if the church has any worthy future at all - in which neither sexual abuse nor loving sexual relationships are ever covered up.

A future in which churches aren't so twisted in doctrine or practice.

September 3^rd

Grateful for street logos and art.

Grateful too for cheap clothes in Byker and a superb toastie in a Byker cafe.

Also grateful for a moment of revelation in a discussion with one of the evangelical praying people in town.

September 4^th

Grateful to be able to buy just the right kind of liquorice for Amanda. I went to Tynemouth just to buy it.

Grateful to have got the best seat on the Metro.

You'll Be Amazed At This Woman Who Can't Love Someone More Than They Deserve

Recently I attended a meeting of a not-church. I call it a not-church anyway. It's a meeting for people who are “guided by the life and teachings of Jesus” and who meet “in the presence of a God whose love is freedom, whose touch is healing, whose voice is calm.”

The people at the meeting are good people, seeking their God and I find it less difficult than most meetings. It's still hard though because every word in the little bit of the liturgy prepared for each meeting is phrased with theism in mind. It's a language that takes theism as a presupposition of a shared belief in an interventionist deity. I don't believe in that deity. I'm not sure that everyone there believes in the deity either. But the language, like the language of a church, is theistic.

It's not exclusive though and it's not evangelistic so usually I've been able to cope with it and just miss out what I couldn't say at all and translate the rest into my own meaning. That day I couldn't participate at all. Just as the meeting began my brain decided it had had enough of things and I spent the whole time wanting to walk out and sit in the sunshine. Perhaps that's what I should have done. Afterwards I left very quickly and couldn't speak even when grabbed for conversations, including one with a person who offered to buy me a ticket for an event in October.

The subject of the not-church this month was kindness. As always, the liturgy includes some quotations about the subject and after they are read there is an open group discussion – something that I can't participate in at all vocally because I can't deal with group discussions. My head just doesn't know the rules and can't process everything quickly enough. By the time it has something worthwhile to say the topic has moved on and even if I have something to say at what might be the right time I don't know how to break into the group and say it. Never mind. That's just how things are and they're not likely to change. The diagnostic criteria for autism still mention a triad of impairments. My inability in group situations is part of one of those impairments. It truly isn't my favourite part of my autism and it's one in which this so-called very high functioning autistic person is pretty severely impaired.

One of the quotations struck me:

A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.

Joseph Joubert

Joubert was a French moralist who died nearly 200 years ago. His Penseeswere published after his death. I haven't read them – I hadn't heard of Joubert at all. Then again I never managed to finish the Pensees of Blaise Pascal either. I guess I will probably never read Joubert. But I guessed I would never read a lot of things that I have since read.

One of the members of the not-church discussion really liked that Joubert quotation. She talked about it. I wasn't able to speak and was rapidly sinking into a state in which it's quite difficult to even get myself home. If I had been able to speak I might have talked about this quotation too. Because I didn't like it. I still don't like it.

Joubert says “loving people more than they deserve.”

I take issue with that and ask a question:

How much love does a person deserve?

I believe that every single person on this planet deserves more love than they give themselves. They deserve more love than other people give them.

Basically, whatever is happening, whatever the situation, whatever a person has or hasn't done, a person deserves more love not less.

However they feel, however they dress. Whatever their gender or sexuality or race or height. Whether they are disabled or not disabled. Whatever their politics. Whatever their religion. They deserve more love not less.

Even if they treat us badly or treat others badly they deserve more love not less.

And for ourselves. We deserve more love not less. Always and at every moment.

My belief is not an original idea. I've inherited from others, most especially from a spiritual teacher who has been known to use “more love not less” as a kind of mantra and as part of a liturgy. It's pretty powerful to look at a person we don't like and tell ourselves that they deserve more love not less. It's even more powerful to look at ourselves when we unfairly criticise ourselves and say “I deserve more love, not less.”

More love, not less. In fact I would say that we deserve total love. All of us. Total love. Constantly.

Joubert said “loving people more than they deserve” and I sit here typing about it two hundred years later. And I type this: Joubert's thought was nonsensical.

You cannot love any person more than they deserve.

You just can't. It's impossible.

What we need to aim to do is to love each person as much as they deserve. Total love. Always. If anyone lived according to that aim it was Jesus, a teacher of the way of love.

Unpacking that is hard. It raises many questions of howto love people as much as they deserve. It raises questions for what to do when we fail to love people that much. It raises questions of how best to love ourselves, and how to keep loving ourselves when we fall short of the aim of a life of total love. I am not even going to begin to attempt grappling with those questions in this post.

I think Joubert is not to blame for getting it wrong. He was living in a society with a Christian based morality. Even those Frenchmen who killed priests in various revolutions were really only removing a Christian establishment and morality and replacing it with what, beyond story, was just another Christian establishment and morality.

The Catholics of Joubert's day believed in original sin. They believed that God loved them but that loving them was in itself an act of mercy because they didn't really deserve the love of God, let alone to have God as a friend. The Church taught that each person deserves to go to Hell and suffer for eternity, separated from God in fire and torment and damnation. That's what humans deserve. Anything about that is mercy. It's true that the mercy story was rich – the loving, merciful God finding a “just” way to rescue the fallen, sinful humans from hell if they followed him and his son. But it's also true that the Church had a very negative view of human beings. Gee, thanks Augustine for developing that doctrine so well.

Every now and again you might have heard that we're all fearfully and wonderfully made or heard about the dignity of human beings. But the Catholic liturgy was based on the idea that we need to repent – and that one sin of the wrong type leads to Hell without that repentance and reliance on mercy. The Protestants of the day weren't much better and sometimes were much worse. Thanks Calvin, for outdoing Augustine – the very first point Calvinism makes is that every single one of us is totally depraved. It's not a good starting point for developing a healthy, loving view of the human race.

I confess that I used to go along with all this. Original sin. The fallen nature of human beings thanks to Adam and Eve eating some fruit. There was a time I even believed in the literal truth of that story, that there really were two people wandering around a pretty garden being tempted by a wily serpent. I believed that we were fully reliant on God for salvation, hope and anything that might be nice. I believed in a literal Hell once. And in literal human souls burning for eternity. I believed that the Bible taught it so it must be true. The preachers in my churches taught it too, straight from Scripture and you wouldn't want to go against what God wrote in his book, would you? Yeah, I believed people were fundamentally sinful. I believed I was fundamentally very sinful. I was a worm – as Scripture puts it. I was a wretch – as John Newton said in the hymn “Amazing Grace.”

I don't believe any of that now. It's been a long journey to get from there to where I am now, which is a much more free place. And I don't like that hymn any more because I am not a wretch. I was not a wretch. I just believed in my own wretchedness and acted accordingly.

Now I believe that humans are fundamentally good. It's a statement of faith. It would be easy to look at newspaper headlines and see the suffering we inflict on each other and to despair, to see the obvious faults – and let's face it, the way humans act is sometimes particularly awful and the way I act falls short of the way of love. But we're fundamentally good. And we're fundamentally deserving of more love not less. Yes, even those of us we see as monsters. To prove Godwin's law because it's fun to prove Godwin's law: Even Hitler!

Human beings deserve total love.

So. A rewrite of Joubert's thought is in order, removing all the nonsensical stuff about deserving or not deserving love.

“A part of kindness consists in loving people.”

But hey, that's not right either.

It's backwards.

I want to rewrite it again:

“A part of loving people is showing kindness.”

Yeah, that's better.

Love people. And in that love, show kindness.

Here endeth the lesson!

Those final words could have come from Jesus who said to “love one another.” He didn't say anything about deserve did he? Just “love one another.”

Sometimes it's good to be like the people at not-church. And as an ex-Christian I can say this too: Sometimes it's good to be “guided by the life and teachings of Jesus.”

[1694 words and a clickbait style title!]