Adventures In Spirituality: Xtianity (cont.)

Allright, FRIENDS, here’s the rest of the story:

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Well, that turned out to be a joke. The kids in Campus Life were not “going through” anything but the motions of being teenagers who just happened to be raised Xtian. There was no depth, no personal torment. As with everything in HS, it was all about meeting members of the opposite sex. Pre-web Xtian Mingle. It was the shallowest, most naive group of kids I’d met since Kindergarten, literally.

The message at all the meetings was about “living forever” or “having eternal life through the grace of Jesus X your divine saviour” or being pardoned for being alive on Earth and then being allowed to live rent-free in Heaven for an amount of time I couldn’t conceive of. In other words, DEATH. Again the fear of dying was the only message I was able to pry out of all the gibberish spoken by the moderators of the group.

One of the meetings was even held at a funeral home, with a closed casket front & center & all this fear-mongering about “you’re going to shrivel up into a pathetic wraith & rot & decompose into a skeleton—unless you accept Jesus into your heart!”—

no mention of all the shriveling & decomposure that could happen whilst still alive—

  and at the end of the meeting the adult in charge ominously approached the casket & flung open its lid & out came a bunch of helium balloons! A visual metaphor for what dying would be like IF & only if you took Jesus X your lord & saviour into your life RIGHT NOW!! Even at 15, I found it childish & groanworthy. The rest of the kids were crying & hugging & shouting Amen!

So I abandoned Campus Life and returned to praying alone. Neurotically. Compulsively. Through the Fall of 10th grade I fought hard to maintain my “hunger artist” status. If I slipped up and ate one morsel of food, I would end up bingeing, and purging. The guilt was crippling, and my “faith in God” was hard to hold onto.

Perhaps because I had a dickish, judgmental dad (& step-dad), it was easier for me to believe in a wrathful God than a loving one.  I felt mocked and toyed with by this “one true God” I was praying to. It makes one a bit paranoid to feel “watched over” by a patriarchal superpower & the effect it had on me was pretty grim! It made me think later of those self-flagellating monks (the Opus Dei). My flagellation was in the form of starvation though; I went from 85# to 80 to 78 to 75 to 73…

Obviously, I was doing Xtianity wrong, and it was making me batshit crazy. When I studied religions again later in life I learned of some religious phenomena that were actually mass hallucinations caused by famine or moldy bread, etc… and I wondered if that’s what had happened to me in 10th grade. 

Around Thanksgiving break that year, I knew I had to figure out once & for all if I was a beloved & faithful Xtian, or find a different method for dealing with the eating disorder. So I got on my knees and begged, Please God please, if you can help me, if you are there, if you can hear me, if I’m worth saving, PLEASE give me a sign that I’m doing the right thing, that you are listening and everything will be okay…

I asked God to show “himself” to me on the way to school the next day, in the form of some animal. Have a butterfly land on my nose, or a bunny rabbit dash across the sidewalk in front of me, so I would know “he” was a loving & attentive God and that i should continue to pray to “him.”

Well…I left for school that morning, as always very early so i didn’t have to see my family.

I was anxious to hear from God. Or not. I guess I was anxious to get on with life either as a Xtian or as something else. I was sick of feeling desperate & sick.

I walked through my neighborhood, and saw no bunnies or skylarks or panda bears. I made it out to the main street and no butterfly landed on my nose. I was starting to despair and neurotically question God’s love for me once again. I got to the bridge that spanned Phillippi Creek.

Because it was in a school zone the bridge had a protective fence between the parapet & road, to keep the kids from falling into traffic I guess. As I began my walk through the fenced portion, wondering if maybe I’d see an alligator in the creek and know God was with me…

…a car came speeding past, lost control and slammed into the fence ahead of me. The fence was laid into the parapet about 20 feet in front of me. The car was banged up but kept going (and since it was a school zone, there was a cop nearby and it didn’t get far). I had to turn around, get off the bridge & walk to school in the road.

Please excuse my shoddy 1-point perspective sketch—I just did it really quick

But that was my sign! That was the definitive answer I was looking for.

I know signs are signs and it’s all in how you interpret them. I know many people would interpret that as an amazing miracle from God! You could’ve been smooshed like a bug on that bridge and God chose to let you live! 

But I had asked for a specific kind of sign and got something completely different. I interpreted this to mean, STOP. Turn around and take a different path. You’re brave enough and strong enough to walk alone. All the answers are inside you, quit asking to have them spelled out for you. 

So that’s exactly what I did. I didn’t necessarily stop believing in (lower case) god, or spirits, or guardian angels, but I gave up using spirituality as a drug and started dealing with my problems in proactive, tangible ways. I dropped the pious Xtian act and remembered who I was— a foul-mouthed rebel who didn’t need the approval of misogynist sheeple (or deities) who thought 75# was an attractive look.

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While that sudden catharsis didn’t CURE the eating disorder, it did flick a switch in my brain and I was able to get back to being a real person who cared about things other than weight & food & being a “perfect” “girl.”

I started eating again (if I got over 90-95# I would still throw up, but it wasn’t ruling my life). I switched from gymnastics to ballet, I returned to writing and drawing. I accrued some new interests & friends & had a social life again. I kept my mind & body as far from Xtianity as possible, though it is definitely a pervasive specter in our culture.

So, what did I do to satisfy that human need to believe in a higher power? 

Stay tuned for Adventures in Spirituality: New Age, Wicca, Zen Mastery & Other Esoterica

Coming Soon