Standing at the Cliff of Deconstruction
Years ago, I was in a very dark place in relation to my faith. The burnout was real, the disrespect I was facing from men in the Church had become truly insurmountable, and I had reached my breaking point at the suffering I was witnessing around me in the people who were leaving and had left. They had good, valid reasons. I was angry. I was tired. I was sick of dealing with all the messiness and just wanted to be done. But it all went too deep for that to be an easy decision for me.
I felt myself walking to the edge of a cliff. My journey lay ahead of me somewhere. There were not guide posts, no signs, no markers of which way to go. I was heading into the desert to wander, and I didn't know when or how that journey would end. I wanted to maintain my faith, even if it meant doing to hard work of renegotiating everything I believed in and its relationship to my life. I would do it. The time was going to pass anyway and there was enough of value there to me that the effort was worth it.
What I remember of that time in my life, the beginning of my deconstruction, was the very honest conversation with God I had about it. People less secure in their own faiths have to create narratives to soothe themselves about deconstruction as a process. They tell themselves that those who engage in it "just need to pray more," that talking to God is enough to avoid deconstruction entirely. Such people shouldn't speculate about experiences they've never had. If they'd ever been in that place for themselves, they'd know there's no avoiding it. And even for those of profound faith, God's presence in it doesn't lessen the struggle.
I tried to shortcut my way through this. "If I'm going to come out on the other side of this a believer anyway, why can't I just skip to that part? Why can't I just rearrange the furniture and fix this the easy way?" That's the question I'd been asking myself because I didn't want to watch everything about the faith I'd worked so hard to build to disintegrate in front of me.
God was very clear in the answers to his prayers to me. I couldn't cheat this process. I couldn't dishonor my own pain and frustrations by ignoring them, minimizing them, or compartmentalizing them. I couldn't continue violently deprioritizing myself to make my relationship with this community work. God wasn't going to let me. This process was going to take a very long time, he told me. I couldn't cheat it. I couldn't take the easy way out. There was only one way through, and there was a way to the other side where I would still have my faith, but it would require so much more from me than I could even fathom at the time.
My deconstruction took a decade. I left the Church during that time. I had to, for my own safety and sanity. There was a time where I didn't want anything to do with the Church. Everyone talks about the proverbial shelf breaking, but no one talks about what happens afterwards, the gathering of all the sacred things and putting them away in the box. I didn't want to get rid of them, I didn't want to keep them, I didn't want to be responsible for them, but I also didn't want anyone else to touch them. I just wanted them to be tucked away where they were safe from others, and I was safe from them. And that's how things were for many years while I healed.
Deconstruction is not a process you can rush. It's also a continuous evolution. Where you are with it every day changes, and the very first thing you have to learn is to give yourself the grace to be human, in all the messiness and contradiction that comes with that. It's never really finished, and for a long time it feels like nothings changes and you aren't making any progress.
When you step to the edge of that cliff, it looks impossible. How do you make it to the other side? Do you fly? Do you give up and launch yourself off the edge? Do you climb down and promptly get lost and end up dying of exposure? How exactly does God expect you to get through this? And is any of this real? What if there is no God? What if all of this is just a waste of the one life you have, and you're wasting it trying to achieve something that ultimately won't matter in the end?
I've made it to the other side. I've been here for a few years now. And here's what I know:
Things are better for me because I did this. I'm the more authentic version of myself and I spend a lot less time worrying about how I'm perceived by others. I'm in healthier place with my faith than I ever was at my most orthodox. I live under less fear. My faith has more power to change me and help people. I'm a better person. I'm less arrogant in my assertions that I know everything about God and his relationship with the world around me. I have a healthier sense of my relationship with the community I love, the boundaries I need to keep myself on two feet, and what they can and can't ask from me. I'm at peace in my beliefs and how they differ from the majority. I feel more comfortable claiming my space of belonging exactly as I am. I found my voice and I don't hesitate to use it. I see the wisdom of God in what I went through, why it was necessary for me, and why it was so hard and took so long.
But I cannot stress enough how long it took me to get there. This wasn't a quick trip to the corner store to pick up some milk, some cases of water, and batteries for the flashlight. I met a lot of people who helped me, and some who hurt me and made everything worse. And for a long time, all I could accomplish was continuing to move forward in the hope that one day, things would be different. I would arrive in a place that would make sense to me and I'd eventually find my way to where I was going, even though I wasn't exactly sure where that was. I wanted to come back to my faith and my community, but I had no idea what that was going to look like. I just had to trust that I would know it when I saw it.
You can get ideas from people like me, but ultimately only you can decide where this journey is taking you, when you've reached your destination, and when you're no longer lost. That's something only you can know. And every person reaches a different conclusion. Some people leave and never come back, and that's the correct destination for them. Some people become desert nomads and that's where they stay. Some people leave the struggle behind and reach a better place far away from all of the desert and never have to go back to it again. Everyone is different. And no one can tell you the answer, not even God. God wants you decide what you need, and what you want, and he can't answer that for you. You have to figure that out for yourself.
I only know how to relate to this through the language of faith because that's where I landed. I don't have it in me to be an atheist, and I'm not the person to guide those who ultimately end up there. And from what I've seen, God leads people to their ultimate happiness, no matter where it is and what it looks like. Even if it leads away from the Church, or away from Him. He forces no one to stay. Choosing your own happiness is so important, God will not compromise on that with you. If you are being brought to the cliff, you can handle it. He trusts you and your capabilities to survive and thrive through this process. You can do this! And there's no better endorsement you can have than from God.
