Iām an atheist. I used to be extremely religious, mostly because I was thoroughly brainwashed, conditioned and indoctrinated since before I could really talk to be terrified of my grandmotherās churchās hell and demons (whom I was told were responsible for everything from my childhood epilepsy to my birth parents abandoning me, usually because of some grievous sin Iād committed. At like, 4 years old.) This post isnāt about my incredibly traumatic history with organized religion so Iām not really going to get into that, but the point is that I have long since lost all ability to accept anything I canāt prove or see, touch and hear. And believe me, I MISS it - I miss the security and comfort of faith, the fulfillment of feeling like Iām part of something so much bigger than me, the warmth of love from a god I used to be absolutely sure existed. I miss the sense of purpose and mission, I miss the identity. I can never go back and find those things in religion again, but my friend Adrian has.Ā
Heās a Catholic priest now, officially, he finished seminary recently. We met when I was in college and he was part of an outreach program from his church to help mend relationships between the local church presence and my collegeās LGBT support group. Adrian is one of the kindest, gentlest, most optimistic and compassionate people Iāve ever known. Heās shockingly (at least to me) progressive for a priest, and I fully admit to grilling him when we first met, trying to root out his hidden conservative shittiness that I was sure lurked under the surface of his patient smile. I would try to trick him into admitting that he secretly thought gays were going to hell, or black people didnāt belong in the priesthood, or even things like his opinions on American borders or healthcare reform. Adrian shamed me with how incredibly understanding and tolerant he was of my constant barrage of attempts to prove he was as awful as the people who raised me and saw me in church every Sunday.
Once, when I was doing just this, he laughed and said,Ā āTeddy. Jesus was black, science is real, and god loves gay people. There really are those among the clergy who know this to be true, and I promise Iām one of them. I completely understand why youāre suspicious though.ā The thing that gets me is, knowing him makes the loss of faith hurt more than it would otherwise I think. I might have become someone like Adrian, had I not been exposed to the horrors and lies slithering under the shiny surface of religion early on. I wish I could know Adrianās religion, his faith that clearly brings him so much peace and serenity and love for the world and everyone in it, even the worst of us.Ā
Getting to know him has scraped that old wound raw, one I thought Iād healed by embracing only the proven and logical and dismissing anything that demanded blind faith. If god were real, I told myself, he or she or they or it wouldnāt need or want to demand blind faith. Nothing worth believing in requires you to close your eyes and stick your head in the sand and ignore rationale. The justifications always grated on me too, the easy and convenient defense thatĀ āwell, if my prayers arenāt answered itās because god had a different plan, and if they were then that was also god, hooray!ā It smacked of deliberately tailored comfort, a defense mechanism to protect our fragile human brains against the vast meaninglessness of reality.
But sometimes Adrian will text me and ask if I want coffee, heās always up early in the mornings because thatās who he is and I usually am because I sleep like shit and I often have early work shifts. And when I meet him, sometimes itās cool and brisk and pearl-gray and weāre in knitted scarves and boots and his collar isnāt visible under his layers but it is, it radiates all around him like a halo of his own and he sips his dark roast and tips his head back to look up at the quiet dawn blooming like he knows something I donāt, something heās aching for me to find on my own because itās the only way I will. In those moments, I remember the stirrings of faith, how it felt to wonder if maybe the violent, furious, terrifying god of my grandmotherās was a complete misinterpretation of the kind of god who was really out there, sharing those dawns and that coffee and that peace with us. I used to look for that quiet god in between all the screaming and shrieking in tongues and judgment and hellfire and horror and hatred of my familyās church, but I could never find them and finally I gave up. I told Adrian about this today, on my day off during our early coffee run.
āOf course you did,ā he said.Ā āThey didnāt just demand blind faith of you, they yanked a blindfold around your heart and made you stumble through all their hellfire desperately looking for the living god. They had no right, and no one can blame you for escaping as soon as you could. They were screaming in your ears so loudly you couldnāt hear the quiet god whispering, calling you. Thatās the tragedy of it all, really. They took god from you and left you deaf and blind in the cold, lost and scarred. God doesnāt scream or swing fists. God whispers, and waits.ā
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