The most dreaded letter

I became so enamored of Episcopal bishop John Spong’s “non-theistic” Christianity that I started attending a midweek Bible class at a liberal Episcopal church. I knew my atheism represented a major difference between myself and most, if not all, of my classmates, so not wanting to misrepresent myself, I gave my blog address to everyone (I had just posted twice about atheism), and asked them to let me know if they had any questions. They didn’t. I was surprised, but I realized that, from their perspective, I might have shared too much too soon, or that my blog wasn’t their cup of tea, or that they hadn’t even looked at it. But, after decades of having Christians react to the A word as if I had dumped a bucket of cold water over their heads, my best guess was that their warm welcome to me had just been irrevocably withdrawn. I attended the next class, but I had no idea what anyone was thinking.

Last week was the week from hell that I wrote about in my last post, so I emailed the priest who leads the class to let her know I was too sick to attend. She expressed her concern, but I had thought that, perhaps, others would too given how sick I was, and when they didn’t, my doubts about whether I was welcome became that much greater. Now, I don’t know if I’ll go back. If I do, I’ll worry that I’m imposing myself on people who don’t want me around, but if I don’t, I’ll wonder if my expectation that they would reach out to me regarding my health and/or my beliefs were unrealistic. If that’s the case, when and how should I have shared my atheism? Should I have waited a year and told only those whom I thought could handle it, as if it were some humiliating secret that only close friends should know? And why would I, an atheist who has no interest in conversion, have gone to a Bible study in the first place? I’ll tell you.


*Whatever else it is, the Bible is an interesting book, and I enjoy studying and discussing it.

*I value community with those who ask serious questions.

*Living with pain is hard, and I need support.

*Instead of isolating myself from people who think differently than I, I want to seek them out and find the good in them.

*I want to hear what religion means to people. The fact that I don’t believe in it doesn’t mean I’m uninterested.

*I want to learn whatever Christians of depth and maturity might have to teach me about matters of importance such as patience, forgiveness, fortitude, and compassion.

*I want to serve as a bridge between believers and non-believers, and with this in mind, I saw my attendance as a gift. I even fantasied myself hosting a meeting in which I answered questions about atheism--and why I became an atheist--that is if anyone cared, and it was hard for me to imagine that they wouldn’t, not that what I imagine necessarily has any bearing on anyone else’s reality.

* I’m in accord with Progressive Christianity. I couldn’t be a Progressive Christian because I don’t worship Jesus, but I could commune with them on the basis of their desire to interact fully and equally with people who see the world in different ways. 

*I enjoy elaborate rituals and beautiful sanctuaries, and no church ever pleased me more in these regards than the Episcopal (not that I imagined I would attend services much).

*I admire the Episcopal Church for its willingness to take unpopular stands regarding women’s rights and homosexuality. So far as I’m aware, no other church in the Anglican communion has half the guts, compassion, or devotion to justice of the American Episcopal. As it is treated by its fellow Anglicans, so are people like myself treated by nearly everyone, and this gives me a feeling of kinship through oppression.

  

If I’m right, and I’m no longer welcome at St. _____ because of my atheism, does this not suggest that the church serves as a fort behind which timid believers huddle in fear and loathing of the Great Beast of Secularism that threatens their tenuous faith? I am but one atheist, and I went to them on their turf and on their terms (meaning that I would show respect for their beliefs). Where is their love for people such as I? I really don’t know. Maybe it was there, and I didn’t see it (not after sharing the fact of my atheism anyway); or maybe they didn’t show it because they didn’t understand how awkward it was for me to reach out to them; or maybe my sensitivity caused me to imagine rejection where it didn’t exist; or, just maybe, they really would prefer that I not come back. Having never known a Christian (except on this blog) who wanted to be my friend once I said I was an atheist, I think I have my answer. Yet, having felt kicked around by Christians since I was a teenager, I’ve come to expect more of the same, and this makes it almost impossible for me to know how to approach them or how to interpret their behavior when I do. All I know is that when I have nothing to go by but my feelings, I can but go by my feelings, and my feelings are that something isn’t right.

Obviously, the people whom this is about might read it. I would never write about someone in order to influence them, but by the same token, I realize that I can never assume that any given person who ever had the address of this blog isn’t reading it regularly even if I haven’t seen him or her in years. It is simply my resolve that this not influence me in the least. Otherwise, my reason for writing would be defeated.

It is now the next day, and I’ve been thinking about your comments. I realized as I went through them that I was, subconsciously, putting these people through a test. That made sense on one level because it offered the possibility of clarifying my situation in a hurry. But on another level, it was appallingly cynical, like saying, “I'm so convinced that you’re not worthwhile, that I'm willing to risk blowing you out of the water by giving you an exam five minutes after we meet." 

It was a Hitler kind of week

I unintentionally lost seven pounds in six days last week, my only other symptom of illness being fatigue so severe that it kept me in bed for much of the time. Because I regularly take pills for nerve pain, pills for arthritic pain, and pills for sleep, along with marijuana and strong narcotics, my first thought was liver or kidney failure, so I stopped taking everything. I knew I would be in more pain, but I had no idea how bad it would get. My shoulders, my back, my hips, the hand that I broke last summer, and my upper legs and knees, were all screaming at me, and I could do nothing for them. When I couldn’t sleep in bed, I moved to the recliner that served as my bed for eight months out of the twenty-four that I was having surgeries, but I couldn’t sleep there either.

I didn’t want to go to the doctor because there are a lot of bad colds going around, but when four days passed, and I was little improved, I decided that I had to go because I wasn't holding up well under the pain, and because I thought I might be so ill that my life would be jeopardized if I waited. He took some blood tests, and I went home to await the results, practice having made me fairly stoic about such things. Peggy came down with a cold that night. The tests came back yesterday, and to my very great surprise, they were normal. The doctor speculated that, whatever the initial problem had been, my later fatigue and weight loss had been due to narcotic withdrawal, so I’m back to taking pills and eating marijuana cookies (but no narcotics). If not for the pain and fatigue, I would have enjoyed seeing the universe without a haze around it. I hadn’t realized how absent from the external world I had become, even though it had been a welcome absence for the most part. I mean, between hurting bad and being loaded, which would you choose? Duh. 

When people talk about the redemptive power of suffering, I think they’re full of shit. They’re invariably people who have no firsthand experience of what they’re talking about, at least when it comes to bad chronic physical pain. Imagine that you have the worst toothache you’ve ever felt, that it’s untreatable, and that the only thing that will even reduce the pain by half might cause you to sicken and die. Is there anyone on earth who imagines that he would gain from that? If there is, bring him over, so I can slap some sense into him. My life is a war of attrition, and every year I lose more hope, feel more pain, and become more disabled, and I’ve yet to meet anyone in my situation who is doing any victory dances. 

I can’t say that pain hasn’t given me insights, but they’ve been insights about how really bad life can hurt, how little can be done about that, how little support anyone can give, and how utterly tedious it all becomes, both to the sufferer and to everyone he looks to for support. I never dreamed that my life would turn out like this. Quite the opposite. I thought I would be strong and capable almost until I died, and now I’m wondering how much longer I will able to clean house. It took me three days last time, and it’s not even a big house. 

I think it likely that the only thing that keeps me alive is Peggy (I’m grateful for this), but she is also the person who suffers the most because of me, and that alone is enough to bear. I can only justify my life by bringing good into hers, and I rarely feel that I do particularly well. I have observed little difference in whether pain is physically or emotionally based because either way, the struggle to overcome (or to at least adjust) is likely to be longterm, intense, and a pain in the ass of ones partner. I guess I can give myself credit for doing the best I can, but how would I really know?

P.S. Yes, I understand. I could be worse off, much worse off. I probably know that better than those few who try to remind me of it because living with pain has improved my ability to sense pain in others. It’s like if you bought a red Toyota Camry, and all of a sudden you notice how many red Toyota Camrys are on the road. But, more than that, you have become deeply interested in red Toyota Camrys. Rather than bore me, people who tell me about their pain fascinate and encourage me.

You who read this blog regularly will remember that I had a period last summer when my pain level dropped by 90%. It lasted for about three months, and since then, the pain has kept getting worse. Those three months were the first time in a few years that I had seriously dared to hope, and when the pain came back, they just made it the harder to bear.

The Bed Wars

Everyday when I got ready to make the bed, Brewsky would be in it. I would pick him up, set him on the floor, and proceed with my work. He resented this and would jump back into bed before I could even pull the covers off. I would put him on the floor again, and he would jump back into bed again. I’m a fast bed-maker, but some days, he would jump back into bed as many as eight times. I didn’t know what to do. For six months, I was tortured. For six months, I lay awake worrying. Finally, I realized that I only had two choices: quit making the bed or kill the cat. These choices were so grim that I decided to devote six more months to thinking about the problem. 

One day as I watched him gobble down his supper (he eats like a dog), I thought that maybe I could use food to bribe him to get out of bed, so I tried it. It worked, splendidly. I would throw a few kibbles down the hallway, and off he would go. Sometimes, I would either be too hurried or simply not in the mood to do this, and so it was that I gradually went back to setting him on the floor. To my surprise, he no longer became angry. Most days, he’s even downright patient, and will observe me stoically until I pull the spread over the pillows, which is his cue that he can jump back in and not be taken out again. Ever now and I then, I will put him back into the bed myself, pet him a little, and wish him happy dreams. He seems to appreciate this. He’s hardly an unreasonable cat, and I’m happy that I was clever enough to think of an alternative to murder.