valid happiness

I don't spend time on this blog writing about how happy I am right now.

Basically because that's not what this place is for. I come to this corner of the web to vent, to get it out! Then I move on with my life. The last thing I want or need right now is to make a full time job out of studying theology, the way I did a few years ago.

The second reason is because anyone who has been through this, who understands what I'm writing about, will understand how freeing and empowering it is to get out and how happy that makes you. Those who are still in and who believe I'm deceived or possessed or just bitter and frustrated - they won't believe me.

As was stated in a sermon by one of my husband's old friends, "without God there is no justice, happiness, purpose - there is only coldness, darkness, evil, sadness, etc."

When that is your view of the world, you can not accept that an agnostic is actually happy or at peace, or even has purpose, apparently. There is no room in your "worldview" for that.

So it can not be true.

I don't talk often about how great it feels to be out, how much more purposeful I am, how much better I am at being a wife and mom, how I don't need my anti-depressants like I used to. How the times I am unhappy, struggling and in a dark place are all related to god and the church.

I don't talk about it because I know that it isn't valid to those who would be questioning my sanity. It's beyond understanding for fundamentalists.

I posted this quote on my facebook page.

What is true is already so.
Owning up to it doesn’t make it worse.
Not being open about it doesn’t make it go away.
And because it’s true, it is what is there to be interacted with.
Anything untrue isn’t there to be lived.
People can stand what is true,
for they are already enduring it.
–Eugene Gendlin

I can stand what is true. I've been enduring it for years now. The truth, for me, is that my life in the church was rough. The truth is that staying in the church was destroying my heart, my mind and my marriage. I wasn't owning up to the truth of how I felt about the church.

I finally said "I believe the church does more harm than good in the world" and I still tried to hide in the culture I knew, even after I believed it to be harmful and abusive.

I can not do that long and survive. I couldn't live with myself, perpetuating a harmful lie.

But to acknowledge what was already true for me? THAT was freeing. Not any harder. Not any sadder. Not any worse.

It was better. It IS better.

Despite my reasons not to be blogging about the good parts of my life, I think I may need to change that. There are so many specific ways things are better, so many good things every day. I could write a daily blog about just that!

So. I guess we will see if I can maintain a bit of bloggy balance.