A year ago I decided to shake the dust off my feet and finally come out of the closet to my close friends and family as the one that left the flock. The one that got away. The black sheep. The one who left the fold. The one who rejected Christianity once and for all.
Fast forward a year and my stance hasn't changed, I still don't attend a weekly meeting with a bunch of other people I pretend to know to worship something I don't really believe even exists. In a building made to be something more than it is, eating bread and drinking wine that has turned into something uber spiritual and disturbing on a level that feels a little akin to cannibalism.
People have told me "Oh Hannah but you are letting people ruin this for you." Or "Hannah we know that you have been hurt by church but you shouldn't let that turn you away from God." While it's true that I was hurt by church deeply the thing I am thankful that they did was nudge me to dig deeper and to really look at everything that was going on around me, they nudged me to search through the bible for truth and meaning in my life that I actually really believed. Suddenly, I realized that the more I read the bible the less it made sense. The more I read the bible the more plot holes I could see. Suddenly the elders at church saying "when the bible contradicts itself it's not actually doing that" started to rub me the wrong way. If it isn't contradicting itself then what the fuck is happening? Nothing made sense, it didn't make sense that believing one tiny thing in the bible made some people go live in paradise forever and dis-believing in the same little tiny thing caused others to be damned to hell for eternity no matter how chill and loving that person was. It didn't make any sense. A "God of love" shitting all over everyone because he can? A religion that discourages you from having experiences and learning about other things simply because it could show you something to contradict Christianity. A community that rejects scientific findings because it doesn't fit with their book. A religion that stifles learning and free thinking is not a religion I want to be a part of.
So now, my church is a mountain, a forest, a stream where everything is quiet except the trees and birds around me singing of the glories of nature. Singing their heart out just because they can. I find spirituality in running through wheat fields, I find spirituality and peace in smoking a bowl with good friends and laughing till my sides hurt. I find peace in running naked through the woods with my fellow humans. I find comfort in the crackling of a fire. I find fulfillment that I am here in this moment, I find fulfillment in just being, in feeling the love of the universe around me.
God is love, God is light, God is energy, God is in every single one of us, God is when we connect with another creature, God is us, God is this place, and I'm content and happy with that.
Hannah Dub
Fast forward a year and my stance hasn't changed, I still don't attend a weekly meeting with a bunch of other people I pretend to know to worship something I don't really believe even exists. In a building made to be something more than it is, eating bread and drinking wine that has turned into something uber spiritual and disturbing on a level that feels a little akin to cannibalism.
People have told me "Oh Hannah but you are letting people ruin this for you." Or "Hannah we know that you have been hurt by church but you shouldn't let that turn you away from God." While it's true that I was hurt by church deeply the thing I am thankful that they did was nudge me to dig deeper and to really look at everything that was going on around me, they nudged me to search through the bible for truth and meaning in my life that I actually really believed. Suddenly, I realized that the more I read the bible the less it made sense. The more I read the bible the more plot holes I could see. Suddenly the elders at church saying "when the bible contradicts itself it's not actually doing that" started to rub me the wrong way. If it isn't contradicting itself then what the fuck is happening? Nothing made sense, it didn't make sense that believing one tiny thing in the bible made some people go live in paradise forever and dis-believing in the same little tiny thing caused others to be damned to hell for eternity no matter how chill and loving that person was. It didn't make any sense. A "God of love" shitting all over everyone because he can? A religion that discourages you from having experiences and learning about other things simply because it could show you something to contradict Christianity. A community that rejects scientific findings because it doesn't fit with their book. A religion that stifles learning and free thinking is not a religion I want to be a part of.
So now, my church is a mountain, a forest, a stream where everything is quiet except the trees and birds around me singing of the glories of nature. Singing their heart out just because they can. I find spirituality in running through wheat fields, I find spirituality and peace in smoking a bowl with good friends and laughing till my sides hurt. I find peace in running naked through the woods with my fellow humans. I find comfort in the crackling of a fire. I find fulfillment that I am here in this moment, I find fulfillment in just being, in feeling the love of the universe around me.
God is love, God is light, God is energy, God is in every single one of us, God is when we connect with another creature, God is us, God is this place, and I'm content and happy with that.
Hannah Dub
