When I found out a month back from my mother that Aware had been overtaken by a new group of women with uncannily the same religious background (and even more coindentally, the same religious institution), my bullshit detector went off. When it comes to religion, my senses are heightened and I am ready to take on any debate.
I used to be a very devout Christian who spent my weekends at Church, worshipping, serving and doing almost anything for my church. And due to a turn of unfortunate events that happened, I found my eyes opening on what I had ignored for almost two years of my life.
I'm sure you must know by now that more than anything, I crave acceptance from people. I was 'one of them', you could say, at Church. I served in ministries, interacted well with my peers, and responded to every sermon with an open heart and childlike faith. And then one day, I fell in love with someone from the church.
He was my best friend and a great companion. For the first time in my life I found a partner I could study with. He was great at Math and I sucked at it. It was an important year for us so many afternoons found us at the libraries or fast food joints, mugging to our hearts' content. His mum loved me, and my mum loved him too. When I had a heartbreak, I'd moan to him about it. When he had a crush, he'd seek me for advice on how to land a date with a girl. And one night, I just found myself thinking of him so much that I knew it could not be just friendship.
And as the months passed, I realised that I had found someone who saw me through my 'invisibility'. You cannot imagine my elation then. He was sweet and was the first boy who held my hand. And best yet, we were God-fearing, ministry-serving individuals. And in Christian context (or at least according to the books I read on relationships), it was a great start.
Until we brought the matter up with the youth pastors and their response was not what we had bargained for.
"If you really love God," I remember one of them saying, "You would break this up and try to live life serving God while single."
I was 16 and so were he. We were innocent, we were respectful, we were naive. We put our blossoming relationship to an end.
Clearly I was devastated and very lost. However I was grateful to see that many hands were reaching out to me, trying to pull me back up into my usual fervour. And believe me, I tried so hard. I worshipped harder than ever, I threw myself into Church camps and activities. I wanted to believe that I could get out of this.
And in the end I really did get out of that heartbreak, but in a way that even I had not expected.
It was about 6 to 7 months after the heart-shattering experience and I was still mourning. I remember it so clearly: Just one week, everyone was there for me and I had mentors guiding me. Friends were there taking me out swimming and tanning. And a week later, suddenly, everything stopped. It was like I was suddenly thrown into a room of vaccuum. Bit by bit I saw one of my closest girl friends avoiding me; she would always take the bus home with me after church, but that day, she rushed off to a friend's car asking for a ride back. And after that, she stopped inviting me to her place, or speaking to me online. I was considered as a group leader to lead some younger Christians. Suddenly, the idea was dropped. I don't know how exactly I could explain it, but I was starting to be excluded. And I had a feeling it was because I was starting to look like a burden.
And so I stopped going back.
It used to be as natural as breathing; attending service each week without fail, and cancelling or dropping other events just for it. But as the new year came and went, and I realised that I no longer felt motivated to go, I started adding my name into Saturday and Sunday shifts for work (I used to leave evenings free before). And one day, I just slipped out of my innocent, Christian life.
As I lost my innocence to the real world around me, I decided to try to look at other religions. Perhaps something in me was prompting me to look elsewhere. It was definitely an experimental transition for me. I was in a new relationship with a Muslim boy and so I decided to take up Islamic classes to learn about the religion. I spoke to people of many other religions and even picked up the Tao Te Ching. And funnily enough somehow, I could not shake off my Christian beliefs even though I stopped going to Church.
Life really is different when you're not faithfully practicing religion. Maybe it was because I saw the real world, but I didn't like the tribulations presented, and I thought, "Hey, perhaps I really need to go back to Church after all. Enough experimenting!"
So I decided that I should go back to that old Church. I scolded myself for being childish to think that they were 'against me' (why would they, really! I was the stubborn one who refused to move on..right?) and told myself to go back and rededicate my life. But the moment I stepped back into the area, I knew that I no longer belonged.
Old friends whom I had known before, were now in relationships with each other. What a disgusting shock. I recalled how the pastors had berated my puppy love and I for wanting to get into a relationship, and now look at the number of couples popping up all around the church.
And even though I had come back like a 'lost sheep', there was no shepherd. In fact, I believe that the shepherds were too busy doting on all the other sheep who had stayed and played favourites. I remember how a friend used to call the Church members 'elite' because they grouped themselves tightly in cliques and were unfriendly to others who were not 'part of them'. I thought it was a childish and jealous opinion. But now, I saw it all. There were the musicians who constantly received praise for their "awesome worship session"; the girls who called themselves the Smallies because they were all skinny, cute and small; and other groups who took no notice of any other newcomers, or new-oldcomers, particularly me. I tried to ignore this "Satantic" thought, and proceeded to speak to a youth pastor on how I would like to rededicate my life to Christ. I said, "I'd like to get baptized again, actually. And be committed by joining a group that could constantly hold me accountable."
Imagine my shock when I received these words: "You have to prove to me that you are really serious before I let you get baptized. And at the moment, all groups are full, so you would have to wait."
So now becoming a Christian needed an initiation? And since when did God ever "wait" on His children?? How many times have I heard the saying, "When you draw close to God, God will draw close to you"? How true is this fact now in my context? Hardly.
Whether or not it was the religion at fault, I could see that none of them had the interest in helping me get back on my feet. I guess they believed that I was still sulky, childish old me, and that they did not want to go through all the trouble only to get 'burned'. Well I didn't know that Church organisations worked like Gym memberships.
One day, I met up with my old puppy love mate. We are now still good friends even though we are both attached to other people. As it turns out, he left Church not too long after I did, because he believed that it was too impossible to grow amongst them.
"Look at them. They are only bothering about their own little groups, and thinking about how much better they can become. Do they ever look at the rest of us, who are not as 'rich' or 'talented in music' or 'fashionable' as they are?" He lamented. I did recall that the reason why I loved him then was because he was not like 'the rest'. While the rest focused on being in groups and doing things together, he would talk to the ones who felt left out, and even choose to go out with his mum after service instead of going with them. While everyone else died to be in the worship team, he was contented with being in the children's ministry even if it meant that he would not be in the same place as them.
He was right. And I suppose, my suspicions had rung true as well. Religion, regardless of which one was the True one, was not supposed to be exclusive and elite. While everyone else around me grumbled that the Christians were always trying to brainwash them like a "multi-level marketing" company would, I had first-hand experience that the ones who had fallen from grace were, in fact, not given a second chance. Just because we had strayed for a while, we could not be let back in because we were no longer 'trusted'.
And so now, I float like a wandering spirit in and out of religion, because I am not sure if I could trust it again. When I found out about how the "Sisters" of Aware's new guard were acting, I was instantly miffed by how they 'excluded' those who were not 'right' like them.
The lesson of inclusiveness in Christianity that I learnt as Miss Invisible was, and is still valuable to me. Although I had lost dear friends due to this practice of exclusivity, I started to be mindful of those who had backslided, or were of a different religion or belief. Perhaps, back in the day when I was one of them, I had despised such discriminated groups as well. Fallen Christians, or those of other faith, are to be more respected than the ones who profess themselves to be of the True Religion (and then hardly practice it). If Christianity were to be really true like how I still hope for it to be, perhaps my role in this world would be to include all those who were discriminated. I truly love them more than my own supposed "Brothers and Sisters in Christ".
0 comments:
Post a Comment