I have had to learn to deal with what I have come to call “a spinning mind” all my life. This trait of “thinking, thinking, thinking” as some would define it is just who I am. For some reason, asking questions, wanting to know the origins or way of this or that is how I think and process my world and experiences. Theology and a lifelong interest in the Bible has also caused more problems than it seems to have solved for me. This is my experience. If it is not yours, I am happy for you.
I also have had to deal with anxiety in the last few years due to, what for me, are extreme life changes and that old mind spinning that projects me either back in to the past which kindles anger or depression or the future where anxiety lives. But since I am feeling that anxiety begin to rear it’s head even as I write, let’s talk about it and what might be a way to keep on moving.
We live in an anxious world and the powers that currently be seem to feel they are the cure but in fact seem more the cause of the problems and associated anxiety we all feel. Will we all die of bird flu? Will we all die of some plague accidental or deliberate? Is some idiot going to start a nuclear war because they can or have some skewed view of their role on the planet or alledged power? Have we elected (who really knows if “we” did?), people with agendas that are spinning us out of control and spending us into the poorhouse? Will we drown by tsuanami, fry in summer heat, cave in by earthquakes, be cast upon the plains by tornadoes, blown away by super storm hurricanes? Is our government turning into a dictatorship and was George Orwell correct, just a few years early?
My interest and experience is with religion gone bad. I know pastors who are building whole religious empires (at least in their minds) on the fear, guilt, shame and income they can generate by reading and preaching that they possess special knowledge and insight that the truly “called” need to understand. Churches and Denominations also do that. I have a deep resentment for these men and pure wonder at those follow them. The Church and ministry should heal the wounded, not inflict the wounds, but that is not always the outcome of how some churches and ministers end up affecting the people who trust them.
A simple test of a man’s message is to count how many times he uses the word “I” in his explanations. This is why I found it comforting to find that “I am the way, the truth and the light…” is also found on Eqyptian temples to the Sun God and may not have been spoke by the Jesus who also is alledged to have said, “why callest thou me good…” Me thinks the Church at a later date made Jesus say things that, in fact, he never did say, nor never could say. Just my less anxious feeling opinion. People who are “the only way” along with truth that is the “only truth” make me…well, anxious.
Just yesterday I received a call from a former church member who asked if I had heard that so and so had told his followers to cut off all relationships with family, relatives and friends. This is a man who has found that he personally is spoken of in the Bible, of all things. He is a self appointed Apostle type who believes that Satan will chase his small church into the wilderness and have to be hidden by God in a “place of safety” to protect them. Some have their mind on a place called Petra in Jordan where I am sure some entrepeneur type could start a chain of “Petra Huts” and make some bucks.:)
Anyway… he gets this perspective out of the book of Revelation, but then again, don’t they all. I would hope the proper authorities investigate this before it is too late for a very small number of true believers in this man’s skewed Biblical view of the world, but he is only one of scores of ill informed fundamentalists who have scary solutions for all of us, with them of course, as our leaders in the true understanding of the true God and his true church.
I don’t know if he is sincere, ill or a con man, anymore than the other three or four I know who now feel they are one of the Two Witnesses spoken of, again in the book of Revelation, that book which has caused more people with mental illnesses to rise to the surface than any other in the Bible. This call, I believe has ignited the anger over religion gone bad of my past and the anxiety caused by the unknowable future. I realise some of the anxiety comes from the personal fall out that has come from the results of my knowing it was long past time to get out of that which no longer inspired or informed me. Being a seeker at heart, that’s just how it works.
Religious anxiety is a beast of it’s own. Personally, and save for those moments when the chemistry of past experiences with religion gone bad is set in motion, I am free of it. I no longer worry about human constructs that are designed for control by fear, guilt and shame, such as the false idea of hell or the biblical threats of the lake of fire for those that are not growing in the grace and mostly fake knowledge of some who profess to know. But I still want to know why the things of religion,
Christianity is a perfect breeding ground for anxiety as it places unachievable and unrealistic goals before people. “Become ye therefore perfect, as you heavenly Father is perfect” comes to mind. No challenge there. Christians have the absolute anxiety causing duty to be sure they have the right truth, follow the right teachings, listen to the right ministers who preach the scriptures, the right way, or else.
This very fact of Christian life is THE reason there is so much division in Christianity. There are always men who are more sure of their own righteousness and closeness to God and the scriptures than the previous guy. They split churches in half seeking a following that will be more true to God than the last church they were in and it will happen again and again. Knowing this is why when I was told that I could walk off with the Church if I was tired of what was going on in the Corporate Church, I said no, and went to massage school. Now at least I rub people the right way…Sorry, had to say that:), and don’t have to go through another coup by local church elders who want to be King of Nothing.
I knew a woman once who literally cut off her hand because “if your right hand offends you, cut it off, for it is better you go into the Kingdom of God without it than into the Lake of fire…” blah blah blah. I think it also tells us to pluck out our offending eyes as well but believe we’d all be blind and limbless along with a few other vital organs if we did what the Bible says. I know the apologetic on those scriptures, but tell those guys in the middle east where the book was written it is merely symbolic. Fundamentalist Christianity thrives on conflict and division and promotes anxiety while also offering the cure for a price. What a racket!
I don’t personally understand why people allow themselves to be lead and duped by such religious tripe. They must ignore a lot of little moments in their thinking when they inwardly say “that’s stupid” but outwardly dismiss their own observations. Well actually I do understand that as I did it for years.
Humans want to know the right things and do the right things for the right reasons in the right way. At least most of those I know and knew do and did. But that is also a formula for anxiety and not a little bit of anger. The anger will come from looking back and seeing that what you were so sure of in your youth has become the source of your doubt in the present, and the void left for a time will lead to anxiety over a future you thought you had figured out, but now know you don’t. That’s how it works. What’s the solution, or maybe, what is A solution, since maybe we need get away from thinking there is always only just one true way to think or do anything.?
First of all, get out of the unchangeable past, stay out of the unknowable future and be present in the only time you have…NOW. I am speaking to myself, but you can take this advice too if you wish. I simply refer the reader to Eckhart Tolle’s excellent insights into this topic in his series on The Power of Now. Just know that living anywhere else than the now is insane. If you think of it it, churches and their leaders motivate people by looking back to the past, (scripture, stories, history-real or imagined, and characters) for their motivational sources and ahead to the future (prophecy of what will happen, to whom and how), to motivate, frighten, “inspire” and keep the faithful in their seats and tithing. Sincere? Maybe. Profitable? Absolutely. True? Probably not near as much as one would think, but I spare you for now.
Secondly, and frankly, learn not to care all that much for you personally about what such Bible characters as Moses, Joshua, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Jonah, the minor prophets or King David, who may or may not have ever literally existed depending, had to say. Get over the idea that if someone spoke it in the Bible, that is the end of the topic and the final truth of whatever they were commenting on. It relieves your religious anxiety to be able to say “so what” to someone who tries to manage your life by quoting the people of the book, so to speak, who said what they said thousands of years gone by now. Be prepared for them to freak out as well as they have never remotely thought that you might be able to think for yourself without searching the scriptures to see if these things be so.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about what Malachi said,” is liberating! Just learn to say “I don’t give a rat’s ass what (blank) said…” and fill in the blank with the Bible character that someone is using to inform you as to how you should be or do in the present. Maybe ‘ol (blank) was not who you think he was or as portrayed and you are truly wasting your time with allowing yourself to be motivated by advice or ideas given thousands of years ago, as if we haven’t learned anything since then. I know at least one person who’d have a right hand if they had used this skill and gotten some professional help.
Thirdly, theological anxiety can be lessoned by knowing that everything the pastor or minister says is subject to being questioned. I know we are not used to doing that. I never was. Just the act of reading “what Jesus said” was enough for me to believe that simply is THE final truth on the matter, again, as if we have not learned anything since.
Paul said in the New Testament that he wished all men could be as himself, single and celebate. Jesus said a man should leave his father and mother and cleave to a wife, you pick. Paul said women should not speak in church, but rather ask their husbands, because it was the woman who sinned and not the man. This of course is literally BS, but how many women live anxious lives trying to obey this outwardly when inside they know that they know more than their husbands anyway and his answer would be stupid and selfserving? Lots, I can assure you. Learn to question so called “authorities.” It is better mental health. Let go the fallacy that to question the minister, pastor, preacher, rabbi or Pope is to question the Deity. Trust me, all such are just men and they all fart from time to time.
Paul says the only reason for marriage is to avoid fornication. That might be the only reason Paul felt he would get married, but it’s not true, nor it a good reason to get married. Much anxiety in Christian homes is caused believing that the advice of a man who saw a bright light and fell off his ass to become an Apostle, but never met the physical Jesus or quotes him is, 2000 years later, the only advice there is. Many are anxious letting a man who had no wife, no children and no detectable relationships give them advice or even commands on marriage, childrearing and relationships! It’s kinda like going to a Catholic Priest for advice about human sexuality, children and marriage. This is one anxiety I don’t choose to inflict on myself any longer. So to lessen your anxiety, get up all your courage and be willing to believe that jsut because someone mentioned in the Bible said this or that, does not make it so. It is liberating.
Finally, but not really finally, breathe. Simple stuff really. Learn to sit, quietly with music that inspires your inner self or sounds that calm and just be. That is what in the present means. Instead of going to Church, take a hike, sit by the river, lay under a tree and look at the stars. Don’t live up to the expectations of others. Live up to your own. Don’t even have expectations for a time, but just be who you are, now and not always feeling the need to better, or smarter, or more faithful to this or that idea that you don’t and maybe can’t even grasp. Life is not something that is always just around the corner, the bend, over the next hill or something to be lived when all the problems, fears, shortcomings and needs are either overcome or met. Life is now and anxiety or the lack of it is directly proportional to one’s ability to live in the present and stay out of the anger producing past and anxiety ridden future. Theological anxiety is treated well by refusing to allow others to introduce you to God, Jesus and all the Prophets, brought to you by way of fear, guilt and shame and a claim on at least ten percent of your income.
Thanks for listening, I feel better.
