I would never want to claim I have my act together. I don’t. And I don’t want to pretend to either. There are days when I am not doing well. I am just now emerging out of two of the darkest months of my entire life. I’m not out of the woods yet. (Maybe some of you extra sensitive ones have detected something.)
In 1 Corinthian 5:27, when Paul says that he lets his body take the punches, I think he was partially referring to taking the assault of life full on. In other words, he let his body experience the struggle of life in all its impact.
So I have to share with you that since I left the ministry and the church in March of 2010, I have taken a lot of punches from life. It has been quite the ride. Harrowing! These last two years have been the most frightening of my life.
The pitfalls after leaving the church, having lived within it for almost my whole life, are numerous. I have made some serious mistakes. I have hurt people. People I love. I have hurt myself. Even though it feels to me like this journey was assigned to me, I am totally responsible for my actions within it.
Here are just a few of the pitfalls to watch out for:
- It is an extremely lonely road. Not even those who love you the most will understand. But the best friends you could have are those who don’t try to fix you. They are those who realize that you are tied up in a great mystery that no human being can unravel. But they just stay with you nevertheless. You will experience profound loneliness in terms of the dimensions of your journey. But I hope you have a few friends who linger with you in your suffering. The best spiritual directors are those who recognize they can’t understand your unique path but will humbly wait until you might require their wisdom and help. Watch out for that.
- The liberation from years of confinement may induce the desire to be free from everything else. Every other commitment, even those you most value and treasure, you might be tempted to walk away from. I realized not long ago that I could walk away from everything and no one would really care except my immediate family. The new-found freedom is dizzying and can prompt irresponsible, harmful and regrettable behaviour. Watch out for that.
- You may be tempted to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We are always guilty of associating so many things. For instance, when I smell hand wipes with lanolin, I smell baby poop. I just can’t help it. I’ve changed our kids’ diapers and the association is so strong that it will be with me forever. The same with religion and spirituality. We may tend to associate everything spiritual with the negative spiritual experiences we’ve left behind. It took me a while to realize that there are actually some good worship songs out there that I don’t have to fast-forward. There is some good theology worth reading and meditating upon. Etc. Watch out for that.
Yes, these are things I’m dealing with. I wanted to share them with you. I want to share my journey with you.
I hope, in some way, that this is helpful to you.
Check out my BOOKS that address issues like this one with cartoons and writing.
My name is David Hayward, and I am the nakedpastor. I am a graffiti artist on the walls of religion.
I have enjoyed your honesty and have often considered your cartoons to be your pulpit to the world and I have enjoyed the sermons that come from there.
thanks dan.
Dear David,
Thanks for sharing your experience with everyone. IT is sure a lonely experience and its hard not to throw the baby, the water, the tub and the soap.
be well
Good advice David. Lots of people like to say that I’ve thrown the baby out with the bathwater…I guess that’s true to some degree too. I’m not sure the baby hadn’t already drowned anyway though.
This mirrors a lot of my experience. My marriage ended about the time I was forced out of my parish. Double assault, and then my family turned on me for being “such a fool.”
David, I can’t emphasize what a help you have been since I stumbled across your space years ago…since leaving I still have friends that won’t talk to me. people that were long time friends. And I did leave everything for a while, almost like a wounded animal retreating to die in a sense…it was a time of deep deep depression. I slowly come out of it wobbly, unsure most days…but I’m discovering a faith that is new. I can’t really describe it other than surrounded by a cloud of unknowing…and I’m comfortable with that. But, again I thank you for your transparency in sharing your journey…because in that you’ve kind of pulled me along. Thank you!
Your honesty is helping me on my journey. Thank you! I appreciate you!
Well articulated David. I chuckled in empathy as I read. I was prompted to leave the “institutional” (for lack of a better word)pastorate in December of 2008. I feel like we could have coffee and compare notes. 3 years removed, I can tell you these pitfalls remain with vigor. Others I would add are–matters of financial provision, feelings of abandonment, wrestlings with self-worth.
Just back to click on the “notify me of email” box
I’m having a very lonely day today. My desire to “let go of everything else” includes my life today.
mcarp: i know what you mean. some sun did shine… eventually… please wait.
Hey David, always admired the honesty of the cartoons and of your considerations. While it maybe lonely, you’re not in this alone. Keep rawk’n it out and living the questions!
Wow David….what you say is so so so so true. thank you for sharing your hurts and aches with us, so that those of us who reach those speed bumps know what to expect and how to address them, with God’s help. i get those days but i am learning to let go of the unimportant and press on with what i must (very hard to discern though)…May God bless you and keep you on this tough and lonely walk…
David, if you ever want to talk to someone who is also being visited by the dark night of the soul, please know you can always e-mail me. I know what you mean about the loneliness and I know that no amount of talking to another person can completely alleviate that, but sometimes it can help. 2 and 3 are true in my experience as well.
My perception of life is being shredded and re-written. It feels like being shattered into a million pieces.
tana etc… you people are amazing!
Very helpful. Just what I needed. I am experiencing all of this, and some days, I think it would be so much easier to just go back to the old way of being a comfortable and happy pew sitter.
Jeremy, don’t do it. The pew hasn’t changed, but you have.
Hi there nakedpastor.
I have been a quiet admirer of your work for some time now and although I won’t say I understand all of your work (cultural differences maybe : ) I’m more than touched by most of them.
I decided to get in touch because this last post hit home with me because I went (going) through very much the same.
I was ordained a pastor many years ago but for several reasons was unable to hold office. Most of the reasons had to do with postgraduate education, marriage, children… you know life. When I requested again to be considered for ordination I was told I was unsuitable. You can imagine the feeling of betrayal, inadequacy, rage, guilt and so on. I wouldn’t say this sent me into a spiral of depression but it didn’t help. I had for some time been struggling with my faith. It all started with reading atheist websites that were as proselytizing as some evangelistic websites. This lead me to read books (too) critical of the faith, and finally accepting that I was an agnostic/atheist. You know the feeling? the closest thing I can relate it to is grieving for a loved one. Losing one’s faith that has been such a big part of one’s life is the same as losing a parent, one that you thought would always be there. The loneliness, the abyss, the feeling that you can’t drag your family through it. The feeling of guilt and of being a hypocrite for not “coming out”. The sleepless nights, the fog in the mind. Is like trying to clinch to sanity.
Many people have tried to give this journey a name, wrestling with God is one of them and it does feel like a battle sometimes. De-converting is another, enlightenment is another, escaping is another (I don’t necessary agree with the last three), but the best name for it I have found is Musha Shugyo. I know weird huh? let me explain.
Musha shugyo means “the warriors journey”. The term comes from the Edo period in Japan and it refers to an event in the life of the retainer (samurai). A samurai after years of training, studying, and obtaining a certain level of mastery (usually with the sword), he would be expected to leave his school for an indefinite time of solitary journey (musha shugyo). The purpose of this journey was to develop shinkin, spiritual understanding of the warrior way (or bushi-do). The samurai decided how he was going to do it, some chose to travel Japan and train with other schools, town after town. Others chose to travel japan and challenge different warriors to mortal combat. Others chose to be ronin (masterless samurai/hired guns) and others chose to become mystics living in the mountains. It didn’t matter how they did it but the lessons were the same:
The journey is a personal one, no-one can do it for you.
The journey will include other people, some new, some old, but it will not be an independent journey.
The journey will scar you.
The journey will bring solitude, and in solitude you will find shinkin.
My personal journey felt like I was alone, but with people. That I was suffering but healthy. But, through it all God was faithful and brought me through the other side. I sometimes wonder how when I purposefully resisted him so much. But what I learned in my journey is that this “Garden of Gethsemane” is as much part of the spiritual life as the “Road to Emmaus” moment when I felt so close to God.
I have experienced the lows and the highs… this has been my journey and I’m glad we can read yours.
Thanks David for your honesty I can relate to a lot of what you draw and say. I’m thankful guys like you because when I’m in that lonely place I realize I’m not the only one…
thanks daniel for sharing. interesting.
Thanks, NP. I’m on somewhat of the same journey myself. While I have not left the church, I have left where I was and have been attending somewhere else that is a much more open and tolerant environment. I’ve made no commitments at this point, as I still feel the need to heal and am not sure where I will end up putting down roots. Maybe it’ll be this church, maybe another type of fellowship altogether. I’m also becoming comfortable with where I am in my journey and with moving away from some previously held opinions. There is a lot of truth and wisdom in the advice you have given.
I left last June…so not as far along on my journey as you are. In some ways perhaps I have been sheltered from much of the loneliness due to having the support of my wife and another couple who are our very dear friends to walk the journey with.
I have learned to never underestimate the gift of loved ones to walk with. You are not alone David.
A question I’ve been thinking about for awhile … When we say “don’t throw out the baby with the bath water” in this context … What exactly is the baby? Jesus? Community? The Church? What, oh please, is that baby?
Many healthy things come full circle. Thanks for sharing the ride.
I just wanted to thank you again for being here, David, for doing what you do, and to offer another empathetic ear in case you need it.
Loneliness…I’ve known mine for well over ten years now. Sometimes I’m worried that I’ve become trapped by it–that it’s stolen my voice.
Good question Mar. To me…the only true baby is Jesus. For others though I am sure the answer will different.
Thank you for your wonderful and candid blog. You have managed to make this difficult road I am on less lonely. I know it is a road that I have to walk on all by myself. I know I have to unravel the mysteries all by myself. But it is nice to know that someone else is on their own road. And I do love your art so much.
Really great post and wonderful supportive comments. From my experience, leaving the church or a previously held faith is a form of recovery. So much of what passes for religion seems to mirror an addiction. Like all recovery processes it takes time, support and incredible courage. Kudos to all of you on that journey.
David,
Knowing you as I do from the last few years of reading your blog, I think you might enjoy this:
http://theoldadam.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/i-believe-that-i-cannot-believe.mp3
I have listened to it several times, myself, and I always think it is something that you could have preached (or at least many parts of it).
.
Your post today has been a balm to the bleeding wound that some well-intentioned Christian pulled my scab from today. Thank you for your continued honesty and for releasing your incisive thoughts to journey the Web all the way to my aching (lonely, sad and angered) heart today. For what it’s worth, it helped…
Good post David, thank you
Thank you David for your candid blog, mirroring much of what I am going through. It has been 10 yrs. since I left (ran!!) from the fellowship (cult) I belonged to. I also left behind a ministry to women in Aglow. I also left trust behind and still have not retrieved it
I went through all the upset of having only one friend from those days who remains loyal and supportive and our son who was also a victim of spiritual abuse continues to be a great help to me. I did get very depressed, suicidal at one point and then had a total break-down where I was hospitalized for 4 months. That was 3 years ago and I am recovered from my “psychotic episode” which was the scariest experience of my life. I had such horrid nightmares in the hospital and most of it related to the teachings I’d sat under for way too many years…Satan figured in a lot of them! Scary.
It truly is a dark night of the soul…and I have left IC behind, most of my Christian beliefs and still feel a gaping hole and find myself reaching out to god(?) I can’t identify as an atheist; not sure about agnostic; don’t feel comfortable with the label of Christian…I hope it will all sort itself out in my heart one day soon.
Many of the replies echo what I am expressing and it feels a bit self-centred to write to so much about my experience…I don’t want to make light of all that you are going through on this most difficult of journeys, David.
I resonate with your writings and drawings and am thankful to have found you on the web. Keep well and keep sharing…it’s good
thanks Jacquie
Wow. Thank you for that. I feel like it was written for me!! We are going on a similar journey.
If we are not at the same mile marker on this lonely highway, we must be awfully close!
Thanks Obscuritas … Loneliness was mentioned again and again In the comments … But I picture that we look to the left and the right and see fellow travelers on the same road …. Must admit I’m still lonely and scared …
You said: “We may tend to associate everything spiritual with the negative spiritual experiences we’ve left behind. It took me a while to realize that there are actually some good worship songs out there that I don’t have to fast-forward. There is some good theology worth reading and meditating upon.”
That is gold…and precisely something that I knew about myself, too, but just couldn’t seem to put into words.
Thanks for putting it into words.
I am very grateful that you are sharing your journey with us David. Your honesty is refreshing and very often is a balm to my troubled soul.
thanks kay and everyone.
Just one more of the many that know they are not alone, that they are some degree of sane and normal, that there is some sense and reason and hope to this thing because you are here to write about it and let all of us discuss it together.
I so understand what is being said here. It was a long seven years for me. Dark isn’t the word for the place I went. Threw out the baby for years…….. and then this sweet voice began to speek once again. This morning I heard this song and I wept at Gods faithfulness to finish what has been started. Wanted to share it with you all.
I have found that peice and now truly understand the simplicity of it all.
Gave you space so you could breathe,
I kept my distance so you would be free,
And hope that you find the missing piece,
To bring you back to me,
Why don’t you remember?
Don’t you remember?
The reason you loved me before
i dont want any bashing…i ask a question out of love, and we seem to all be holding hands on this journey.
With all these ppl here and many, many others that are leaving the church, who is going to help the Bride.
Mr. Campbell,
A fair question. I can’t speak for others, but I don’t want to mislead here. I haven’t left the Bride, The Church. I have merely left the institutional church–a model, methodology, denomination, a “brand,” opting for a more organic expression of being the local body. I am still slave to Jesus and serve Him with whom and wherever He would have me, and traffic with a small circle of Jesus’ disciples who are about the business of making disciples who make disciples. We just don’t gather under a “legal” ecclisiastical name.
I believe that is a very fair question Dr Campbell. Let me ask you another one.
Are you certain the bride of Christ and the modern institutional church are one in the same? I believe those of us who have left organized religion are at least as much a part of the bride as the religion is…perhaps even more so.
To Dave Linden … “like” your comment
Dr. Campbell, my thinking has been that maybe the “Bride” will be helped by all those who have left. (For the record, I haven’t left. I am attending another church that is more open and affirming, but I have chosen not to be involved in any way as of yet.) How I feel that the Church may be helped is that with declining numbers maybe leaders will wake up and see that something has got to change. In other words, maybe the declining numbers and levels of participation will serve as a wake-up call. If not, I do not doubt that God is faithful. He can bless those who remain in many of the churches that we have left and the work that they do. No doubt, many of them do a fine work. I also believe that God can and will bless those who choose a different path. After all, He is the only one that knows another’s heart and often we feel people are wrong or doomed if they don’t follow the expected path. But I feel there is room in God’s kingdom for various expressions of the faith and God will not be rendered powerless by a mass exodus from the institutional church. As someone above asked, are we maybe assuming that the institutional church is the bride?
i share and see the same problems everyone else sees. It is one reason we all come and see what cartoon is next… we get comfort that we arent the only ones on this island.
Whats been on my heart is the Bride. (Those who call HIM daddy, in or outside “church”) i think there is a colossal failure in share solutions. Application, Application thru Gods giudance. One on One or atleast not one on 250. I would love for David to start sharing “solutions” with his cartoons. prayfully prepared solutions. and take that back to the “institution” and change it.
these page has been a great place for me to see that i am not alone on this island…Thanks David
Dr. Campbell, the problem that I have seen in some churches is the resistance to change. Oftentimes, what we’re faced with is an uphill battle in dealing with entrenched leaders who are content with the status quo or only with ideas that come from within their clique. It’s hard emotionally to stay in such an environment. For those that do, hats off to them. I was not able to because things were much too personal with me being slandered by another leader with another person working behind the scenes against women elders. I think for many the solution has become to walk away and form other communities that are more life-giving and affirming.
Even more deceptive and bigger trap “stay and help bring change”. Not a good investment!