Are you leaving your religion? That's a good thing. There's nothing wrong with you. In fact, one could say it's an excellent sign that you're growing.
I want you to think back for a moment. Can you remember your first day of school? I remember mine. I'm old enough that I wore polyester, double-knit, reversible bell-bottom plaid slacks, and a wide butterfly collar. I was so nervous.
My parents had been divorced for a little more than a year and I hadn't seen my mother in quite a while. My father was still part of my grandfather's fundamentalist church and my mother was living in sin with her boyfriend (my father's former best friend). Until they either got married or split up, my father wouldn't permit her to see my sister and me. Plus, my father had moved back to his hometown to stay with my aunt while he figured out what he was going to do.
On my first day of school, I left the house with my two older cousins and my sister. No one was there to send me off. I feel like I must have gotten a kiss on the forehead from my aunt, but my father was already at work. My cousins and sister were first and second graders so they already had friends and knew what classrooms they were going to.
I was on my own.
But it was at a point in my life when I needed to move forward. At that age, I didn't have any idea how to process something like that or articulate any of those emotions, but I was moving forward. At that age, you just sort of go where life takes you and where the adults tell you to go. These days kids have more autonomy, but not much. And that's with good reason. What hasn't changed, is that children are expected to grow and naturally move from one phase of life to the next. Even though my transition from home-bound child to fledgling student wasn't celebrated, it was expected and I was plunked down on the conveyor belt of American society and moved along with the rest.
It strikes me as odd that we expect this sort of change when a child grows, but when someone leaves a religion, it's often viewed as a bad thing.
Check this out:
When you were an infant, you were helpless. Regardless of the circumstances of your childhood - whether you came from a fabulously well-to-do family, or if you hardly scraped by from day to day - it took a lot of effort and resources to provide for you. You couldn't walk or talk or do much of anything except burble. Your guardians made what provisions they could to keep you safe. As an infant, you were mostly confined to a crib of some sort with brief excursions onto the floor where you could play with your feet and eventually learn to roll over. Before long, you learned to crawl, pull yourself up on things, and soon took your first, halting steps into life.
If you were an average child without physical or mental challenges to overcome, you began to explore your world. You mapped out the house and learned the patterns of your guardian's lives while they learned yours. Eventually, as you gained more confidence, you were permitted to go outside to play and likely confined to a certain play area in the yard or playground. Mom or dad or whoever helped you climb on things and learn more and more about how to use this strange body and interact with other beings out there in your field of perception.
I'm sure you know the rest: you got better at walking and running and making friends and learning and growing. At first, the house you lived in was baby-proof with gates and electric outlet covers, but eventually, you learned to navigate those things safely and they went away. Before long you were allowed in the backyard with decreasing supervision. Maybe one day you learned to ride a bicycle and were allowed to ride on the street. Maybe you were allowed to ride to a friend's house and maybe even to a playground across town. Then came a driver's license, a first kiss, a broken heart or two, school and drama and one day...
You were ready to leave.
Maybe it was a bittersweet moment. Maybe it was full of conflict and animosity. Maybe it was pure excitement. Regardless of the circumstances, it was expected. No one in your family or social group ever really expected you'd stay at your house forever. In fact, if you had, most of them would wonder if there was something wrong. Even people with severe limitations eventually leave home one way or another. I have a distant cousin with Down syndrome who is fifty-five this year. He had to leave home when his parents passed away and he has been living in a combination of special needs homes and with siblings. Everyone leaves home eventually. 100% of the time.
Yet, somehow, when someone leaves a religion, it's viewed as a bad thing. We're often made to feel like there is something wrong with us. It's been years for me, and I still get emails from my father chastising me because he doesn't approve of my relationship with Jesus.
There were times when I let the criticism and doubt from others really bother me. I can remember feeling like I was alone in the world. It was like the nostalgia one feels when the last days of childhood are behind and teen years are ripping along. There can be moments when we wish for the innocence of childhood and the simplicity of early friendships. Many people never get past this point and some part of them remains a child even as their body gets older. I felt a similar emotion when I was ready to walk away from religion.
It's a peculiar thing.
Here's how I think about it (and it really helps):
It's truly a rare person who grows all the way up so that their inside matches their outside. Most people who are devoted to their religion throughout their life, never learned how to leave home. And when they see someone who IS ready to leave home, or who has already left, they tend to assume the worst or try to convince them to come back.
I think of churchgoers (mosque attenders, temple regulars, religious adherents) as children in the backyard. Imagine a group of kids from brand new toddlers up to six or seven-year-olds. I can remember seeing my cousin who was seven and being in awe of him. He had his own bike. He got to stay up late and hang out in the garage with his dad holding tools. He even read books without pictures! I couldn't even imagine how fantastic his life must be because he was so mature and worldly-wise.
This is how most religious folks view their pastor, priest, imam, rabbi, or guru. They're the big kid in the bunch who knows everything there is to know about the backyard. They might even be allowed to ride their bike up and down the street. They might stay up late to watch grown-up shows with mom and dad.
But that's all they know. They know the backyard, and they teach the other younger kids all the things about the backyard. They even warn the younger kids about how dangerous it is to leave the backyard because there are cars and kidnappers and roaming dogs. If they're a bully, the stories get even more frightening: dogs that eat children, insane diseases that'll make your junk rot off, getting lost from mom and dad forever, and eternal hellfire for those who dare venture outside the gate.
Look:
Having a nursery when you're a child is a good idea. Having a safe space to be a child is really helpful, but it doesn't last forever and isn't meant to. Your spiritual development is no different. You may even be at a point where you don't believe that spiritual development is a thing - and that's OK too.
Here's the reality: we all live on a water-covered ball of molten rock, hurtling at hundreds of thousands of miles an hour (maybe even per second) through the mind-bogglingly vast emptiness of space and we flicker in and out of existence on this rock with the frequency of bubbles bursting out of cola. The entire time you're alive, you're unfolding reality one frame at a time and charging at breakneck speed into the unknown. But it all feels solid. It feels like we know what we're doing. Humans have developed systems of belief, bureaucracy, and sciences to help us deal with the sheer terror of simple existence.
And you finally see it this way. Your days at the playground are over. Your days of being in awe at how worldly-wise your older cousin is are done. Spiritually, emotionally (however you prefer to view it), you're older than him now. You don't have to bow down to his bullying. You've heard enough stories and seen enough to know that the world outside your neighborhood is actually pretty nice. There are really lovely people out there. Yes, you need to be cautious. Yes, you need to be responsible. Yes, it's wise to set up your own support group or surrogate family to help you along your spiritual or emotional journey.
But you're not a child in the backyard anymore. You've outgrown that.
And there's nothing wrong with that. It's a good thing. Perhaps, one day, as more and more folks like you and me emerge into this sparkling new day, we can view religion as the nursery it is, and celebrate those who leave it behind the way we ought to.
