Crumbling Christianity (Part 1)

For the past few years, I’ve been falling away from my Christian faith.

Lots of people outgrow the spiritual traditions of their youth. It’s such well worn territory that you might be thinking, “Disillusioned with Christianity. Got it. No explanation needed,” but I’m going to explain anyway.

I grew up in an atheist household. It was great. My family was the best and I spent most of my time building forts in the side yard and swimming in our pool under the hot desert sun, pretending to be a mermaid. I had to be nice to people and get good grades and stuff, but I never had to wake up early for church or put on a frilly dress for Easter. I never had to think about God at all. It really worked for me.

Then I became a moody, introspective teenager and started having all these big ol’ existential thoughts and questions. It occurred to me that based on my belief system (or lack thereof) one day my body was going to fail, my brain would shut off, and my consciousness would simply be erased forever. Everything I’d ever experienced and everyone I’d ever loved would one day disappear into eternal blackness. These thoughts started giving me mild, heart-gripping panic attacks. (Clearly, high school was a super fun time for me.)

When I was sixteen Christianity came along and gave me a great group of friends and a place to talk about all the fears that had been begun to suffocate me. The church gave me the reassurance that everything on this planet was not just chaotic, meaningless particles that would eventually be wiped into nothingness. Christianity told me that the world runs on Love, and Love beats Death. It sounded nice. It felt deeply true. I was totes all about it.

I knew Christianity at large had its issues, but the modern, seemingly progressive churches I went to were my sanctuaries for so long that when I discovered they were not perfect, but rather flawed and complicit in human suffering just like every other man-made institution, I took it hard. I felt betrayed. The flood gates broke open and all I could see were the myriad ways in which Christianity was, and is, hurting people. All the stories of pain eclipsed any good stuff I once knew. For a while I thought I could just find a new church, but certain questions haunted me: “What if this church turns out to be just the same as all the others: broken and damaged and causing harm? What if God isn’t really present in any of these places? Where is God then? What’s my path to understanding a higher power if the only path I’ve ever known is crumbling and obstructed with giant rolling boulders and poison arrows and policy papers about why women can’t be church leaders?”

When the 2016 Election happened with 80% of white American evangelicals voting for a certain candidate who shall remain nameless, it just seemed like the final nail in the Christianity coffin for me. If the fruit of Christian teaching was to cling to political power at the expense of the poor and marginalized, then I was out. Nice try, Jesus, but it’s over. The house was crumbling and I needed to get out while there was still time. Yet even after all that, I still couldn’t get myself to leave. Maybe it was the fear of being thrown back out into the depths of existential dread. Maybe I just didn’t have the energy to turn down a different path, pick up a brand new holy book, and learn a foreign way of relating to God. But I also found myself looking around the rubble of my Christian faith and thinking, I really loved this place once. Isn’t there any part of it still worth saving?

A deep British voice crackled over the intercom, announcing that it was five past noon local time and ten degrees Celsius. The clicking of metal seat belt clasps filled the space around me as people began to stir and come back to life on the crowded plane. I looked at my wrist watch, but the numbers, which I hadn’t changed in at least four time zones no longer made any sense to me. Was it “my” morning? Or afternoon? Was it yesterday for me or was it today now? How long had I been awake and why the hell had I chosen to watch all two and a half hours of Independence Day during the time I should have been sleeping?!

Because Jeff Goldblum at peak 90’s hotness, obviously. That was a dumb question.

With a resigned sigh, I heaved my backpack out of the overhead bin and trudged off down the aisle with the other bleary-eyed passengers.

After an hour waiting in line at passport control, my overstuffed backpack digging into my shoulders and hips, I presented my documents to a surprisingly cheerful man behind a tall kiosk.

“How long will you be staying in England then, blueberry?” The man smiled and gestured towards my bright purple hair. I’d dyed it right after quitting my job and just before leaving on this solo trip around the world, just in case it wasn’t obvious enough that I was, like, a total free spirit now.

“I’ll be here two weeks,” I croaked, not in the mood for playful banter.

“And where are you staying?”

“In a village called Greatham.”

“Where’s that then?”

“No idea, honestly. I have directions written down. I’m supposed to take a bus to a train, then walk for a few kilometers.”

“Who are you staying with?”

“Well,” I hesitated, “it’s a place called L’Abri.”

“Yeah, arright...but what do they do there?” I could tell his good humor was fading.

“Look,” I imagined myself blurting out, “I’m here because for the first time in fifteen years I’m seriously doubting the existence of God. The comforting faith I once knew is crumbling and it’s left me feeling hopeless and lost. I haven’t slept in a day and a half. I’m starting to smell like a white guy with dreadlocks who plays a bongo drum on the sidewalk. Can you please just stamp my passport and allow me into your country so that I might proceed with my existential crisis?”

Instead, I shrugged and quoted a bit from the official L’Abri website, “It’s a place where you go to ‘ask honest questions about God and the significance of human life.’ It’s like a Christian retreat, but they don’t like to call it a retreat.”

The man’s smile faded and he raised one eyebrow, but stamped my passport anyway and ushered me past the kiosk towards the giant maze of Heathrow airport.

“Good luck with that, blueberry.”

A rattling bus deposited me at a train station in the outskirts of London just as my cell phone lost its last bar of power and faded to black. I had an hour to kill, so I wandered around a tiny grocery store, almost knocking over an entire shelf of wine with the running shoes swinging from my unwieldy pack. I bought a pre-packaged smoked salmon salad and ate it in a stuffy train station vestibule while two teenage boys blasted American rap from their respective electronic devices, as if they’d never heard of a thing called headphones.

The train ride through the English countryside was probably quite beautiful. Most likely there were rolling green fields and sun dappled country lanes and red brick cottages with thatched roofs. I’m only guessing, of course, because the whole ride I was trying desperately to keep my eyes from blinking closed by staring (not reading, just staring) at the Harry Potter book on my Kindle and stuffing pieces of dark chocolate into my mouth, hoping the caffeine would kick in.

The train pulled up to the tiny village of Liss and I hopped off. A blinking clock at the station said 16:03. (As if I weren’t confused enough already by all the time changes!) The sky was overcast and I might have been chilly had I not been wearing wool socks, hiking boots, long jeans, and three layers of clothing that wouldn’t fit into my already full luggage. I could hear myself from two months before, planning this journey: “Oh, I won’t need to call ahead for a cab. 2.25 miles is nothing! It’ll be like taking a stroll through a Jane Austen novel.” Now, with the sky growing dark, I wanted to strangle the "me" from two months before. Instead I trudged off down the road, past a quaint knitting shop and an old English pub, towards a roundabout mentioned in the walking instructions.

After a mile the sidewalk disappeared and I found myself walking directly on a narrow asphalt road that ran right up against the forest. Every few minutes a zippy European car would zoom past and I would veer off into the thick overgrowth of ivy, stinging nettles, and thorny blackberry bushes.

Jane Austen never had to deal with *&$#ing Peugeots. I was beginning to think this whole thing had been a terrible idea.

Up ahead I could see blue sky where my narrow lane opened up to a wide country road. I reached the intersection and a sidewalk appeared to my left. Just beyond was a lush green courtyard with the remains of an old stone church. I stood for a moment staring at the property, headstones stained yellow with moss rising up from the tall grass, crumbling stone walls with tufts of green growing from the top where a roof had once been. A small sign at the entrance of the church read, “Beware fallen masonry.”

Sounds about right, I thought, and trudged on past a white two-story cottage with a hand painted sign that read “Old School House.” As I passed, a thin, smiling woman in her mid forties popped out from the driveway. In an accent I couldn’t quite place (Australian? Maybe South African?) she asked me with a smile, “Are you lost?”

Oh, lady. You have no idea...

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m just on my way to L’Abri.”

“Right! You’ve just about found it.” She smiled and led me further down the sidewalk and through a gate labeled “The Manor House.” A wide gravel drive lead up to a massive red brick building with ivy growing over the stone entryway and at least nine chimneys poking up from different points on the many sloping rooftops. It looked like an entire village could be housed within the enormous brick walls in front of me.

I felt a wave of relief and imagined myself having a hot shower and crawling immediately into a warm bed where I would sleep blissfully for the next 15 to 29 hours. My new guide turned an antique iron ring and pushed open a double wide, heavy, dark wooden door and we stepped into a large front room where no less than thirty people were scattered on various faded couches and arm chairs. Each one of them turned to look at me as I walked through the door, then returned to their conversations. I looked towards the woman who’d greeted me, but before I could say, “Bed! Now!” she said the very last thing I wanted to hear in that moment.

“I’ll get you a cup of tea!” Then she bounced away.

I really, really hate tea. I plopped into a faded armchair by the glowing fireplace, trying to shift away from it as sweat rolled down the small of my back beneath my many layers of clothing. Soon the woman was back and handed me a piping hot cup of black tea with a splash of milk.

Stupid hot bitter leaf water that wishes it were coffee. I already felt defeated. It was like I kept putting in all the effort to make things right and the universe kept handing me tea for no damn reason. Stop it, universe! Suddenly I didn't want to be halfway around the world surrounded by strangers who were avoiding eye contact with me. I wanted sleep. I want comfort and familiarity. I wanted reassurance. I wanted the old faith I used to know, the one that made sense and kept me afloat. I wanted sleep again, but I definitely, definitely did not want tea.

Of course, that was all just the very beginning of the story.

In two weeks time, I would find myself in the same faded yellow brocade armchair in front of the roaring fire, my feet slung over the arm, closer to the glowing warmth. I would be engaged in conversation, part of the laughter, unable to drag myself away from the smiling faces though the hour was growing late. 23:30. The numbers made sense to me now. I would be sipping a steaming mug of rooibos with a splash of milk, a sense of calm and comfort washing over me.

It’s amazing what can happen when you keep pushing through the exhaustion, the discomfort, the uncertainty, until things finally make a little glimmer of sense.

What I’m trying to say is that I totally understand tea now. I get why it exists. It’s not just a pathetic coffee wannabe. It’s versatile. It can be soothing or energizing. In just a short time, L’Abri helped me to appreciate a drink that I had never taken the time to understand in all of my three decades on Earth.

As for Christianity, that’s just a little bit of a longer story.

(Part 2 Coming Soon!!)