Leaving (a Spiritual) Home
On the seeker’s journey, we will pass through some difficult places. If we are seeking an authentic life, chances are good we may find ourselves in places that no longer fit with our values or with who we are becoming. This is also true of our spiritual path. As we seek connection with the Great Mystery, however we name it, we may find it within a spiritual or religious tradition. But sometimes we realize that a spiritual home has become an obstacle to the connection we seek, or conflicts with fundamental values that we are not willing to compromise. We realize that the spiritual home we were brought up in, or even one that we have chosen, no longer fits.
We may choose to leave our old home to spend some time seeking on our own, or to find a new spiritual community to explore. This can be an empowering, even lifesaving choice, but it can also open a wound and it may even be traumatic. There is grief in leaving a place we have called home, a place that has helped shape our understanding of and relationship to the Divine. It can bring a whole range of emotions, including sadness and anger.
We have a right to leave a spiritual home that we have outgrown. I don’t believe that the Divine asks us to suffer at the hands of religious leaders or institutions. You are precious, loved beyond measure and you don’t need to stay somewhere that does not embrace all of you or does not align with your values. There are so many doorways to the sacred. If the one you’ve chosen is no longer working for you, you can choose another.
Today I’ll tell you a story about one of my own crossroads when I could no longer remain part of the Catholic church. It was not a moment in time, but an accumulation of moments over about 20 years. This story is about my experience and not meant to judge you if your experience is different. It could be told about many religious institutions or communities by other people, and for many reasons. Next week I’ll tell you about a time when someone showed me another view of the path that offered me some healing.
My Story
I had an uneasy alliance with the Catholic church. I had joined the church in college believing it to be a force for good in the world, a force for social justice. This was in the 1980s, a very different time in the church. But as I stayed it became clear that reality was much more complex.
On the one hand I loved the ritual, I loved the liturgical year, the rich sensory experience that was mass. I loved worship styles that were not purely intellectual. I loved the idea of being part of something ancient and of a community that spanned the globe. I was moved by Latin American liberation theology, and powerful images of Mary. There were saints and ancestors who inspired me, and deeply spiritual individuals whom I respected.
For a long time, I tried to make peace between the things that meant so much to me, and the reality of the institution that I began to see. Initially, I defiantly and quite naively thought that by working within the system I would be able to be part of renewing it. It pained me deeply to watch the church’s growing emphasis on demonizing LGBTQ people and controlling women's bodies. Although I attended a parish that was known for being progressive by Catholic standards, and which had a visible presence of LGBTQ members, I saw more and more clearly that this local “welcome” would never overcome official church teaching. These crumbs were not enough.
The priest abuse scandals began to rock the church in a very public way in the 1990s. Still trying to hold on to the belief that change within the church was possible, we participated as teachers in the catechism program. The curriculum was painfully unimaginative and uninspiring, and we futilely tried to help enliven it. I began to understand clearly that my grand ideas of changing the institution from within were naive fantasies.
One evening we had the parish priest over to dinner. He talked only about himself as is typical for those trained to believe that they are ontologically different, different in being, from the rest of us. While my children played in the next room, he told us how priests were getting a bad rap in the sexual abuse scandals. After all, he said, if you have a 16-year-old girl and a priest and there's alcohol involved and something sexual happens, you know, is it really the priest’s responsibility–isn't it in fact mutual? I was so appalled I did not even know how to respond. We wrapped up the evening quickly and sent him on his way. For me, this was the last straw.
I had to come to terms with the reality that this community in which I had found many gifts and connection to the Divine over the years, was no longer a place I could be. I continued to attend mass here and there for a few years, but my primary emotion towards the church was anger. As Karla McLaren notes in her work on emotions, the question anger asks is what must be protected? For me, the inherent worth and dignity of people must be protected, and this was violated by the church. The church abused its spiritual power to undermine the inherent dignity and worth of my people, including women, my LGBTQ family, and children. This place no longer reflected the God I believed in, and I could not stay.
I left angry and sad. I was outraged that a religious institution and its leaders could so cavalierly and fundamentally damage people’s experience of the sacred and experience of God. I was angry at the institution, I was angry at the leadership, I was angry at the perpetrators, I was angry at God. It was the time for me when images of God that had served me in my life up to that time began to dissolve. In their place, for a while, there was nothing. This space of spiritual estrangement was a painful place for me to live.
Have you chosen to leave a spiritual home? If so, these are some helpful questions to explore:
What was violated and needs protection? (This may reveal a boundary that has been broken)
What do you need to mourn?
What do you need to let go of and leave behind?
What needs to be healed?
Next time I’ll write about an encounter that helped me begin to heal my anger and sadness and open possibilities on the seeker’s path. In the new year, I will write more about seeking new ways of understanding the Divine or the Great Mystery that offer us new perspectives and opportunities for connection.
As always, I welcome your reflections.