Step Two Came to Believe

A blog about the entire history of my struggles with religion would turn into a book. That isn't a book i want to write. The same conflicts i always had, i still have. Not much has changed. So for my "second step" i will relate a current experience as a recapitulation of all the rest of it. i just read a definition of "recapitulation" to make sure i knew what it meant. then i read a definition of recapitulation theory. i think i understand the gist of it...the stages of embryonic development mirror the evolutionary stages that preceded. Is that correct? 

i also recall a theological work which talked about how the life of Christ is the recapituation of the history of man. i must have misunderstood. that cannot possibly be, unless now is the time of the passion and death of mankind. i am depressed today and experience everyone as being critical and rejecting. which only means of course, that i am criticizing and rejecting others. if so, it is only out of the pain. i recently discovered a cool hang-out which i have been casually promoting and have had some nice times there with a couple of friends i invited. the male owner is someone i like and find i have much in common with. while i may have had an initial crush, i am not interested in him and i wouldn't interfere in anyone's committed relationship anyway. however, his female partner has never been friendly, even to me as a customer. and it is very sad and depressing because this pattern is as old as i am, and psychologically, is as old as time...i am no threat to this woman. she is younger, prettier, accomplished and fully established as his partner. i am not young, not pretty, and not accomplished.

 Sometimes while engaging with the public in this majority Hispanic town i detect hostility towards myself based on my race and status. i have never felt that way in my life before.  i was always the underdog, the underachiever, the "fuck up"...why would anyone resent me, as they might if i had been more socially successful? but since settling here hopefully in the last place i will ever live, i sometimes wonder if i have been judged based on my externals. not that there is a lack of other reasons people could respond negatively. i can be abrasive, haughty, condescending, impatient (thanks Dad!)...but the only interaction i had with this woman was to try to share about a song i liked. she ignored my statement, TWICE. right to my face. The only thing i can imagine is, she resents me as being an older white, possibly karenish female. how dare i act like i own HER place and make myself comfortable there?!! how dare i talk as an equal to HER man?! Maybe she views me as a settler and despises the fact i have such great understanding w her (white male) partner.  she is younger so is possibly a bit insecure but she holds all the cards. Anyone can see that. If she felt more secure she could easily afford to be gracious to someone who has only wanted to promote and sustain her business. 

I shouldn't let it bother me but this issue with women, alas has also always been with me. no doubt i create it myself, despite every conscious effort to the contrary. just finding a real friend who gives equal or close to equal, of anything, is almost impossible. i am very grateful for the couple of those i can claim. so i think what depresses me in the end, is the fact that so little changes in the fundamental patterns of psychology, despite addiction recovery, therapy, spirituality, prayer, etc. lo these many many years.

I attend an NA meeting at a church very near my house. one night i noticed a parked car which had left its headlights on. since i am old, and not used to headlights which automatically shut off, i went in search of someone to notify. the church staff were in a meeting and there was another smaller meeting in a second room. so i inadvertantly "met" most of the staff including the Rector, who i felt had an interesting face. i currently attend Mass sporadically at the Cathedral which is also near my house, but it has been almost ten years since i have tried to make a home in any kind of faith community. so i thought i would make an appt. to meet with somebody from this church, just to investigate and see if i could get help with the extreme scandal i suffer over the evangelical and Catholic Christians who are such happy and agressive fascists,  and so prevalent in the churches. i won't describe the many attempts i made to meet with any pastor at this one church, and the inevitable negative outcomes, suffice to say it is almost a month and still no appointment, no return phone call after emailing the Rector and having his assurances that i would be contacted. i never thought it would be this difficult to meet with a clergyman. i guess it is back to the last pew in the back for me, which is where i belong. ARE THERE ANY SPIRITUAL CHURCHES?

 I believe in God, i believe that Jesus Christ is the incarnation of God and the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. but i also believe that Krsna is the Christ of the Hindus. i guess if i had to sum it up, i would say that Whatever Divinity there is, DID intercede into the affairs of mankind. i do believe in the grace of God and ultimate forgiveness of sin. i no longer believe in Hell, or, in any hell that is specially created as punishment for sinners. Hell is on earth. people suffer based on their own will and choices, and from the depravity of others...heaven is union with the divine, hell is total divorce from the divine...i strive to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as i understand Him...but i do wish i could work on my radicalization and how deeply i resent false religion and the way religion is used by power in society to legitimize its atrocities... to put it most simply...it feels like God is with me, but in another room which i cannot access. i am always waiting for the call, for someone to reach out, to care, to want to be close-- friend or lover...yet my experience (shared by many no doubt) is that nobody (or almost nobody) makes that call, nobody takes that time, that phone never rings, the door never opens. i am aware of the fact i experience life this way because it is the essentail experience of my infancy. i dont' think human beings can recover from abandonment and neglect in infancy. negative attention is better than none. i may even have been seductive (unconsciously of course) to the men in my family since i experienced total rejection by the females in my family. i early learned how to seek an erotic bond with men because i craved emotional nurture. of course this never worked. my story is not unique. my point is, i still grieve sometimes even though i am overall in acceptance of my life and i deeply believe that God loves me and that all my experiences, however you think of them, will lead me to a closer union with God. this to me is the essential meaning of Step Two today. That i am still seeking my Higher Power, but have experienced and know fundamentally that He has restored my sanity and will eventually make me whole, in this life or in the next, in joy or in sorrow, in sickness or in health...i am ready to transcend the false binary way that we think. All is spectrum, all is cycle, all is process. Amen.