Category: leaving | Page 19 | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

The Lighthouse Girl

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on June 17, 2014.

There was once was a little girl, raised in the Village.

The Village was a utopia, walled off for protection and insulated from the world. Even the families in the girl’s section of the Village did not see each other very often, but lived peaceably, like hermits, in accordance with the Code.

When the girl grew to be a maiden, sometimes she crept through cracks in the wall and explored the countryside. She gradually even made friends with the woodland folk, discovering new ballads and gypsy dances banned in the Village.

One day, the elders of the Village told the girl that absolute obedience was the only way to honor her parents and the Code. But the girl had dreams, and this meant soul death.

So one night the girl left the Village forever.

Her friends on the outside helped her travel to the coast, where she built a lighthouse with bricks and mortar and timber they brought. That section of the coast was so rugged that the deaths on its rocks were legend. Other attempts to build lighthouses had not survived.

The girl maintained it for years, weathering many storms. Her friends visited often to encourage her and the prosperity of the lighthouse, but sometimes she was lonely. Her friends started to call her Lighthouse, shortened to Light.

One friend was a girl-pirate who was once raised in the Village like her, but they had met beyond the walls.

Another village girl had become a spy for a local Baron. She took shelter in the lighthouse and lived with Light for many moons.

All three of them knew an older girl who escaped a failed utopia several years before. This girl had been cursed by her own Elders and turned into a mermaid, forever chained to the waves and spume. She shared the birth name of the girl-pirate.

The friends often wondered about their kinsmen in the Village, and hoped someday many more could be free from the well-meaning tyranny of the Elders. The four swore a solemn pact against injustice in the land.

A cyclone rolled across the waters one night, spewing hailstones like vomit. The lighthouse girl manned the tower, keeping the light alive. In her telescope, she spied the signal of a small boat foundering on the waves. Two passengers, one with gold hair and one with the hair of a raven, rowed and bailed water to no avail.

Despite the peril, the three friends, followed by the mermaid, took a larger ship. They rode out toward the lost girls, just before their rowboat crashed against the rocks.

Light, the girl-pirate, the spy, and the mermaid embraced the lost girls on the beach and welcomed them to safety. Light helped them to warm inside by the fire and dry their clothes. The lost girls told the friends that they fled another section of the Village, inspired by their love for one another, because their Elders had banned their friendship.

The four friends all knew the value of friendship, and told the lost girls to stay together, no matter what the Elders said, and to explore their newfound freedom.

Soon the spy-girl left on a clandestine mission for the Baron, and couldn’t send letters to the lighthouse girl.

The girl-pirate took the lost girls rafting, teaching them how to navigate currents and giving them sea legs.

Light helped the lost girls find a trade in town with a basket-weaver, but their spirits were wild and young, and they joined a band of traveling gypsies, squandering their earnings on trinkets.

Midsummer gales brewed out in the gulf, and the lighthouse was empty again except for Light. She was lonely once more, yearning for her old friends and for new refugees from the Village. She often visited the mermaid down in the tidal pool on calm, starlit evenings to plan new adventures.

One day, the girl-pirate came to the lighthouse girl and said she couldn’t stay on land anymore. She was bound for faraway oceans and adventures far from the Village.

Light hugged the pirate and cried. They walked down to the docks together.

Light told the girl-pirate how much she had learned from her. She knew how to tie sailor’s knots. She could brew herbal mushroom tea from the Orient. She could debate the Elders now if they confronted her and told her to tear down the lighthouse.

Deep in her heart, Light knew how much the pirate yearned for the sea, how the land was ebbing away at her friend’s spirit.

The lighthouse girl said the girl-pirate needed to sail. It was time. And she understood.

1 Corinthians 5:5

1 Cor 5:5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

I’ve had this verse used against me quite a bit now. No, I haven’t fornicated or committed any other sin that shocked even people who are not in the church, like this passage discusses. I am not one, as verses 10-11 indicate, who is “…covetous, or extortioners, or …idolaters…” or “a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner.”

Above that, this verse is not discussing walking past the person as though they don’t exist, giving them a withering look as you pass them in public, refusing to accept change from them at the store or buying anything of theirs at a yard sale or even applying with their company… it isn’t talking about being RUDE in other words. The verse tells the church to deliver the person who does the things listed above (idolatry, fornication, drunkenness, extortion, covetousness, or railing (abuse)) to Satan (in other words to put them outside the safety and support of the church)… not to act like the devil themselves!

God never approves of rudeness and outright cruelty, self-righteousness or pride. Read what Paul wrote (NLT): “Then you must cast this man out of the church and into Satan’s hands, so that his sinful nature will be destroyed and he himself will be saved when the Lord returns. How terrible that you should boast about your spirituality, and yet you let this sort of thing go on. Don’t you realize that if even one person is allowed to go on sinning, soon all will be affected? Remove this wicked person from among you so that you can stay pure.”

Think about the bolded and the list in v 11 for a minute. If we are not to fellowship people who claim to be Christians and do the things listed above, and if we could be affected by those things if we allow them to continue in our midst, is it wrong to leave a church where these things are allowed to continue, and even encouraged?

I don’t advocate throwing people out of churches if they have these problems. But after having had this verse used on me more than once, I have to believe that if it is ever used, it should only be used as it was in this passage. This was an extreme case, for a widely known sin. The action wasn’t recommended for something people guessed might have happened, but for something that was well known both in and out of that body of believers.

If a church believes in removing someone from fellowship based on this passage, they can remove the person from the support of the church without removing them from the pews, and without being rude. We can help the swindlers without putting them over the offering, the drunkards without putting money for their next bottle in their hands, the sexually immoral without allowing them to teach our Sunday School classes, and the railers and abusers without putting them behind our pulpits.

Paul isn’t talking about banning anyone from all Christian contact or treating a person rudely, he is simply saying not to give that person the full benefits of true Christian fellowship. Separating him or putting him out of the church at that time didn’t mean casting him off a pew or out of a building. There weren’t pews or churches to throw him off of or out of. It simply meant to stop counting him as a complete part of the church until he repented.

Why I’ve been a spiritual hobo

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on December 8, 2014.

Maybe I’ll try church again.

Two years ago, I’d been exiled from my church home four months before.

One Sunday, I went to a service at a local megachurch, hiding myself in the crowd. And I asked God why I hadn’t found a spiritual home yet, if I ever would.

And in the dimmed light and slow guitar chords trickling over me like creek water, I thought maybe he answered.

You won’t find a home. Not yet. You’re a hobo for right now. But I am going to show you all the different kinds of people who are part of me, part of my body.

So out I went. New Life Church became my soup kitchen, but I visited the LGBT affirming church, my friend’s mother’s Catholic church in Boulder, the Apostolic Pentecostal church.

I saw chanting and wailing, people speaking in tongues, people reciting the Apostle’s Creed and the sprinkling of holy water. I saw transgender women bustling around a church kitchen, brewing coffee.

And everywhere, I found someone whose heart seemed alive, people who sought Jesus.

For years, I’d been told that our church was part of a remnant holding to sound doctrine, that other churches were to be analyzed and mistrusted.

According to the Barna group, I’m not alone in being spiritually homeless. Their surveys say my generation tends to fall into three groups: nomad (Christian, but not involved in the church), prodigal (once Christian but no longer identifying as Christian), or exile (Christian, lost between the culture and the church).

I’ve written before that something that keeps me from leaving completely, something hopes I can still find light in Christian belief. Stuck somewhere between nomad and exile.

My friend Cynthia B. and I went to see Handel’s Messiah at Village Seven Presbyterian Church last weekend. Poor college students are always up for a free concert.

Churches feel awkward to me now. I don’t feel like I belong, because I’m not hiding my problems anymore. Cynthia and I sat in one of the back rows.

I was skeptical.

But the choir joined with the lead singer the first time, and I was four or five years old again. I know it sounds cliche.

But I forgot the beauty and the light I once found in music and church performances.

I’ve been escaping emotional hypothermia, realizing Jesus didn’t ask for my pain and didn’t need my defense, finding purity beyond the rings. And I let go my original concept of church to grow. To find church outside four walls.

I needed to know that Jesus didn’t label me, that there would be room for my doubts.

And now I cried, let the music and community back in again. I cracked open in the light, soaked my soul in the ethereal sound.

Maybe a hobo can find a home again.

Another on foundations

When I first left my former church, and for several years before that, I was terrified to let go of what I’d been taught. What if it was THE Truth? Would I be lost? Would I go to Hell? Would God strike me down? Was I really walking out on Him?

My fears were very well taught in the church I’d been in, but they were completely unfounded. Walking out of a building doesn’t signify one’s lack of faith. Neither does asking questions or even having doubts, as odd as that may seem. But can a person have faith if there are no doubts? And as for walking out on God… how can you walk out on an omnipresent God? Where can you go that He isn’t?

So… I’ve blogged about foundations before, but I’m doing it again. It’s wonderful to be able to ask questions, to examine beliefs without fear. God knows about the doubts, and I really don’t think He minds. How can my brain grasp an idea as big as God, anyway? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKMw1ndl-EY

1 Cor 3:11 For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Jesus is our foundation. Other places call Him the corner stone and the rock. Our salvation is in Him. (And if God is real, nothing can shake Him.)

1 Cor 3:12 Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, 13each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work.

All the doctrines and teachings and everything we’ve done and believed could be things that were built on Jesus. And when trials come or everything falls apart, it looks to us, standing on the ground, like the foundation must surely be gone. But the foundation isn’t above ground where we can see; it’s down in the ground. What we’re seeing is everything that’s been built being shaken and blowing away.

Guess I’ve lived in the Midwest too long–I picture a tornado. The tornado doesn’t usually even fracture the foundation, even if it turns the house to splinters. In the tornado, officials even tell you to go to the basement, because the foundation is the safest place to be. I know it’s different with earthquakes, but even in earthquakes it seems like the foundations that are built right are not what usually crumbles. If the foundation isn’t built right, the owners often bulldoze and start over.

14If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. 15If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved….

I got pretty mad about the rubble people built in my life, of pleasing others rather than God and of false teachings and doctrines. And then I realized I wanted those things to topple. I decided I could almost enjoy watching all they built fall, because then I’d know what was built well and what wasn’t. After the shaking is finished, I can go in, sweep out all the rubbish, and check the foundation and anything left standing. Something stronger can then be built where the straw houses were built before.

Have I ‘survived?’ Well there are still some things shaking in my life. The straw houses didn’t survive, though, and I can laugh as I sweep them away.

Where do I go from here?

I don’t ever want to go back to where I was, but I’m not sure how to go forward either. It seems that I’m stuck between worlds, sometimes… not fitting in with groups that are talking about the latest movies, fads, and music, yet not having any desire to go back to the group that I’ve left. And not fitting anywhere else either.

I’m not angry, and I refuse to be angry, at a group at large. Individuals, yes, and even churches that allow abuse. But not an organization as a whole. It seems like a lot of people go hunting a battle to fight. Enough battles have found me; I don’t need to go looking for any.

There are some good people in United Pentecostal and Oneness churches. There are some good teachings. There are also some bad people that manipulate others and encourage the kinds of preaching and teaching that hurt others. But the ones who hurt me repeatedly labelled me as “one of those kind” and I will not do the same to them, as a whole. It’s hard not to, sometimes. But I never want to become like the ones I left because I don’t want to repay hurt for hurt or wound for wound. I don’t want to retaliate, I want to heal.

Most people who read that won’t really understand what I’m saying. But I’m glad for those who do. I get tired of hearing negative talk about others. That kind of talk wears me down, it wears me out. But there are so much better things to talk about and to experience.

I have good memories of the last 20 years. They weren’t wasted years; they were learning years. I don’t want them back, but I won’t throw them away, either.

So sometimes I feel like I’m in limbo… and I ask, ‘Where do I go from here?’

Someone from my former church called me tonight. She started asking how I was and where I was going to church and what I would do in the future. The answer is simply, “I don’t know.” Not back. Not back to the UPC or any Pentecostal church. But at the same time, I’m not sure where, yet. At work, I’ve jokingly told employees that the company doesn’t state all the job requirements up front… and then asked if they have a crystal ball and a 28 hour day. Sometimes I need those things, myself. God is the only one who knows the future. I don’t know where I go from here… just that I’m going forward.