Despair (In the Name of Religion)

Photo by Gary Ellis

Up until I was nine years old, I was able to come and go as I pleased in our little town nestled near a mountainside. I would ride my bicycle or just walk along the riverbank appreciating the water and the reflections from the sun and clouds, or I would visit friends. My younger brother and I would explore the old gullies out of town below the hills in search of treasure: old purple bottles, wooden crates, and anything else that looked worthy of display. What a great sense of freedom and happiness I’d felt to live where we lived.

Our family would go to church whenever it felt right to go, rather than every Sunday because my dad would want to go camping and fishing for the weekends during good weather, or we would just go for Sunday drives in our pick-up exploring the backroads. My sense of adventure stemmed from, and was blossomed by, those wonderful experiences and my appreciation for nature grew exponentially through those years.

Unfortunately for me, the summer before I was to turn ten, I went from being a carefree child to one having to toe the line. I had to stay at home more, go to church meetings three times a week, and kneel in prayer each night. I could no longer be the adventurous spirit I had been. I was suddenly unable to be one with nature as I’d been used to being at any hour of the day, all because my father was talked into becoming more involved in the church’s hierarchy. He was told that it was time to ‘tame’ the ‘wild child, which put him on a guilt trip he couldn’t ignore and acquiesced to their request. It had a devasting and negative effect on me for years to come.

Because I had been forced to change my lifestyle from being a free spirit, I became resentful toward the church and its teachings when my dad turned religious. I didn’t want to be religious. I appreciated God and all he’d given us, but I felt that he didn’t necessarily need me to be in a church or attend services to show my appreciation. I felt that he could read my heart and know. And I didn’t want to go to church just to show others that I appreciated God because I didn’t think their opinion should matter what I felt or did. But I was just a kid, after all, with no say in the matter, and my dad had gone from a giving, caring, fun-loving man into a stern and strict father.

He had never lifted a hand to punish me for anything in my life up to that point. He would let me know his disapproval when it was needed, and I might be grounded for doing something I should have known better not to do, but he never spanked me. At least not until after the church interfered.

One Sunday after church, I had asked to go with my cousins in their truck to show visiting friends some of the mountain roads near where we lived, and my dad had said, “Okay”, but told me I needed to be back for the church meeting later that evening. My cousins assured me there would be no problem with that and we took off.

Our adventure ride was great fun — one I had sorely missed from our family’s treks years before — but we lost all track of time and place. Unsure of the way, we knew we’d gone too far to backtrack and be home on the hour for the church meeting. I knew I would be in big trouble, but I didn’t feel it was my fault. No one had a watch, thinking they’d tell the time by the sun, but since we got lost, I figured that when I explained, my dad would be as lenient and understanding as he used to be.

Photo by Michael Hart

Not so.

For the first time ever in my young life, I felt the sting of a willow branch across my bare legs and heard the screech of my father’s angry voice for disobeying. The harder I tried to plead my innocence, the harder he whipped me. Was he frustrated from needing to adhere to the church’s policies and trying to tame me, while being an understanding and loving father all in one? If so, the church won out. From that day, I became a meek and unhappy person.

After graduating from high school, I felt rebellious and tried to fit in with the drinking crowd by partying a lot and experimenting with as many partners as I could. I was really liking the renewed sense of freedom I had suddenly acquired away from my family, yet I wasn’t liking myself much.

Eventually, I met and married a man who ended up being more like my father. Why didn’t I see that? A question I kept asking myself through the years of marriage and rearing three children. After our kids had graduated from high school, I got a divorce and moved to Denver, Colorado where my oldest daughter had moved to with her new husband.

After meeting a friend of theirs, who was beyond my expectations, we started dating. He was the antithesis of both my father and my ex-husband, and I fell hard for him, especially the more I got to know him. He was kind and gentle, caring and understanding, not to mention good-looking and fun to be around.

He was a teacher in the winter months and a contractor in the summer, and I began helping him with his jobs. When he would remodel run-down houses, I became the official painter and window fixer, among other things he had trained me to do. It was a captivating and fulfilling experience and was especially fun being with someone who appreciated my newfound abilities. We would go camping like I used to do with my family when young, and when we were alone with the stars, we talked a lot about our pasts, our desires, and where we wanted to travel. Mexico was high on both our lists. We’d also go hiking and exploring; many of the things I had loved doing as a kid. He truly was a savior of my soul, I had felt and still do.

One day, he gave me a book that he thought I might enjoy, called, Aztec, by Gary Jennings, about Mexico. It was a long book, but I began reading it and found it difficult to put down. I was fascinated by the history of Mexico’s beginnings, the people, their struggles, and the descriptions of the beautiful country, up until Cortez came into the picture.

It was that disturbing half of the book which made me realize how much influence the church had had on those soldiers when they came into that innocent country and began slaughtering the people who would not denounce their old ways and embrace the new church’s edicts. When the head of the church in Spain heard of the slaughters in Mexico, he sent word that there was to be no bloodshed. And so, instead of a bloody slaughter, those non-complying people were burned at the stake.

Oh, my God! I thought. Semantics. What the hell was the difference? Killing was killing! I began to see, at that moment, that religion was just another way of controlling people and situations. I thought back to the day that my father had been manipulated into becoming a bigger part of the church’s organization because they, the quorum of leaders, used me as an example to suck him in, and it worked.

I do understand that being in religion is good for many people. It gives them peace, purpose, and a sense of belonging to something sacred and feeling closer to God. But my own personal feelings about organized religions were suddenly very clear. It wasn’t about God’s teachings for being loving, giving people — that should come naturally — it was about doing what a bunch of men, historically, dictated we do to make their own lives purposeful.

I am not saying religion is a bad thing; I’m saying it’s not for me. I don’t need someone else to tell me what to feel and believe, because I can see for myself all that God has done for us and has given us, and I’m very grateful. But I didn’t learn that gratitude under the roof of a church from preachers telling me what I had to do and how I had to think and feel; I learned it by wandering through this beautiful country God gave us and seeing the wonderful and grateful people who also share this world.

Photo by Mariah Hewines

I love people of all races, colors, and beliefs, as long as they, too, love people of all races, colors, and beliefs, and who try to make this world a much better place through the love and gratitude they feel, instead of from what is being dictated to them by someone else. Dictation too often breeds resentment.

How many wars and lives have been lost throughout history all in the name of religion? I shudder to think of it.