Celebrating the Birth of Jesus as a Post-Christian: 3 Stars

Sharing some reflections of where my Jesus thoughts are at 3 years after leaving the church. The good, the bad and the thought-provoking.

"Joy to the World the Lord is come"

I hear these words on the radio in the car with my kids.

We put up our little wooden nativity in our dining room. We hang our Christ child ornament. We receive Christmas goodies with scripture verses written on the box from Rich's co-workers.

I live in Washington, I can fairly easily avoid overt religious symbols most of the time. 

Not during Christmas.

Jesus is everywhere. Including all over my own home. 

And if Christ brings up complicated feelings, it can be a complicated season. 

I've written before about my ongoing mixed Jesus feelings. Here's the December 2023 rendition.

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I'm just finishing up my spiritual direction practicum (more news on how to meet with me in 2023 coming soon!).

Someone I am meeting with is Christian, and I wanted to share a guided meditation that I loved while I was an active Christian. I searched high and low for this Christ-centered meditation but it has been removed since I last listened.

Thankfully, I listened to this 10 minute youtube meditation so many times, I could easily recount it to my practicum directee myself.

As the session started I was eager to share something that once elicited such intense spiritual warmth for me.

In the meditation, you meet Christ in a field- his eyes are kind, loving, supportive, compassionate. You reach into your chest cavity and pull out your heart. It is small, shriveled, bruised, blackened. You hold out your heart to Christ. He puts his hands around your hands. When he pulls away, you see your heart. It is now bright red, full, pulsing, huge, healed, whole. You put it back in your chest. You emotionally hug Christ and thank Him.

Oh, the tears this meditation once brought out in me!

But as I recounted this meditation to my directee, I flinched at the description of the heart you hand over to Christ. Thankfully our eyes were closed because I was physically grimacing as I said the words "blackened," "shriveled," "bruised," "broken." 

Ah that snag of Christian theology- to declare that you need a savior is to believe without him, you are damned. To believe you need healing is to believe you are inherently sick. To believe you need to be made whole is to believe you are broken.

I don't believe that. I believe we are born inherently good and whole.

Hence, the hearing of celebratory Christmas songs that our savior was born to come save us is sprinkled with a smidge of grief that so many out there believe they are in need of saving; that my own most spiritual experiences were founded on the premise of my own broken, bruised, blackened self.

That premise makes me sad.

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I was walking with a post Mormon friend recently. She said she watched the Spokane Symphony play the Messiah. She loved it. To use an old phrase, she "felt the spirit." She asked if I feel such feelings over Jesus-y Christmas songs.

I said I do. I can. 

To do so I've just needed to refine the plot of the Jesus story.

I feel no warm fuzzies over the plot line that we need a savior to save us.

But there is much to the Jesus story that I jive with - eating with prostitutes, hanging with lepers, subverting everyone's expectations for a mighty king and offering equality instead.

I recently heard a take on Jesus that intrigued and delighted my theology-reconstructing mind. 

The brain tickling idea comes from Slavoj Žižek - a Slovene philosopher named one of the top 100 global minds of our time. Žižek is an atheist- raised by atheist parents in Yugoslavia.

And he claims that Christianity is actually MORE atheist than most of atheism.

While atheism holds no belief in a supreme leader in the sky, still most hold on to some idea of a Big Other as Žižek calls it. Whether its natural necessity, evolution, fate, karma, science, astrology or capitalism - there is still some force at the helm, some Big Other invisibly running the show.

But Christianity took its Big Other and reduced it to just another one of us. Took away its power. Left it forsaken in a garden. Killed it.

Starting with Job - when all his friends were saying "ah, there must have been something you or your parents did wrong to warrant all your suffering and misfortune." And God says, "Nope. Not me pulling these strings based on your merits and faults."

And finally with the coming of God down to say in effect, "See? Here I am, one of you. The whole game, the Big Other, the kingdom of heaven is WITHIN you. And now I'm going to die. And you will be fine when I die because its not about me- the Holy Ghost is IN YOU."

Žižek doesn't go to any church but calls himself a Christian atheist because he believes Christian theology does the best job destroying any excuse or scapegoat to avoid personal freedom and responsibility. There is no karma or natural order or Big Other to point to when bad things happen to us. When good things happen to us. No string-puller. There's just us. 

A pure atheism if you will.

Interesting thought, no?

It's intriguing interpretations of the Christ story like this that I like to think of when I gaze at my nativity and play "Oh Holy Night" on my harp. 

Equality, compassion, freedom. There's those warm Christmas fuzzies.

Of course the institution of Christianity that has laid claim to Christ is a different beast entirely, which of course can lead to mixed feelings at Christmas time. 

What about you? How are you doing this Christmas? Where are your Jesus thoughts at? Ignoring? Redefining? Releasing? 

Respond and let us know!

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Response’s to Last Week’s Prompt:

Last week we discussed how difficult it can be to form friendships in your 40s and how you often must pay for the privelege.

Many of you have had similar experiences. Thanks for sharing them!

“I feel this. My husband and I frequently reminisce about our blissful medical school years living in a townhome when we'd also have Friday night "kid party" (babysitting swaps), random meals brought to us by a neighbor who'd cooked too much, and my personal favorite, every Sunday night our friends would set up facetime in their kids' rooms while they slept and we'd all play Settlers of Catan in my kitchen. Those friendships are a lot harder to come by these days living in a single family home in the suburbs and I have to be a lot more intentional about making friendships happen. The best thing I did for myself in the friendship department was start a book club a year ago.”

“Right there with you, Celeste! This is one of the big reasons why I remain a participating member of the church, because for all it's flaws, the church provides a pretty good setting for making friends and creating community.

As kids get older, it is so much harder to connect with fellow parents. Have you ever tried making mom friends with the parents of high schoolers? Impossible! By this time, it seems like other parents have their parent friends, and there's no breaking in to that!

I currently have a lot of young mom fangirls in the ward. Not friends necessarily, but people who like me. There is part of me that loves being admired and looked up to, and also part of me that thinks, Oh honey, I don't know if you want to tread this path with me! You don't know what you're getting into!

I'm currently in grad school (studying MFT) and I pay my own therapist to listen to me wonder if I am doing this just to figure out my own marriage, or to feel important, or to have meaningful connections with other people in a way that doesn't naturally happen.”