Sharing the ponderings of others

My minister shared something with me that I would in turn like to share with you.

First, a word about my minister. Alan truly ministers to people. Even though I go for long stretches of time without attending church, he still believes that part of his role as pastor of the church is to minister to me.

He has been generous with sharing others’ and his own the wisdom and ponderings during the last few months as I’ve faced difficulties. I appreciate his emails “checking in” and the time he has shared with me for conversations about what’s going on in my life, what I believe, and what I don’t believe.

He gets that religion and the spiritual are not easy things for me because of my OCD and depression.

Most recently, he shared a sermon/blog post called “I’m Through with Love” by Matt Gaventa, a minister who serves in a nearby county.

Gaventa’s story about his father and his understanding of love has me thinking about depression and love and grace in whole new ways.

If you have time, please read this post HERE.

The garden is overflowing

Hello, dear readers. I’m sorry I’ve been missing this week. I have been very busy with work, and then so tired in the evenings, I haven’t been on the computer and doing my blogging as much as I’ve wanted to.

Our garden is bursting at the seams, it seems.

I harvested some of the Romaine lettuce, and Larry pulled some onions. No tomatoes, cucumbers, or other veggies yet.

I’m looking forward to a nice salad with fresh lettuce and onions.

***

Thank you to those who read and shared the CNN article “Religious OCD: ‘I’m going to hell.’”

The point of the article was not to paint religion in a good or bad light. It was to bring light to a subject that many people don’t understand. It was to let people suffering from OCD know they are not alone.

But many of the comments on CNN’s website were arguments about religion: whether or not God existed, whether or not a certain religion was the right one, who had the answers, who didn’t.

I didn’t read all of them—not nearly all of them. I couldn’t stomach the disrespect.

Not all the comments I read were like that. I appreciate all those who engaged in respectful discussion.

Religion doesn’t cause OCD. Believing or not believing in God doesn’t cause OCD.

OCD is probably genetic, or a mix of genetics and environment. The way that OCD manifests itself in my life, and in the lives of others with OCD, may reflect what’s important to us, or what we fear.

Being in an environment like my strict Christian high school probably was not the best place for me as a teenager. If I had been in treatment for OCD at that time, I could have dealt with my doubts and fears much better. But religion didn’t cause my OCD.

So I was disturbed by the tone of the comments.

But then I came upon an article by Parker J. Palmer that helped me put things in perspective. It is called “Reflections on the Inner Work of Holding Paradox.”

In the article, Palmer states, “For me, holding paradox means thinking about some (but not all) things as "both-ands" instead of "either-ors."

For example, he says, when we disagree with someone about a religious or political issue, we sometimes think that we are right and the other person is wrong.

He goes on to say:

“But both-and thinking can lead to something much more creative: ‘Maybe I don't have everything right, and maybe he/she doesn't have everything wrong. Maybe both of us see part of the truth. If I speak and listen in that spirit, we both might learn something that will expand our understanding. We might even be able to keep this relationship and conversation going.’"

That’s the kind of conversation I’d like to have. It’s better just to leave the divisive comments behind and concentrate on discussions created out of respect.

Altavista’s annual Uncle Billy’s Day Festival is this weekend. It will include a carnival, music, a craft show, an art contest, food vendors, fireworks (Saturday night), and more. But I may not make it. I am covering two high school graduations for the paper on Saturday.

Whether it’s attending a festival, working in your garden, hanging out at the house, or whatever you choose to do, I hope you have a great weekend!

CNN interview: OCD and religion

Nearly two weeks ago, Elizabeth Landau, a writer and producer for CNN's website, contacted me about an article she was writing about scrupulosity. She had found me via this blog.

She interviewed me by phone about my experiences with religious scrupulosity. I talked to her about the ways my fears of sin affected me, especially as a teenager and young adult.

Landau’s article was published today. You can read it HERE. It’s informative and paints a good picture about how this form of OCD can affect people of any religion or no religion. And it gives hope for those who suffer with this form of OCD, including a section on the use of exposure therapy.

If you do read the article, I ask that you share it on other social media such as Facebook or Twitter, or send links to friends who might benefit. Or you can share this blog post in the same way.

It is my hope that this article will help spread the word and help people feel less alone.

Some background

I went to an evangelical Christian school for high school, and the calls to be “saved” were traumatic for me because I could never be sure if I had said the prayer “right,” or if my heart was “right” with God.

I believed that I had to say all my prayers perfectly or harm would come to my family and it would be my fault. I prayed silently, incessantly, repeating myself over and over. If I made a mistake in my ritual, I had to start over.

I turned away from any hint of God or religion for years because of my experiences with scrupulosity.

I’m in a much better place now, living better with the uncertainty of faith, believing that there are many paths to God for people to choose from, or not.

You can read more about my religious OCD on this blog HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Spiritual this and that

My church, Lane Memorial United Methodist.

I talked with my minister last week about my spiritual beliefs and the effects of obsessive-compulsive disorder on them, and I wanted to share some of our conversation.

We had discussed my OCD a bit in emails but had never talked about it. I was fortunate in that I didn’t have to explain everything. He’s read some of this blog, so he knew going in what OCD is and some of how it affects my spiritual life.

I told him about my doubts that I carry with me about God and asked whether or not I was a hypocrite for coming to church and sitting with people who seem to be such faithful believers.

Some of my doubts are, I believe, results of my OCD. My struggles with prayer and with being “right” with God are directly tied to it.

  But I’ve also always had a lot of questions about God, and it seems like it’s sometimes hard to get good answers from the usual sources.

He assured me that I wasn’t a hypocrite and that I needn’t worry about having doubts and fears about who God is and what place He plays in my life and in the life of others.

We also talked about mental illness in general. I was pleased that he understands that mental illness is not a rarity nor is it something to be ashamed of.

It was reassuring to me and I believe to all people with mental illness who attend our church that he has this healthy and open attitude towards those of us who struggle with these disorders.

Class update

Yesterday I attended my second session of the open discussion class at church, where we are studying Brian McLaren’s book A New Kind of Christianity.

When I talked with my minister last week, he told me that he and the class facilitator had envisioned a class where all who had questions could come and feel free to express themselves. It would be a “safe place” for people like me who had questions about God but might not feel comfortable expressing those questions in a general group setting.

We’ve just started the book, but it seemed like all the participants are already engaged, as I am.

The book asks 10 questions to start a conversation about Christianity. It’s a book that will have us doing a lot of exploring: “We need not a new set of beliefs, but a new way of believing, not simply new answers to the same old questions, but a new set of questions” (p. 18).

Some of the questions are the following: How should the Bible be understood? Who is Jesus and why is he important? What is the Gospel?

This class is going to push me and challenge me, and I believe it will help me on my spiritual journey.

Last Monday, I had my first class on Holy Communion and I’ll have my second class tonight. I am learning more about why we do what we do during Communion.

The minister is also asking for our input on how to make the worship service a better experience for all.

A spiritual quest

So I’m on a spiritual quest and feeling a lot better about it than I have in the past. I am less encumbered by OCD, partly because I’ve given up (for the most part) the chants and prayers that used to color my spiritual life.

And I’ve given them up only after a lot of effort and sitting with the anxiety. I’ve ended up not praying a lot, but I am meditating more, and I talked with my minister about saying prayers that have already been written. I am not worrying about praying, though.

I’ve also stopped obsessing over being right with God. As with the praying, that’s taken a lot of effort.

The OCD still waits in the wings of my spiritual life, but I know it’s there and plan on keeping it there as best I can.

I am a seeker, and I’m confident that I will be on a spiritual journey for the rest of my life.

And I’m confident that that’s OK.

Are you a seeker? What kind of journey are you on when it comes to the spiritual (not necessarily religious)?

Snippet of a memoir: OCD and religion, getting saved, or not

  Note: I’ve written before about my relationship with religion, especially as a young girl trying to make sense of God while obsessive-compulsive disorder was running my life. In this vignette, I write about an early religious experience.

  I found out about rededicating one’s life to Christ on May 2, 1975. I was almost 12 years old. It was a Friday, and revival had been going on all week.

  My church had mustard yellow, walk-in carpet, the thin kind that wears well. The floors were dark hardwood, remnants of the church’s past. I sat in the youth choir section, which was directly across from the adult choir section.

  The altar was on my right between the two choirs. A railing encircled the altar and the chairs for the ministers. On the outside of the railing was a section for kneeling sinners, for those coming to get saved or to rededicate their lives to Jesus.

  Every night, as we sang the last hymn, the visiting minister, the revival speaker, put out the call to the altar. As we sang, people would put down their hymnals and walk up to the altar. Some would be crying, some looked scared, some looked relieved, some looked determined. But afterwards, they all looked relieved.

  I hadn’t gone up to the altar all week. I had been baptized when I was about nine, and I wasn’t sure how that played into salvation.

  From what I was hearing from the revival speaker, it didn’t mean anything. I was still a sinner and still far from God and still not saved.

  And there was a specific way to be saved. One had to accept Jesus into their hearts to be saved. Believing that he existed wasn’t enough either.

  During the final hymn all through the week, I had felt intensely anxious. I would feel a growing dread as we sang a hymn such as “Just As I Am.” My arms felt numb, I couldn’t concentrate on the words of the hymn and I felt afraid.

  I wondered if the fear was God’s way of telling me that I needed to be saved. I wondered if I needed to go to the altar.

  I wished I knew what the people going forward had prayed. The preacher usually talked to them, too, at the altar.

  This Friday night, we sang the final hymn, and I felt that now-familiar fear and dread and anxiety. I was afraid to go up to the altar. I was shy. But I was afraid not to go up, too. And some of my friends had gone up earlier in the week and seemed happy for doing it.

  In a daze, I put down the hymnal and walked the short walk to the altar and knelt down. I didn’t know what to do. I closed my head and bowed my head, but I didn’t really know what to pray.

  The prayer that came out without thinking, out loud, in a whisper, was something like, “Oh, God, please forgive me.”

  I remember opening my eyes and seeing the minister smile at me. I looked behind me and saw my parents, who had come up to stand behind me. They were smiling, too. I heard the minister talking to my parents, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying.

  Then I heard my parents tell the minister that I had been baptized. The minister looked at me and told me I had rededicated my life to Christ that night.

  When I got home, I opened up my Bible, the white one with my name embossed on the front that I had received for Christmas one year, and in the front wrote the date and that I had rededicated my life to Christ on that date.

  This was the beginning of my obsession about being saved. I couldn’t resolve within me how getting baptized was something that had saved me when I heard ministers and then, when I started going to Christian schools, school officials and teachers say that you had to accept Christ in your heart to be saved. I knew I hadn’t done that when I was baptized. But I hadn’t prayed that on May 2, 1975. All I’d prayed was for God to forgive me. Was that being saved?

  But what I was learning at church at revivals and at school especially was telling me that one had to pray a certain prayer and ask specifically for forgiveness from sins and for Jesus to come into your heart. That was the only way to be saved.

  I don’t know how many times I prayed for forgiveness and for Christ to come into my heart. I was looking for the feeling that I was saved, for a reassurance that I didn’t need to worry about it any more.

  That was a reassurance that I knew others my age had who were saved. They didn’t seem to doubt their salvation at all. They could point to a date or an age and say with certainty that they had been saved then.

  How did religion affect you when you were a child?

OCD and choosing prayer and faith

I’ve written in this space before about my prayer life: how obsessive-compulsive disorder has led me to try to build an imaginary shield of protection around my loved ones and how I have struggled for years to get constant prayers and chants for forgiveness and help out of my head.

If I’m not very mindful and careful, my prayers morph into repetitions of words said until I feel “right.”

Whether they are prayers for others or prayers for myself, prayers said aloud, prayers said silently, prayers written down—they can all end up being a mess of words.

I pray, but I’m not communicating with God. I’m communicating with myself.

For all the pain I’ve had over religion and prayer, I still want to nurture the spiritual in my life. I want to be part of an organized religion. So I am making some choices.

Meditation is working better than prayer for me, and I will continue to practice.

And I’m making other choices.

Jonathan Grayson, Ph.D.

In his book Freedom from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Personalized Recovery Program for Living with Uncertainty, Jonathan Grayson, Ph.D. wrote something that made me consider the whole way I approach prayer and faith: “Many of you have focused so much on following rules that you have forgotten to think about the nature of your faith.” (p. 222).

Grayson said people with religious obsessions believe in two Gods, “a loving and forgiving God who cares about their souls and well-being” and “a stern and exacting God who will damn them for the slightest misstep” (p. 222).

We have the choice of which God to believe in, Grayson said. Religion is full of guesswork, and people decide what to believe as a matter of blind faith: “Most people like to think of faith as a feeling that gives strength, but it can also simply be a decision you choose to follow” (p. 224).

My minister

That reminded me of something a former minister told me when several years ago I discussed with him my lack of faith and my trouble with praying. He told me not to focus on how I felt but on what I believed and to do things that could help me be closer to God, like having regular devotions.

There it is again

So I’m back to the same thing I’ve faced before with OCD and depression: I place too much importance on feelings and not enough on action.

My choices

I still have many reservations about prayer. But in addition to meditating, I am choosing to pray, not as I have in the past, not in the OCD way, but in a way that I am able to. I am choosing to pray to the God whom I choose to believe in: a loving and forgiving God.

I will never know in this life whether or not I am doing it “right.” I cannot be certain that I’m praying in the way I’m supposed to, if there is such a way. But I will take action to try prayer to better my life.

For the time being, that will probably be saying prayers that have already been written, like the St. Francis of Assisi prayer.

How do you nurture your spirituality? What choices have you made about spiritual practices? Are there any prayers that you particularly like?

Good Friday thoughts

Tonight I attended the Good Friday service at my church. It was a quiet and meditative time, and I carried away some thoughts I’d like to share with you.

I respect people of all faiths and religions, as well as those who have no religion at all. I believe we are all connected by the same Power.

I can only speak from the belief system that I have chosen to follow, and then, even more specifically, from my understanding of that belief system.

My faith is far from perfect. Sometimes it’s feeble. My commitment to my belief system has been spotty and unreliable.

I have many issues with organized religion stemming from my religious scrupulosity, one of the manifestations of my obsessive-compulsive disorder.

I am a doubter, a wanderer. I sometimes look at others who seem to have an unwavering faith and wish I could be like them.

I am in no position to teach anyone else about how to live a good and faithful life.

I still come before the cross.

I come before the cross, sometimes in despair, sometimes with my unending desires to know how to live a good and meaningful life, and sometimes because there is nowhere else to go.

At tonight’s service, we had a time of meditation on the cross, and anyone who wished to do so could go and kneel before the cross to pray and meditate.

Before the cross tonight, I didn’t pray much. I just tried to absorb the moment and think about what the minister had said in prayer: that we learn from Jesus’ carrying the cross how to carry our crosses.

To each of you, wherever you are in life, God’s grace and peace and blessings.

Learning: The role of ritual

The word ritual can have terrifying connotations for people with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The compulsive rituals we perform to try to alleviate the anxiety caused by obsessions result in even more anxiety. They become the source of much pain and much waste.

Religious rituals are especially difficult for me. I’ve written about my scrupulosity and my particular problems with praying.

Lately, however, I’ve been thinking about religious rituals in a more positive light.

In the years after I left religion behind in my 20s, I made brief forays back into spiritual practice, but I continued to eschew what I considered to be meaningless rituals.

During church services, I wondered what was accomplished by response readings, recited prayers and ceremony. What did those rituals have to do with finding God, with learning to live a good life?

I came back to formal religion over seven years ago, for various reasons. One was that I wanted to have a home for my spiritual questions.

I have been happy with my decision overall. I must admit, though, that the rituals in my United Methodist tradition at one time did not mean a lot to me. They were exercises to participate in until we reached my favorite part of the service, the sermon.

I think differently now.

What I have been learning is that rituals have a way of bringing me to a place where I am ready to seek God’s presence.

The book “The Case for God,” by Karen Armstrong, helped to launch my meditation on ritual.

In the book, Armstrong traces the ways that God has been perceived and practiced since man had the first inklings that there was perhaps more to the world and to life than what he could see or experience with his other senses.

Armstrong writes that before the matter of belief became so important, ritual was deemed the way to make myths come alive and become meaningful. She places a great deal of importance on the role of ritual:

“Religion is a practical discipline that teaches us to discover new capacities of mind and heart. . . . It is no use magisterially weighing up the teachings of religion to judge their truth or falsehood before embarking on a religious way of life. You will discover their truth—or lack of it—only if you translate these doctrines into ritual or ethical action.” (The Case for God, page 10, e-version)

She writes further about the role of ritual:

“Many thousands of people find that the symbolism of the modern God works well for them: backed up by inspiring rituals and the discipline of living in a vibrant community, it has given them a sense of transcendent meaning. All the world faiths insist that true spirituality must be expressed consistently in practical compassion, the ability to feel with the other.” (The Case for God, page 14, e-version)

I am learning that one way I can prepare myself to practice compassion is to attend my church’s services and participate in the rituals. Doing so helps to prepare me to listen more intently to the scriptures, to the sermon and to the quiet voice within.

During the service, we listen to the reading of the scriptures based on the lectionary. After the reading of each selection, the leader holds up the Bible and says, “The Word of God for the people of God.” The congregation responds, “Thanks be to God.”

We sing hymns. We sing the Gloria Patri.

We listen to the minister’s sermon, based on the scriptures that we have heard.

We read as a congregation an affirmation of faith, usually the Apostle’s Creed or the Nicene Creed.

All of this gives me much to ponder, including the unity of us all.

During communion, we first pray for forgiveness. We then greet each other in peace before taking part symbolically in Christ’s Last Supper.

There would normally be all kinds of red flags flying around me with any talk of forgiveness and prayer.

And to be honest, I have yet to begin a personal prayer practice.

But in a group setting, I can follow along with the words that were written long ago. I don’t have to make up the words and worry that I haven’t said the right ones.

Being with others also helps. It’s not a ritual that I’m doing alone. I don’t feel alone.

What do you think of rituals? Do you participate in any rituals that are comforting, that go beyond the rote to become meaningful? Or does the thought of participating in any rituals make you uncomfortable?

Conviction of sin

My spiritual life is very important to me, but I do not consider myself to be very religious. I was raised in a Christian home and am a Christian. I belong to and attend a Methodist church.

I don’t believe being a Christian puts me on a higher plane than those of other religions and beliefs. I believe in a God that lives within all of us.

I am at peace with that understanding. That sense of peace is a far cry from what I felt for many years.

Religion, especially fundamentalist Christianity, mixed with obsessive-compulsive disorder was a quicksand that sucked me in and mired me in guilt and doubt. I was an easy mark for the accompanying obsessions and compulsions.

When I was about eleven years old, I began my compulsive prayers for forgiveness and for the safety and health of my family.

This compulsion was based on my belief that how I prayed, what I prayed, and whether or not I was a good person affected not just my life, but the lives of those I loved. I was obsessed with the belief that I had to be “right” with God or something terrible would happen to my family.

I also prayed for my own salvation, especially after I started attending Christian schools at age 12. The need to be saved was drilled into us at school, and salvation came from following a certain formula of prayer.

My fellow students seemed to be sure of their salvation. But I didn’t have that reassurance.

I wanted to be sure that I was saved. I don’t think I was so much afraid of going to hell when I died, as I was afraid of the depression of knowing I wasn’t saved, and therefore, never having peace of mind about it.

I was also concerned because I was taught that God couldn’t hear our prayers until we were saved. So prayers for protection of my family wouldn’t go through if I wasn’t saved.

When I prayed, whether for forgiveness, for my family or for salvation, I said the same words over and over, out loud or to myself, until the words became meaningless chants, not said to God, but to myself.

These chants, especially the ones in my thoughts, created within me a constant rhythmic beat that I tried to stop but never could. The beat played in the background even as I talked with others and went about my daily activities. It reminded me that I wasn’t saved yet, that I still needed to deal with God, that peace was elusive as long as I failed at my prayers.

I never knew what made a prayer “right” or “not right.” There was a magical way to say the words, silently or out loud, but I found that magical way only by repetition and by accident. At some unpredictable moment, I would have the sense that I had gotten it right, and I could stop for a while. I had protection. My family had protection, at least until I sinned again.

I questioned my prayers and my state of mind during those prayers. Was I concentrating on the right things? Did I have to use certain words? What feeling was I supposed to have in my heart? Was the feeling a physical one? The lifting of that heavy feeling I felt so often? With these questions, the doubt of my state of salvation returned.

Eventually, when I was in college, I think I just became exhausted with it all. My prayers and my attempted beliefs in a fundamentalist system had brought me no peace and no satisfaction, just exhaustion and anxiety and endless prayers.

And I began to question what I had been told by my teachers and fellow students. Who said they were right?

I had also gotten seriously depressed, and for a long time that overshadowed my OCD.

For many years, I stayed away from God and from anything to do with religion.

Today, I pray, but not in the same way. It’s more of a meditation, a sometimes wordless expression of my needs and helplessness. And there’s more gratitude included. I also recite poetry and prayers such as the St. Francis of Assisi prayer.

I still crave peace, and I think what I’m doing now is moving me closer to it than the old prayers.