It’s been almost 20 years since my BIG deconstruction, and since then, it has been a journey focused on reconstruction. Let me be a little more precise; it is more of a rhythm of gaining new insights, trying them out, and deciding whether I keep them or keep looking.
Whether I keep them or jettison them, my experience with them, their strengths, and weakness are integrated into my experience. The things I reject for good reason shape, to some degree, the next steps in my journey.
In fact, I am in a place in my journey where I am grateful for every step from where I started to where I am now. Even the crappy stuff, because they, too, played a role in getting me to where I am today.
Deconstruction and reconstruction are the circuitous path up the mountain of life. When done well, sure, we recognize some of the same old terrain [situations/issues], but we see them from a slightly different and hopefully better perspective - to see old things in new ways.
Spinning My Wheels - Stuck
A few months ago, we visited Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, Canada. We turned down a snow-covered road with all the confidence of our four-wheel-drive SUV, and … we got stuck! We rocked it, the engine roared, and the tires spun - surely we were making progress. Nope, we were stuck. $300 later and a friendly tow truck operator, and we were back on our way.
Sometimes, along the road of very normal deconstruction, we can get sucked into believing that deconstruction, with all its noise and effort, is all there is to this faith. That continual, indiscriminate deconstruction often postures itself as spiritual exceptionalism. Unfortunately, sometimes though, we’re just stuck. It becomes more about seeing through things than seeing things. More about tearing down than building.
How we deconstruct is important. We need to carefully choose our guides. There are two role models for the Deconstruction-Reconstruction two-step: Jesus or the Sex Pistols.
The Sex Pistols' way of Deconstruction
In my mid 50’s, I can’t assume everyone knows The Sex Pistols. The Pistols formed in the UK in 1975 and only recorded one album, Never Mind the Bollocks” featuring songs like God Save the Queen (a Fascist regime) and Anarchy for the UK. The Pistols represented the inauguration of Punk music in the UK.
For the Pistols, mayhem was the point with loud, “burn it all to the ground” music that tapped into a legitimate sense of angst, feelings of futility, and disgust with the way things were done by those in power (trauma). Their music, for many, was an outlet for all that energy - in a sense, a physical/lyrical protest that was fuelled and enlivened by the mob - a living psychic, social organism feeding off of each other’s trauma.
Many have experienced significant and pointless harm at the hands of folks that claim to be for you. They speak in images of family, love, care, and nurture. Too many times these words are a veneer for an often Machiavellian style of heavy-handed “leadership(?)” and often all kinds of abuse. Trauma is a natural consequence.
The feelings of rage, depression, and deep sorrow are legitimate in the shadow of toxic religion. We need safe spaces to express and explore these emotions but beware of the mob! While we are all moshing and thrashing around to the same pain-soaked song - we can experience some emotional release. Call it an emotional purge. However, if we don’t face the source of our legitimate trauma, in time, the cauldron of putrid emotions fills to over-flowing until we purge again. Deconstruction in many circles is often no more than a kind of spiritual/emotional bulimia.
The need to escape these situations and heal is real. This can be sticky. Sometimes PTSD is a result of toxic theologies, leadership, and faith communities. Personally, getting professional/informed help with my religion-inspired trauma was the most helpful thing ever!
The Jesus Way
Jesus doesn’t want us to stay in toxic situations. He hates the manipulation of heavy-handed fear-inspired conformity of bad religion, and he was also wary of the mob. Jesus saved some of his sharpest rebukes for the abusive religious power brokers. Jesus was no toothless tiger. He was most gentle with those whose lives had been ravaged by such madness.
Jesus waded into the trauma of those who were broken-hearted with Love, compassion, and healing. Meeting us where we are at but not content to leave us there, Jesus always points to the healthy, life-giving way of the Kin-dom of the God-who-is-Love. And journeys alongside us out of the muck and into our healing.
Jesus was very much involved in deconstruction but with an important difference - it was always with a vision for reconstruction. Jesus cast a vision of beauty, justice, radical forgiveness (not spiritual by-pass but dealing with our wounds), and love. Jesus has more to say about what he is for - in a sense, the Jesus way is about light, not the shadows. Light quite naturally dispels darkness. It’s about learning to love well, building/creating something genuinely beautiful, a way of wholeness.
My Early Experience
I’ve certainly had my Sex Pistol moments. In the early days, I was full-on Pistols. When the pain and feelings of betrayal, futility, and humiliation were intense. Back then, folks like me were very much on the fringes, and there weren’t a lot of healthy voices. I followed along with other rock throwers and, for a while, was cheered along with “Likes and Shares” as I, too, gathered a crowd as I threw trauma-inspired stones.
“I had left the Church but realized that I was still just as trapped by the religious system as I dragged my church trauma with its bitterness and rage - these are heavy chains.”
I discovered that eating a diet of this kind of junk food made me sicker, not healthier, wiser, spiritual, or... more like Jesus. Facing the source of my religious trauma with wise guides has made a world of difference, cutting the heavy chains I was dragging with me. This makes life-giving Reconstruction easier and has returned my sense of peace, rest, and joy.
The Jesus way is always led with a vision beyond the stone-throwing of chronic deconstruction. The Jesus way is about actually dealing with the source of our trauma - not spiritually by-passing with saccharine piety or self-righteous veneer of the angry mob. The Jesus way is about radical, self-giving, whole-making love that heals our hearts and sets us free to be light or, to quote Gandhi, to become the change we want to see.
