Messiah

Last night I sang Messiah with our town's Choral Society - a sell out concert at Reading University - and shed-loads of applause after.  The soloists were superb, the tenor especially so (but then I'm biased!)

The whole thing was emotionally interesting.  OK, I didn't get all the notes right, but that didn't cause me much shame - you can hide in a choir of 100, well, unless you're something odd like a lady tenor :o).  But there were a few folk from the Baptist Church that I tried attending for a while there.  It brought to mind how I would have been thinking even three years ago whilst singing this "magnum opus" - and, indeed, it was very long - we didn't finish until about 10:15!  In a strange way I felt it would have been easier to sing had I not lost my faith.  It was like I had to draw on emotional memories rather than actually feeling the moment.  And there is still a little part of me that wanted to simply scream out "the whole thing is just a story, a fable, something to inspire or, at worst, create fear".

But it's done, and the choir moves on to the next religious festival with lots of songs about how unworthy all humanity is.  I do wonder whether I ought to try to find a more secular music group.

Remembrance

Todd (see earlier posts) has asked for reflections of how the church treats homosexual people.  On Remembrance Sunday, I've spent a bit of time composing the following:

When you’re young and confused and being told that what you are is what you are not, any group that proclaims it has real answers is very attractive. Except, being "born again" at the age of 13, very quickly I realised that I had to conform even more – because I was a “young Christian”, I couldn’t possibly know enough, so I was content to learn. And stayed that way for 25 years until the internal struggle got too much, but by then I was in church leadership (in a small way), had married, a successful job and young children. Saying “actually, I think I’ve always been female” caused shock amongst many, but only real fear amongst the church. Counselling was arranged, but the drive was to “fix” me, not to listen or learn. Because I was “unrepentant”, taking the advice of qualified medics rather than unqualified pastors, I was “cast out”. After 18 months, my wife joined another church. I tried to follow, but was told that I was welcome but not fully accepted, or was that acceptable? Branded “not a person but an issue” was very hard to take – again.

I have lost lots of my Christian friends. They simply cannot consider the option that they might be wrong, so I am rejected, placed on the shelf to consider later. As a friend once said, some people have very long shelves. I wondered why Christians, when they say that what’s inside is important, paid so much attention to the outside that they ignored what was inside. Slowly I came to the conclusion that I just didn’t believe it any more. My wife and children have largely followed me down that path. While it’s important not to generalise, I’m going to do so, knowing that there are exceptions. There are differences between Christians and the “secular world”, but they aren’t what Christians want to believe they are. Instead Christians seem to be driven by fear, not love; by arrogance, not humility. I was saddened by the hypocrisy I saw amongst those who I had followed – some of them wrestling with the very same issue as me, and those usually reacting the strongest. Stepping away from the church, and ultimately from Christianity, has led me to the peace and fulfilment I had been seeking since I was 5. I’m slowly getting over the anger that has made me want to pull the whole Christian edifice down, but I don’t know whether I will ever get over the pain of rejection by those who told me repeatedly that they loved me.

The pain of loss is always hard, and harder when it seems so meaningless.  This morning I think of the general futility of war, the immense sacrifice that we place on those who we charge to fight on our behalf, the games politicians play.  I want to say "enough" - actually I want to shout it out as loud as I possibly can.  November 1918 was supposed to see the end of the war to end all wars - yet in 2009 we're still fighting, sending young British men and women thousands of miles away to an inhospitable land to try to wrest control in the futile attempt to prevent people placing bombs on our streets, little thinking that those who place those bombs are trying to do the same to us.  Madness - to snuff out all of that young energy and potential for what is an unachievable aim.