I've always been a fan of that verse in the bible that talks about working out your own salvation, with fear and trembling.
While I'm admittedly not a fan of fear, nor trembling, I think the verse speaks to me in a time when So Many People are worried about Other People's sin.
(Don't Be Gay.)
(Have All the Babies.)
Etc.
After spending my teenage years as an Evangelical, I've joined in with the millennials and I am ALL about deconstructing: unpacking the emotional abuses and trauma of everything from Altar Calls to consistently being reminded that I have Sinned and fallen short of the glory of god. That I was born a sinner: I was never good enough.
I stopped going to church around the time I aged out of youth group. I can remember being newly 18 and losing my virginity, thinking of what I'd been told - I was now damaged goods for my future spouse. Yet, being intimate with my boyfriend felt right. Now, I'm in a second marriage, and if my husband and I had a dollar for every sexual partner we've ever had, we could probably afford a couple of steaks from Outback or something.
But, at the time, I felt guilty for not feeling guilty.
(That's one of the saddest things I've ever said.)
In my twenties, I tried to grapple with what I'd discovered: there was no god. And if there WAS a god, he was evil and narcissistic, watching from above as his creation floundered. But, since there wasn't a god, we just become nothing when we die. Ashes to ashes. Mush to mush.
I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder around the time I graduated college. I can't recall if the existential crisis started before or after the First Manic Episode that sent my world into a tailspin. But the manic episodes have hit me HARD over the last 20 years. Depression I can handle - it seems to be Moreso my personality - a little pessimism, but I still get out of bed.
When I'm manic I feel like a sort of body high. Sometimes its even steampunk-ish - I feel like a gaseous power coming up through me and out of the top of my head.
Generally, it's largely related to my feelings on the universe, god, salvation, and eternal life.
I've thought we were mid-Rapture of the Church... twice.
Once I even thought that the secret to eternal life was just to never go to sleep. And if you did, your partner had to stay awake and watch out for... things.
One other time I thought that I had almost figured it all out -that I was so close to unlocking the secrets of the Universe. I was thisclose - it was on the outskirts of my (exhausted) mind, but I couldn't get there. I couldn't - because if I did, I thought I would die. I remember moaning and tapping and just being in utter terror. I had gotten too close. I was lying in bed, and I felt like I was sinking, that the ground was going to swallow me up.
Yeah, so - fun Disorder, right?
Spoiler alert - I had to go to the ER to be sedated. And, also, I lived.
You might not be able to tell it, but I've been experiencing a Manic Ep for about the last 3 weeks. I stayed up ALL night writing. Monday 8/28 and Wednesday 8/30, I got zero hours of sleep. I stayed up writing and listening to The Prosecutor's Podcast (IYKYK) and took FURIOUS notes. I've been getting 2-3 hours of sleep each night ever since.
(Yes, I've been in touch with my doctor. I'm on heavier medications for sleep, and they are starting to work. I got six solid hours last night. Praise the Lord.)
The interesting thing is that I haven't spiraled out. I didn't have to go in for Inpatient Treatment. My mind wasn't spinning. The writing helps.
And I was trying SO hard to not even THINK about pondering the mysteries of the Universe.
But - I lucked out.
I didn't have to deep dive Muhammad or Jesus or Buddha or the King of Kings.
It all found me.
Right there, in a move theatre, with my 12-year-old daughter and her friend 3 rows ahead of me: I choke sobbed.
Helen Mirren is god.
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Gotcha.
Barbie asked, "You're the creator, don't you control me?"
And Helen Mirren tells her (paraphrased.)
I didn't create you to have an ending. I created you so you wouldn't have an ending. Ideas live forever - humans do not. We must stand still so our daughters can look back and see how far they've come.
And I thought
oh.
That's a good metaphor for living forever.
That's eternal life.
This is what it means to be human - this is what it means to feel saved.
Whoa.
Level Up: Everything is a metaphor. Religious tomes can be beautiful,
but
work out your own salvation.
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