Experiencing Life Beyond Belief

Fundamentally Mistaken Fanatics “There’s One in Every Family” You recognize their energy the moment they walk into the room…a fundamentally mistaken fanatic. The opinionated (about everything!) aunt, uncle, cousin, stepparent, grandparent, father, and God forbid if it’s your mother or mother-n-law...the one(s) you invited with dread to your holiday family dinner table. Why extend the invitation? Because you have fundamental fanatical beliefs of your own…”Blood is thicker than water”, Family is EVERYTHING”, “If your mother doesn’t love you, who will?” “Happy wife, happy life.” and, all the highlighted quotes in your “How to keep my mother-in-law happy” journal. These programmed beliefs have usually been passed down from the maternal side of the family. We follow these generational beliefs “religiously” (interesting term, don’t you think!) even through the pain and suffering of tradition that we dread year after year after year. So, we brace for the afternoon feasting, football, and what can only be described as “encounters of the third kind”, at least alien to OUR way of thinking, and believing. We pray to God that our discussion isn’t about God, or the President of the United States of America, who that fanatical relative equates as God’s appointed and anointed! Religion and politics…avoid those subjects altogether if at all possible! But the separation of church and state doesn’t always work in the family. The separation part, yes, but the avoidance of politics and religion, even if they are off handed remarks or sarcastic “under the breath” comments, not possible. Fundamental beliefs, religious and political, are volatile…and when the two connect, a dynamite explosion in the family dynamics occurs! A divisiveness of monumental proportions. It shatters the foundation of our family values and the framework of our constitution. It splits the bedrock on which our forefathers built that foundation. When our political agendas become religiously ignited, our democracy, our republic, our “family” is seriously threatened. The lines are drawn on the landscape of freedom…the lines and boundaries that are not meant to exist. The church has created such divisiveness among its own ranks, how can we expect their interference, their participation in the political arena to create anything different? There you are sitting at the holiday dinner table with your fundamentally motivated religious zealot being judgmental and riled up about countries not getting along, being territorial, being unrealistic, being enemies, when they cannot get along with their own brother or sister sitting across the table! Both of us suddenly lose our appetites, excuse ourselves from the dinner table for a very long restroom break, (thank God the house has two “restroom retreats”) and for once we are glad constipation of the body has set in to offset the constipation of the mind which is now creating a ”shitload” experience.” We finally flush, look at the clock, and then for the exit. Fundamental fanatics seem to be everywhere these days. Oftentimes they are the congregationalists sitting beside us in the church pew, the demonstrators walking the picket lines, and the media personalities drowning us in current events. Sometimes they are the boss, or the co-worker, or the perfect stranger in the checkout line. Sometimes they are the neighbor across the street who flags you down as you back out of the driveway. It is then you fantasize a fanatical “hit and run” experience. And sometimes you realize as you look in the mirror, the fundamentally mistaken fanatic is…. YOU! Sometimes that one that is reluctantly invited to the holiday family dinner turns out to be YOU! I was that “one”, but fortunately for me, one of several! In fact, most of the people at that holiday dinner table were also fundamentally mistaken fanatics, so I was in good company. God help the one who would eventually push away from that table, and choose a different family. The label that had been passed around that table and then passed down to me...Christian Evangelical Fundamentalist. How I loved my tribe! How I loved my label! How I loved my life! All 50 years of it! Even though it was mostly a fear-based lifestyle filled with ridiculous beliefs of Biblical proportions, literally!, and even though it included several very traumatic events, my CEF life ironically felt safe, comfortable, and predictable, when in reality, it was non of those things. Eventually EVERYTHING in my life, whether I realized it or not, was influenced by the “hand me down” beliefs of fundamental family members, friends, and pastors. I claimed them as my own and passed them generously on to others, whether they fit or not. I naively thought EVERYONE should be part of this tribe and wearing these “hand me down” beliefs, and CEF label. I realized years later how totally addicted I was to my fundamental beliefs. It became my “fix”, although a temporary one, for the underlying problem of disconnectedness driven by fear, the fear that was instilled in my programming in the first place! Fear of not being good enough, or simply, not being enough, something I struggle with to this day. And often I would do anything to assuage the fear and guilt driving the disconnectedness deep into my soul where I could bury it and keep it hidden from others, and from myself. The “fix” wasn’t quite the “fix” I had hoped for….for it didn’t really “fix” anything. But it did relieve physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual pain in the moment. But then it was “back to reality” where the disconnectedness and the mysteries persisted, until I could get the next “temporary fix”. For me, Christian Evangelical Fundamentalism (CEF) was an easy fix, and it promised a “fix” for all my disconnections in life, or so I thought. And as a bonus, all the mysteries of this life would be solved in that gated community called Heaven...the forever fix! Ironic isn’t it, that the very thing that should heal our addictions become the addiction! For fifty years I dedicated my life to evangelical Christianity only to discover I had been fundamentally mistaken.