Friendship
The questions I ask myself now:
Am I angry at the fact that:
- the loyalty I have for my Christian friends cannot ever be reciprocated due to their beliefs?
- all of my Christian friendships will result in their attendance at my future wedding to be sad for me?
- the “friendships” I do have with them are only to rope me into their religion?
- they complain and complain, but instead of leaving, they just continue to go and find more things to complain about?
These past two weeks have finally opened up my eyes to how I’ve been deceived all along. Being backstabbed and thrown away by the fellowship hurt me deeply.
But at the same time, it’s liberating to release my expectations of my Christian friends (expectations were the motif of this past month) and begin treating them how they’ve always treated me.
Attention Whore
Is getting attention and feeling important/useful to other people really what you will betray your friends for?
Do not expect me to humor you anymore. Ever.
Everything you do is idiotic. You are helping no one. You are self-centered, selfish and senseless. No one likes you. Haven’t you realized that yet? And yet you will keep pushing away those who might put up with you, just so you can feel slightly important by knowing something that an actual leader doesn’t. You’re a perverse snake: slithering around on the ground, pretending like you mean something to anyone who will give you their time of day. And when people around you develop and grow their friendships, you pout and throw a fit, complaining to the leaders about “cliques” and how the state of the fellowship is deteriorating due to certain people. You’re the scum of the earth. You’re Satan’s lieutenant; how fortunate of you to have a leadership position.
Don’t expect me to trust you, either.
You’re exactly what Christianity needs to get rid of. You’re exactly what will make Heaven a terrible place to be, should you end up there. I thank your God that I’m not in your religion, because of people like you.
The difference between a good Christian friend and a bad one is that the first will be considerate before taking an action, while the latter will do whatever he/she wants, and beg for forgiveness afterwards. But even then, he will beg for forgiveness, at the same time try to defend himself that he was never wrong for doing it.
Thank you being so prompt in reminding me why I don’t go to your fellowship. It took less than 24 hours after I attended an event of yours for you to gossip with me with the rest of your leaders, to speculate about me, to try to figure out what goes on in my sex life, to figure out what’s “wrong” with me, to figure out my “struggles.” And you show not one bit of remorse for exploiting my secrets for your sense of superiority.
Say sorry. But don’t say to me, “sorry, but it was really your fault.” I see through your deception, prince of lies.
The Hatred
My days of lamenting about my cognitive dissonance are over, but as I find myself seeking and grasping for the reigns of my life, I also find a fiend of aggression rising up from within me. It’s like some sort of uncontrollable beast that follows me around and surfaces randomly when I least expect it, egging on what would have been my cue to grin and bear it into opening my mouth and letting venom fire, or furrowing my brows into pure hatred in the form of an icy cold stare. I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time until it sees an opportunity to take control of my hands and do some actual damage.
Nowadays the trigger is stroked so easily: them laughing with each other, them and their “concern,” them choosing fellowship with exclusively one another over hanging out with those dirty, hell-bound non-Christians, them looking on towards me with only the desire to convert me instead of seeing me as a person, them weighing me, as a person they know, against the arbitrary values that they’ve been raised with, them worshiping — no, them playing instruments and feeling spiritual.
When it happens, all I see is red. The fiery hatred steaming inside me melts any good feeling I may have had before. Each breath I take fans the flame growing inside of me. I can’t control my eyes, which turn into laser sights that burn holes through whatever I’m looking at. My entire being feels like bundle of dried grass, a conflagration ready to engulf everyone and every thing around me once someone takes my dare to touch me.
It feels like I’m being ripped apart. It’s torture, living here. Is there no harp for this spirit of hatred?
And yet the green-eyed monster of the community that was ripped away from me continues to taunt me ever so listlessly, dangling happiness like a carrot in front of a donkey. Yes, it was ripped away from me. While others can continue on their jolly golden road without ever seeing their loving God strip them of their dignity, whisper into their ears the promise of love and then forcibly take away all hopes of happiness, that is what happened to me. But it just doesn’t happen to some people.
And yet it is a lesson that everyone needs to learn, especially Christians: the path is so much narrower than it seems. And so many are on the paths parallel to the narrow path that lead to hell.
- The path of blessings, rewards, and relief is not the path of suffering and immeasurable, Job-like pain of the body and of the mind.
- The path of lesson-learning and God-tailored trials is not the path of voluntary persecution and martyrdom out of not blind but honest faith.
- The path of maintaining relationships merely to try to “save” non-Christians from hell is not the path that leads away from it.
- The path of having a community of “brothers and sisters” (if you can even call them that) to spend Friday nights with is not the path of sacrifice and dutiful loyalty to a god.
- The path of doing good and following orders is not the path of salvation.
- The path of the same habitual sin and the same habitual repentance is not the path led by the Holy Spirit.
- The path of conforming to the world’s pattern of getting a high-paying job and tithing 10% as one’s dues to religion is not the path of the communist-like fellowship that Jesus created amongst his disciples.
Would you trade any of the latter for any of the former? Would you insert a piece of paper saying “Forgive me father, for I have sinned” into the vending machine you call God to get whatever you want? How often could you do it and how often will your conscience be cleared, each and every time?
But I digress. This is what I wanted, wasn’t it? To be a subject of love-out-of-duty, to be encapsulated and defined by my sin and astrayness, to be on the outside looking in, feeling rage? The prodigal son would like to have a word with me, I know, but I’m not nearly at that point of rock bottom yet. And I don’t want these so called “Christians” to be waiting for me with a feast and judgmental stares.
If I do come back, it will be between me and Jesus, and no one else: not my friends, not Christians, and not the values instilled in me from my upbringing. Until then, let’s hope the wrath monster can be quelled.
