I'm Susan in TX

[Susan in TXParticipant]

Hello, everyone,

And thanks for the kind welcome over on facebook. I’m 60, going on 27(?); married 37 years to a great, sweet, brilliant dude; with one step-daughter and two grandkids; a couple of cats. I’m on disability with an auto-immune disorder.

Let’s see, what else. I’m an INFJ (Myers-Briggs). And an empath in quite a large way.

My work has been mainly in publishing of some kind, wearing several hats depending on the situation and my ongoing education: layout and paste-up artist, negative stripper (back before computers!), graphic designer, illustrator, music engraver, photographer, editor, proofreader, copy chief, writer, gofer, etc.

The church was a major part of my life from the time I was saved at 6. I started out Southern Baptist. Fortunately, most of that time we had a pastor who was more of a teacher, and he made all of us scholars. I used to know all that stuff about pre-millennial, post-millennial, and a-millennial; pre-trib, mid-trib, post-trib; the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Etcetera.

The trouble started after I escaped a terrifying and painful childhood with a mother who most certainly must have narcissistic personality disorder. (Because of her, I was the worst goody-two-shoes, a perfectionist, and possessed several highly polished talents honed for survival. Insufferable.) I married a school friend to get away from home. We ditched church. Fast forward through that disaster, divorce, abandonment, etc.

A neighbor got my new husband and me involved in a Foursquare Church. If I had it to do over, I would have turned around and run out of that church the first day I walked in. Nevertheless, that wonky place was where I had a Kundalini awakening, out of body experience, and union with God. All alone by myself. (I didn’t know that made me a mystic, like Teresa of Avila or John of the Cross. If I had, the next 20 years would have been much nicer.) I’ll post that story later. But I was supercharged and transformed, and my service to others was effortless.

Well, it was effortless until people didn’t like what I was doing. I saw too well, knew too well, and my remedies went beyond the bounds of church. But you do what’s needed! Right?

But I was a very good musician, playing piano and singing, and those are always in short supply in most churches. So I was tolerated. LOL

After a cross-country move, we were sent to a church healing service, where my husband was healed of a constant 4-year headache he’d had from a head injury. It was a Pentecostal Holiness church. (I can hear you groaning now.) But the music was absolutely amazing. So we stayed. For about 12 years. Then a serious disaster struck in 1999, which I am STILL unraveling. And that ended my serious involvement in any church anywhere.

I spent a year or so after that as a paid musician in a Methodist church, and got to stand by while that nasty congregation ate two pastors alive and spit them out. Then a sort of half-hearted membership in a sweet but shallow Baptist church for a couple of years. By 2005 I was finished with church. It just kind of withered up and blew away out of my life.

Since then I have had some helpful spiritual direction from a Catholic ex-priest who has had the same mystical experience as I. I’ve gotten some training in qi gong and energy healing, and discovered that Taoist meditation creates the same experience as the repetitive and lively praise and worship in the pentecostal church. Go figure. (They both can most strictly be classified as hypnosis. Yep.)

Maybe you could call me a Zen Christian. Or something like that. I’m running pretty high vibe these days, and the church for the most part is low-vibe and clueless. I wish the people in it could see better.

I miss very terribly the comfort of church music, but that’s all I miss about the church.

Well, you all know there’s a whole lot more to it than that. But there’s the bones of it.

Thanks for having me. And if I cause you any discomfort along the way, give me a little whack and we’ll be fine.

[cowboyjunkeyParticipant]

Thanks for your story. Look forward to hearing more from you!

[JonParticipant]

Hey Susan.
Thanks for sharing your story. I like your ‘Zen Christian’ label. In my church experience, I shared on Facebook once that I felt like I was a Zen Christian and I got all sorts of abuse over it (the karma was that my biggest abuser got really nasty and, because of that, the pastor had to reluctantly pull her out of a leadership election ballot.)

But I have always felt out of place in organised church … except for the music, like you. I lead services, sing and play piano (and feel really hypocritical about it most days, but the music does something to me and, for that reason and a couple of close friends I stay).

May you find peace in God and in your experience of God and may your pathway be strewn with serendipitous moments of grace and love.

[Susan in TXParticipant]

Thanks, cowboyjunkey. Would that be Dallas Cowboys? I’m a Broncos fan myself.

Thanks to you too, Jon. Sounds like you get it! Sorry to hear that you got bashed; how ridiculous. I know you must be very thankful for those friends who help make it more worthwhile. Yes, the music, the music, I sometimes wish the whole thing was music.

Oddly enough, I feel much more at peace, and more tuned in to what I need to hear and understand OUT of church. It seems to have turned out to be a bigger message, but more simple.

Peace to both of you.

[cowboyjunkeyParticipant]

Sorry not a football fan!

[Susan in TXParticipant]

I was curious about your user name.

[cowboyjunkeyParticipant]

I’m a big fan of the Cowboy Junkies. When I was first getting online 15 years ago I tried using cowboyjunkie for usernames but it was always taken so I changed the spelling and over the years I’ve always got it.

[Author]

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