letters to my ecclesia – letters of re-resignation

[Anonymous]

i wrote these letters about 7 months ago.  i will never send these, but enjoyed writing them.  am sharing them as part of my off-loading, and some of you might enjoy reading them if you have a few moments.  some of the language is christadelphian-based so here’s a bit of background!!

– when people are interested in the christadelphian gospel (but not fully paid-up members) they’re referred to as “interested friends”

– christadelphians are an endogamous group, so marrying “out” (as i did) is a sin

– non-christadelphians used to be referred to as “aliens” (though not so much these days but it is still language used in their “statement of faith”)

– they have invented a sin called “guilt by association” – hence my little dig at them with my phrase “guilt by dissociation” (tee hee…..)

(i)

     dear uninterested friends
spring is late this year.  the coldness has rendered the trees and plants lifeless – as if they are dead  in the midst of december, even though it’s the middle of april.  it’s as if they do not want to put forth their shoots into the cold.  they are wary.
nearly two decades have passed since i wrote to you.  my last missive was a letter of resignation.  i was sad when i wrote it.  i felt i was rejecting you.  i didn’t want to write it,   but i had no choice – the way things were with your endogamy rules, and the choices i had made – and the simple fact that some things were just “not allowed” with my alien husband.
so i left you and ex-communicated myself. i was with you only three brief years. those years were like a forced early spring to me.  i came into bud early – i felt so alive in your midst, despite the suffocating entrapment of inappropriate concern from  a well-meaning but misguided person in authority.  so i blossomed too soon, only to be uprooted through my circumstances, and then frost of legalism froze the exposed roots of my emotions and withered my inner life little by little by little.
but i do not blame you.  i lay no charge at your feet.  i am just saying how it was for me.  i have come to life again with the warm well-timed spring of freedom.
dawn
(ii)
dear uninterested friends

i have been married to my alien husband for over 19 years now.  several of your endogamous marriages broke down in your midst after i left, and i heard what you said about it – that it is human weakness.   i am weak and human too, though i am still married – albeit to an alien.  you have learnt that endogamous marriages do not ensure marital success and happiness.

on the subject of marriage, i was thinking,  my time with you was a bit like a courtship and a very brief marriage – we seemed so well matched, you and i, with our mutual love of truth and rational thinking.  yet in the end we weren’t compatible at all.  we are very  different.   you could not appreciate my qualities of being able to love beyond your boundaries, and i could not appreciate your qualities of theological and doctrinal purity.  so i guess divorce between us was inevitable, even though i was so compliant with your many requirements because i loved you and wanted to please you.  despite being baptised a second time into your special covenant – like an initiation ceremony to take me to yourself – it still didn’t work sadly.  i was so ready for that baptism, and happy to do it for you, and for myself too.  i was so so happy to be part of you – even though it went all pear-shaped.

but my knowing about our parting is that it forced me to take a second look at many issues.  which is healthy i guess.   taking a second look at things can be revealing.  guilt by dissociation is interesting, don’t you think?

and  – i still have my extra large kjv bible which with lots of marginalia in it – written in small, neat finely pencilled handwriting.  how i loved coming to your meeting with that bible in it’s blue cover.  i was so proud to have a big bible like that with so many erudite notes in it.   it made me feel good at the time, and it served me well.  i never read it now.

the decree absolute dissolved some bad things, so that is good.

dawn

 

(iii)

friends

forgive me for naming you “uninterested” in my previous two letters of re-resignation.  it’s not totally true – a few of you have been interested in me down the years and kept in touch – but it was just my little play on words you know?  (poets do that sometimes.  even god does it in hebrew in the bible – i know he does, because i learnt about it in one of your meetings once and made a note about it in the margin of my big bible – it’s in one of the prophets, about baskets and fruit J  ).  “interested friends”  are always welcome at churches (sorry i know how much some of you hate that word “church”  and prefer the greek word “ecclesia”, but i am writing about mainstream churches too, so i know you will be ok with the word in that context).

when i was an “interested friend” i was very welcome at your meetings.  yes, i was welcome.  i was nurtured and you were interested me reciprocally.  that was nice, i remember that and i thank you.  i am still welcome, and so is my husband.  but we are unwelcome at your “table of the lord”.  because if we’re both really really honest it’s not the lord’s table at all – it is your table.  which is fine.  i am just stating a fact.  but from where i am not it does seem that the table of the lord is something of a sacred cow in your midst, so it would be good if you could maybe re-examine it sometime.

it still strikes me how much like a marriage a person’s relationship is with their ecclesia (or church).  it’s incredible how one moment there is such intimacy and closeness – especially round “the table of the lord” – but at the flutter of butterfly’s wing there can be such a Very Great Chasm.  have you heard of the butterfly effect?  “chaos theory” they call it.  hmmm – chaos and chasms – very descriptive words for ecclesial life at times don’t you think?

it is hard with the written word such as letters – these might come across in the voice of your head as angry and hard, but i can assure you as i type every word it is in a soft and calm voice with no malice – or regret –  at all.  i am just being honest and trying to express thoughts and feelings after all these years.

my knowing about our parting is that in the end it led to me into a desert place, which was scorching hot by day, yet freezing cold by night.  the clarity of the desert made me inquire deeply into issues.  i was stripped down and exposed – naked before god.  so i am exploring things with you, to resolve, dissolve and annul the pain between us – because really, i am sure the lord would not want a pyrrhic victory now would he?

dawn

• This topic was modified 2 months, 4 weeks ago by  David Hayward.

[MyrurgiaParticipant]

Breaking up with a church or religious group is exactly the same as breaking up with a partner isn’t it?

The letter I wrote to my old group many years ago is but a faint echo in my mind now, but also touched on a key point that you brought on here: legalism, man-made rules versus God’s love. Many groups love the former and forget the latter, as the latter can only apply when all requirements of the former are met to a T.

It’s the anathema known as Jesus which undermines the controlling nature of these groups. Know Him, Know Peace. No Him, No Peace.

[Anonymous]

Thank you Miriam – yes it’s so like a marriage!!  I guess it is some kind of covenant thingy.

[Anonymous]

Dawn – I enjoyed reading your “letters.”  Sort of like doing an autopsy on a failed marriage. Not for the purpose of being bitter, but for the purpose of being better at recognizing healthy relationships in the future. Marriages and autopsies. HMMMmmm. Interesting to say the least.

[Author]

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