Posted by Helen on: 12.20.2006 /
I ran across the poem Not cut out for religion by Jude Simpson on Jason Clark’s blog Monday. Here’s how it begins:
I ask you, what’s the answer, and you just ask me questions,
and I’m like, “hello, I thought you were God?”
Can’t I just download you, pay-as-I-go to decode you -
a quick fix listen on my i-pod?I ask you, what’s the answer, and you say, “where does the wind blow?”
Well, if Dylan couldn’t find it, then I won’t get too far.
What’s with all this mystery? How can you say, “follow me”
when I don’t even know where you are?
You can also listen to Jude reading her poem.
Comment by: Stephan
1Very insightful poem, although quite a slam on non-believers. I see it acknowledging that following Jesus is tough and not for the faint of heart. People who want easy religion just won’t go there.
It could also be a statement against the modern church, which has turned Jesus into religion and tried to dumb it down to make it easy for people to accept.
It’s not.
Comment by: benjamin ady
2… but … she describes almost exactly what one tends to find in most of the Sunday Morning Church® worship services that I’ve ever been involved with. If she wants all this stuff, she should try a mainstream evangelical Sunday Morning Church® service near her. She will doubtless soon find, as I did, that all the things for which she expresses desire are actually unbearable…then again, maybe not–there seem to be quite a few people who come week after week and find it all very bearable.
Comment by: Helen
3Benjamin, I think she’s being sarcastic (BICBW)
Stephan, I didn’t see it as a slam on non-believers. I saw it as a comment on general human tendencies which affect believers as well as non-believers, in my experience.
Comment by: Stephan
4I agree with Benjamin, that if she got what she is actually asking for she would soon find it hollow and severely lacking, but that is what is found in many evangelical churches today.
Helen, I guess the “slam” I see is that unbelievers sometimes choose not to believe because they don’t find those easy downloadable tidbits she seems to be asking for in the poem. The reason they walk away is that they find the real Jesus too hard to follow. I hear this some in the atheists I have met here and on the discussion board - “If God is real, why did He choose to make it so hard to find Him?” Since it’s hard they choose not to try.
I can also see that it’s a commentary on the “dumbing down” our culture does to just about everything, from music to religion to politics to news to… well, everything. Truth is too complex, so we find the bits we like that are easy to digest and discard the rest.
Comment by: HereandNow
5Helen,
This is an interesting poem. The sarcasm and disappointment with what people seem to yearn for in religion is reminiscent of John Bettjamin, and English poet who wrote a lot of things in that vein, most famous of which is, I think, called In Westminster Abbey. On the other hand, because it is written as a prayer, it reminds me a lot of some of David’s psalms where he is calling out in great disappointment with God over how hard it is to find/enjoy God. I think that if I evaluate the most meaningful expressions of faith that I had when I was a Christian I often caught myself vascillating back and forth between disappointment with insincere expressions of faith by human beings (myself included) ala John Bettjamin, and outright frustration with God’s inaccessability ala David. I think that this poem is doing both.
Comment by: Keith
6Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that since it’s hard they choose not to keep trying … the atheists here definitely have made various attempts to find Him.
Comment by: Stephan
7Thanks, Keith. Point taken.
Comment by: benjamin ady
8…Helen–yes, perhaps sarcastic. but one gets the impression that Jude is still trying. This is interesting. it seems there is a sort of … anti conversion that takes place, perhaps not entirely a transaction–perhaps more of a process, but still, at some point one … realizes one is no longer trying to follow or relate to this very difficult to follow and relate to person. I identify with Jude, who sees the difficulty and (it seems to me) is still trying. what really mystifies me is the people who don’t seem to see the difficulty. I can hardly identify with or understand them at all. How is it that they and I see relating-to-and-following-this-person in such enormously different ways? my first response to this question is to assume that “they” are in the same fake, horrible, unbearable, unreal, pretend place that I was in back when I couldn’t see the difficulty. but that seems like a rather huge assumption to make. my second thought is that maybe most people do see the difficulty, and a lot of them just choose to ignore it because it’s too scary to acknowledge. Hmmmmm.
Comment by: NCxian
9what really mystifies me is the people who don’t seem to see the difficulty. I can hardly identify with or understand them at all.
It seems to me, Benjamin, that you are uniquely qualified to answer your own question. What was your state of mind, what were you thinking, back when you were in a situation where you, like they, could not see the difficulty?
Comment by: NCxian
10The first part of my post above should be part of the quote from Benjamin.
Comment by: Pete Strobel
11I enjoyed the poem. To me the poet was comparing, at least to some degree, religion with authentic faith (which means following Jesus in this context). Jesus did NOT make anything easy. His call to discipleship was and is actually quite difficult. God is elusive. One may choose to avoid such mystery, elusiveness, or choose not to carry a cross ( as Jesus explicitly demanded…) OR one may choose to throw one’s lot in with Him. Jesus’s way is difficult. He deliberately chose parables instead of three point sermons with outlines or four-steps to salvation tracts. Jesus desires us to seek Him at a personal sacrifice, and to engage Him…or accept the fact He is desiring to engage us. Or else quit pretending.
I think we are desiring to figure this whole God thing out, with or without Religion. Even Bonhoeffer wrote about a religionless Christianity. Religion can obscure real relationships.
Comment by: Helen
12I liked the poem because it came across to me as very honest.
Comment by: benjamin ady
13ncxian. you asked
the thing is, I don’t necessarily think it is fair to the people who currently don’t see the difficulty to assume that they are anything like I was. This is mostly because I was a fairly unhealthy, toxic person (even more so than I currently am) back then. I dislike the person I was then even more than I dislike my current self. I had a kind of … split personality, and the “spiritual” “godly” “pure” (whatever) me, the me who didn’t see the difficulty, was almost entirely out of touch with reality. The me who *was* more in touch with reality was a terrified, drugged out … nearly completely crazy individual. Back then, these two people that I was had almost no interaction with each other. I used to think the “good” me was the real me, and that me had almost no difficulty at all with “the gospel” “christianity”, “the bible” and so forth.
hope that’s not too personal
Comment by: Helen
14Wow, it must have been awful to have that big split inside you, Benjamin.
It’s a mystery to me why people see things differently. I see why NCxian asked the question because I do believe we can sometimes get insight into how other people think from noticing how we do.
On the other hand I see what you mean, Benjamin, that that only goes so far because other people don’t necessarily have the same stuff going on inside them as we do.
Comment by: NCxian
15Benjamin said:
No, I don’t think that is too personal, I think it is the kind of answer you are looking for to your question. So, did your “good” self think that your other self was wrongly, or erroneously, or maybe evilly, conflicted about religious stuff? What did your bad self think?
Comment by: benjamin ady
16helen–yeah, actually it was fairly awful.
ncxian … my “good” self’s thought processes about my “bad self” happened on two levels. The overwhelmingly predominant level was to avoid/ignore/pretend away my “bad self”. and on the occasional occasion when that level didn’t work, the second level was to hate/berate/belittle/basically try in every way possible to make the bad self shut up, go away, unexist, so we could make the level one thinking work again. and my bad self mostly just thought “I’m in pain, I need my drugs, I’m in pain, I need my drugs …”
Comment by: Seren
17in a vague defence of athiests, who seem to be being depicted as weak and unable to hang in there for the long haul.
for me, personally, it would in many ways have been easier to keep up christian activities and not delve into the incredibly frightening gaps that existed between the faith i espoused and my real, lived experience.
it actually is very difficult to let go of the faith you have been brought up with.
it certainly wasn’t “avoiding the mystery.” it was staring square in the face my /real/ experience, my actual, heartwrending pain, and being bold enough to say to my family, no, i don’t agree with you. no, your story is not my story.
benjamin, this is exactly how i feel about my church self.
Comment by: Helen
18Seren, I agree that it can be harder to follow what is true and real, no matter where it leads, than cling to old habits and rituals which are becoming increasingly unreal.
Comment by: Pete Strobel
19Seren:
Describe for me your fakey “church self”. What I mean is this: what part of you do you think is fake or not authentic when you “go to church”. Do you feel that you are expected to smile, pray a certain way, not express doubts or struggles, or in someway act like you have it all together? That is what I am imagining, since that is what I sometimes feel myself. However, I still have a real church self that isn’t artificially induced by other’s expectations. I’m known, in someways, to be a bit of a rabblerouser, or challenger of the status quo, and I haven’t been shown the door yet. But we have a great congregation, and I have a bit of a disarming manner about myself. Would you be able to describe what you mean about your “church self” not being true or real?
Thanks.
Comment by: Seren
20Pete: yes, sure. I grew up in the church, so when i say “church self” i mean childhood and adolescence. For me, those expectations you list - smile, pray a certain way, not express struggles &c. - were tied up with being acceptable to my family.
i’m not a stand alone challenger of others like you. i seem to need alot of reassurance that i am ok, so i kept all my sadness and discomfort to myself. it seemed to me that if god had reason to reject me (not enough faith) there was no way my family would think i was ok. i realise there is an inconsistency there, because if i didn’t believe in that god why did i fear his/her/its punishment. but that’s the mind of a child, or an adolescent too timid to challenge what she has been brought up with. so that’s why, although it took a while, i feel it took me alot of strenght to walk away from my family’s traditions and religion.
i’d call my “church self” untrue because i really wish my past had been different. i wish i had had the strength and clarity to share with others how things seemed to me, what made sense to me, what i wanted for me. maybe not when i was a kid, but at least by 14 or so. i hope that explains something of what you were asking about.
Comment by: Pete Strobel
21Thanks, Seren, for responding. I’m grateful for the candidness of so many of us on this blog. Helen and others have set a gracious tone, and created a wonderful atmosphere for dialogue.
When I was young I went to church because my parents did, also. It became my own “thing”–my own faith in high school. What I noticed was that I actually became more “conservative” than my church or family. But nowhere did I sense that I was being judged negatively by my family. And that was a blessing….
Now I’m probably conservative in some areas (doctrinally), radical in others (politically or socially), just plain creative or “alternative” in still others. May we all do what we can to neither box others in, or allow ourselves to be boxed in.