Believers and nonbelievers alike will find it hard to believe that losing my faith on Easter weekend was merely a coincidence, but it’s true. As religious as my upbringing was, Easter was never celebrated in any significant way. Our laundry list of tenets included The Virgin Birth, The Death on the Cross, and The Resurrection, but far greater emphasis was placed on The Second Coming, which was not a thing that happened long ago but rather something that could literally happen at any moment.
Consequently, the religion of my childhood was a hyper-vigilant struggle to measure up at every possible turn. You didn’t have the luxury of waiting until the weekend to repent of your latest sin—better to do it right now. Sure, the Death on the Cross was what would ultimately give you clearance at the Pearly Gates, not your good works, but you did have one small responsibility: to love Jesus.
This Love, provided it was authentic (a caveat which is crucial yet maddeningly unverifiable), would naturally result in living a good, wholesome, healthy, and productive life. Signs that you were on the right track included obedience to ten fairly straight-forward commandments (the 4th of which secured our place in history as the first ones to have gotten it alllll right), not smoking, not drinking alcohol or caffeine, not eating meat, not wearing jewelry or fine garments or make-up, not swearing, not playing card games, not going to the movies, not dancing, and not being gay.
Since these were not rules so much as outward signs of inner convictions, you could almost get away with pretending to be genuinely concerned for your neighbor when you saw them drinking a kind of soda known to contain caffeine. You know, for their eternal well-being. “Sister, will I see you there?”
Unsurprisingly, the only people who seemed to follow all of these (not) rules to a T also happened to be quite embittered and harshly judgmental, which is also considered to be sinful and un-Christlike. Thus, Seventh-day Adventists are caught in an endless judgement-loop, both of themselves and of each other.
By the time Easter of 2007 rolled around, I was no doubt already exhausted by this loop, especially considering my idealistic tendencies and the fact that I’m an enneagram Type 3. A junior at the Cleveland Institute of Music, I had recently turned 21, but had still never tasted alcohol (though I had been slipping on the caffeine thing for years). But being different from my classmates didn’t bother me, and the never-ending sin-repent-repeat cycle wasn’t wearing on me too badly, either. What I did find troubling, however, were the blinders with which my Brothers and Sisters in Christ viewed the world.
The World was seen as something to move through warily, cautiously. It was something to be taught and never something from which to learn. We were always either hiding from it or trying to influence it. It was something to be “in” but not “of” (i.e. something to attend, not to enjoy). Here we were, the Salt of the Earth, yet we were terrified of dissolving.
I began to notice that church people didn’t seem to be listening to what they themselves were saying half the time. What was even more alarming was that no one else seemed to mind. All around me, heads nodded, Amens were murmured, and hymnals opened to the appropriate page. People requested prayer for a common cold and Praised the Lord for recovered car keys. Scientific findings were touted when they reinforced the church’s teachings on health but derided when they challenged the book of Genesis. Non-believers were painted either as conquests or lost causes.
What was beginning to seem myopic to me was purported by the Church to be a bird’s-eye view. We were taught to see the hand of God and the temptations of Satan everywhere, from history books, to politics, all the way down to the most mundane occurrences and chance encounters in our daily lives. Rather than serving to awaken, this kind of worldview tends to put a person into a sort of daze. Why pay attention to anything when you already know the answer to everything? Why listen to what someone else is saying if your primary objective is to persuade them to believe as you do? Why give real consideration to other ways of thinking and being (and risk giving the Devil a foothold) if you know you are part of the remnant church?
As frustrated as I was by this zombie-like approach to a world which, I was beginning to suspect, had a lot more to offer than I’d been led to believe, I never once thought of giving up. I would keep fighting, keep searching, keep trying to understand. I would be a lifelong Adventist, moving through the secular world of music gracefully, bravely, never agreeing to work on Saturdays, upholding church values through example.
All of that went out the window like so much rubbish over the course of about three hours. I was doing some late-night practicing in the whitewashed cinderblock basement of CIM, delving into the second movement of the Sibelius Violin Concerto with a loving obsession. As music tends to do, it somehow reached past my defenses, right into my heart, and jostled loose an irreversible revelation: that the reason I was hanging on so tightly to a religion that left an increasingly bad taste my mouth was simple—I didn’t want to lose my special connection with my dad.
My dad is a preacher. I listened to his sermons nearly every week from age 8 to 18. He was the best, I thought. His sermons were always fresh and well-constructed, and his delivery was well-paced and engaging. He performed oft-neglected aspects of the job, like visiting the sick and the elderly, with earnest dedication. I admired him completely and was proud to be a P.K.
Although my dad has a lovely singing voice and can actually carry a tune (even if his life doesn’t depend on it), he is not nearly as musically inclined as is my mother. My brother and I both took strongly after her. We had weekly lessons on cello/violin, played in the city’s youth orchestra, sang in choirs at church and at school (directed by our mother), and were members of a touring handbell choir. Make that two touring handbell choirs.
So while my brother and I could talk to my mom about music all day long, my dad was never part of the club. He was always very supportive—paying for lessons, attending my recitals, saying he was proud of me—but I knew it wasn’t the same kind of pride he felt when I showed an interest in spiritual things. Calling home from college, I relished the opportunity to apprise him of all the ways in which religion was still playing an important role in my new worldly life. I could practically hear the buttons bursting over the phone.
But when I realized that my desire for his approval and affection was the last thing tethering me to my familiar but hollowed out religious fervor, I knew I could not continue along the same path. It wouldn’t be an authentic life. My faith wouldn’t really be mine. Even God, if he did exist, would surely understand my need to walk away. After shedding a bucket of tears and returning to my apartment in Little Italy, I somberly said goodbye to my dad in my heart. It was finished.
The next morning, which just happened to be Good Friday, I was surprised to discover that I’d shed approximately 50 pounds. There was a lightness in my step as I filled my lungs with fresh air, awakening to this world which I would finally be permitted to encounter, explore, and even enjoy. I could let a question hang in the air without answering it, shutting it down, or laughing it off. I could meet people without judging them, love them without trying to change, educate, or convince them. I would finally be allowed to be truly humble.
Two days later, on Easter Sunday, I composed an email to my dad. I pictured him at home, working in his shop and sonorously whistling a hymn tune. In the email, I apologized. I explained. I assured him that I was making an intellectual decision, not merely succumbing to temptation. I wanted him to know that I came by my loss of faith honestly.
I hit “send” and braced myself for a sermon, one that I’d heard before but which had always been aimed at another wayward sinner. I closed my laptop and walked down the hill to a friend’s house for Easter brunch. Such a celebration would have felt foreign to me anyway, but I reveled in the new sense of distance I felt from the nostalgia everyone around me seemed to be feeling. For the first time, this day meant absolutely nothing to me.
Belly full of quiche and crudités, I walked back up the hill to my apartment and sat down at my computer. I took a deep breath and logged into my email account, fully expecting a cascade of disappointment, sorrow, and Bible verses. Instead, I found a tender response from my dad, the dad I had known since I was a baby, the dad who called me Ella-Belle and carried me on his shoulders. The dad who told bedtime stories and made pancakes and bundled me up in a big, fuzzy blanket. The dad who took so much joy in showing me how to tend a garden and use a nail gun and draw a railroad disappearing onto the horizon with proper perspective. The dad whose love for me transcends religious constructs and moral codes, whose love for me can’t be explained or controlled or reasoned away.
My dad, whom I love beyond measure.
