There's some movie out there right now called "God's Not Dead," or something. I'm surprised Kirk Cameron isn't involved with it. It smells Kirk Cameron-y. My imaginings of Kirk Cameron Super Confrontational Jesus Christianity™ smell like the earnest overapplication of musky colognes, reminiscent of hard lumps in throats - my childhood spent among a persistent, teeth-gritted, fixed-smile, don't-rock-my-ark version of faith, hiding in musty foyers surrounded by dead books and God-breathed sunsets dying behind stained glass.
I hate to tell you, Kirk, et. al, but if you're asking me, God has been stone cold dead for approximately two years. Gone. Whisked away by chariots of fire. No point of reference left behind; no plot of earth to enflower with the rank odor of a thousand slain gardens. No memorial before which to genuflect. No frayed balloons.
It's like he was never here.
I would have it no other way.
Because this is my god who died:
The God with whom I've refused to ever, ever be enraged for the thread of destruction and agony that's woven through my entire life for absolutely no reason. There's the yell-why-at-the-sky business, which never did any good; I just talked myself into a version of peace with the silence on the other end, and took it as a sign that God maybe just expected me to figure out how to adjust my expectations. Which I took responsibility for doing, sometimes at the expense of my very sanity, it felt.
He's dead to me.
The God who might likely get huffy and close his ears to this rage, make me clamor over myself trying to keep his attention long enough for a word-weary mind to make a sensible case for the legitimacy of my pain.
Dead to me.
The God who would strike me flat against a wall and destroy me for daring to engage in more than just a tentative spat with him: the kind of spat that I'd initiate with the pre-notion that I'd back down before it started to feel too dangerous (because God knows our intentions); the pre-notion that, at some point, I'd have to swallow what he doled out, which was usually silence.
Dead.
Worse, and most horrid and manipulative: The God who would exercise that vague, pervasive threat perpetuated by some of his children of Being Given Over To My Ill Passions, or of Going Too Far For God's Grace To Follow, and the fear of being Too Far Gone To Even Know It. Stay in line; I won't tell you the line if you cross it, though.
Dead.
The God who offers healing for horrid experiences, who appears to sit at a distance while we learn to work things out for ourselves and credit him. The whys would burn in my gut and clamor in my head, and I'd wait for them to die down and become manageable. And I never let myself think, let alone demand: what the hell are you thinking right now, GOD? and where the hell are you, GOD?
Dead.
All of these, I am eager to bind to the stake and set the fire myself.
But what do I do with the God who, I believed, was leading me into a Next Chapter Of Life, where I might be able, for the first time, to enjoy a measure of normalcy, like other people? And while I know "normal" is a pipe dream, I think we can agree that an abusive childhood is not a normal standard by which to measure a childhood; neither is a set of circumstances including stalking, injury, fleeing possible death, fearing for one's life, and losing one's personal and professional reputation any standard of normalcy. I wasn't asking for extraordinary things; I was simply expecting to live without abuse. And I am more enraged, incensed, wrathful, furious, seething than I have ever been in my entire life, that this is what God had for me, instead. Again.
Dead to me.
____________________
I am no longer concerned that God is the kind of god who would reject my anger.
And if he is, I welcome his implosion.
I am no longer concerned about whether people find my honesty beautiful or acceptable. God (whoever s/he is) knows my heart, and, if you know me, you do, too. So I'm not going to write to the knee-jerk. I can only search myself before sharing, and grieve, sometimes, to let the chaff blow where it will.
I will no longer feel guilty about rejoicing in the death of this god; I will face the reasons for this death, whether anyone else validates them or not, parched as I am for some solidarity or validation, as I have no option but to bury the dragging, stinking remnants which were once dear to me, which once sustained me, which I grieve deeply to amputate. I have never felt more raw, more grief-stricken, or more wildly, terrifyingly unfettered in my entire life, and while I don't rejoice in the death of anyone else's god, I. am. not. sorry for killing mine.
No more inappropriately suspending or suppressing anger at injustice in the name of seeing all sides and hearing all voices. Often, it's appropriate; sometimes, it isn't.
No more bitterness. Take responsibility for yours, and I will for mine. And we'll work together.
No more ear to cries of quitter or judgmental or airer of dirty laundry before the world. Hope for the dying is a good thing. But the dying are dying. And the living, even as we fix our broken eyes on where we believe God might be, drag with us the guilt of leaving the dying behind, even when we know that, if we stay, that death will overtake us.
In order for us to move forward, sometimes our God has to die.
He did it once before.
As I recall, it was a good thing.
And whoever he really is, I am ready to know him and be known. I am ready to burn up with him in the raging ocean of fury in which I stand on dry ground, arms outstretched.
I would dance with blasphemy, for the chance at touching his robe.
Come on, Lord Jesus.
