I’ve been reflecting lately on how I created God in my imagination. Which is, of course, what we all do as we learn about faith, as it becomes our framework, identity, worldview, a relationship with the divine.
It’s also why we can experience what Michelle Panchuk refers to as the “shattering of the self” when it unravels like a ball of string being tugged at a little, and then a lot.
My father died just before my sixth birthday. So when I wandered into church looking for connection and belonging as an almost 13-year-old, God as Father filled that ache for me in many ways.
I was always uncomfortable with any version of God that was presented as wrathful or angry. I needed God to be soft and loving, full of grace and forgiveness and I compartmentalised my thinking.
Whenever God was referred to as judgemental, jealous or unable to stop people from going to hell, I sort of closed my ears. I was fervent in my storytelling of a good God, a kind and generous God, an awesome God. This was in lieu of my own worthiness. As the lyrics go, “you are good, you are good when there’s nothing good in me” (apologies for the ear worm). I had a beautiful box I was able to fit my beliefs into snugly.
As a teen in the 80’s, pre-internet and with not much else to do in the suburbs of Sydney, church became my whole world and was a wonderful, life affirming escape from an abusive home life. I was there twice on Sundays, at youth group, prayer meetings, creative ministries nights, summer camps. It was my social and relational centre. Which was on purpose. We learnt the world was peripheral to the church and that was my reality. School and family life didn’t come close. I was taught rather, that these were my mission field, ripe fruit for salvation.
My belonging in the much loved and only community I knew, was tightly woven with my belief in God as father and friend, the one who knew and loved me, the one who counted my tears and was always faithful.
So it was devastating as I, like Dorothy, pulled back the curtain and saw the little men controlling the illusion, creating God in their imaginations too.
Their God was often a bully, judging and speaking down to the people they happened to judge too. Their God was homophobic, jealous for power, controlling, accepting only of certain types of bodies. Able to justify so much through carefully manipulated passages from scripture.
Their God didn’t look much like Jesus, but was who they needed him to be. It was so painful to realise the God of my imagination didn’t really, in the end, have much in common with theirs at all.
And so the veneer crumbled, the system had no had room for my insistence that it wasn’t okay to call a cry for human dignity the “social gospel” with a smirk and a condescending tone. I paused and caught my breath, but when I’d regrouped I found I no longer belonged.
The God of my imagination remained. I was grateful for the comfort this brought during some dark days and hard times. But like the ball of string, the shape of my certainty changed, became smaller, until it was unrecognisable.
I realised there were too many layers still connecting my imagined God and the structure I had known him in - stuck together like the pages of a book that dries after falling in water. Stuck in ways that couldn’t be pried free.
I would need to create a healing story.
And that’s where you’ll find me still. Creating a spirituality of my imagination. A story of new anchors, or ‘creativity’ as one of my clients says, she can’t yet bring herself to use language of spirit.
A healing story that is bigger, more expansive and generous than the one I knew.
One that has connected me with my body perhaps for the first time since I was a child. How it feels, what it’s telling me, how it wants to move. This has been so nurturing.
One that allows the full breadth of emotions, not just the positive ones.
One that has time and moves slower.
One that is open and curious.
One that is slowly, still, rebuilding community and places of belonging.
One that is free (er).
I don’t have a name for these imaginings and my beautiful box is more of a place holder these days. I miss the certainty and the grief was costly. I’m still learning to find and use my voice, often looking over my shoulder for permission or reprimand.
My Self still sometimes feels the impact of being shattered, but my healing story is being written, holding the stories of so many others and coming to life.
If you’d like to work with me you can get in touch here. It’s my privilege to support people to navigate the impact of religious and spiritual harm.
Jane
Thank you - your insights are helpful, powerful and beautifully honest x