This was the invitation I got two years ago... an invite to experience the "Dark night of the soul". Peter Rollins had been inviting people on this journey for two decades. I was interested. I still had a foot in the door of Christianity and the other foot was on the way out. I had more than questions, I had a struggle for identity. I wanted to know who I was without the chief narrative that seemed to define me for more than fifty years.
Over the last forty four days, I have been journeying back and reading my journal entries from Atheism for Lent. 2022 is a different year than 2023. There was different material in the course and I had undergone a ritual at the end of Lent in 2022 that made the journey in 2023 very different. I had experienced, as Pete Rollins calls it, "The Death of God".
"The Death of God" is not the same as white washing the whole narrative as a fantasy. It wasn't a fantasy for me, it was real as much as I could have experienced real at the time. I had no doubts for decades that something was amiss. I can't remember the struggles. But there was a death, a tragic death, that took time to unfold. Atheism for Lent helped give a voice to that tragedy.
Pete Rollins didn't just offer wisdom, he provided community for those "decentering". It was in the community that I found others who needed to navigate their loss of "God". I saw some who tracked well, and others that struggled with the material. It wasn't always easy to process the AFL course readings. Some of my blog posts will attest to that. But I was encouraged at the perseverance that others had to keep going.
I didn't go through the course this year. I think it had something to do with my birthday landing on the last day of Lent... Bad Friday (My new term for it... I figured Jesus wouldn't agree with the "Good" Friday label either). I wanted to do something different. To discover the voices that added something to my Atheist journey. It was a different Atheism for Lent that Pete would have offered, but I would still like to thank him for the inspiration to go deeper. And going deeper together is better than going deeper alone. So I came back to this blog and shared my journey with those who were willing to be a part of it.
Today is fifteen years since my husband and I got married. Fifteen years ago, I started on a journey with a former co-worker of mine and I am still travelling with him. It's not always a bed of roses as most married couples will attest to, but what I have experienced is something better than a bed of roses... it's all about "going somewhere deeper together".
