Death, marriage, religious language, and a bit of angst

[Emiliana]

Some background, for the newbies or others who might not have closely followed every detail of my life (:-P): I was raised Christian (non-LDS, evangelical-ish) and was very serious about my faith for a long time, but over the past year have come to identify as agnostic. There are a lot of reasons for that, but mostly inability to reconcile a loving god with the vast quantities of human suffering that exists.

This morning my sweet, perfect, itty-bitty bug-eyed baby nephew died. He was born in July more than three months premature, spent four months in the hospital, and finally got to go home in November. We thought he was pretty much out of the woods, but this morning he stopped breathing. I don't even know what the official cause of death was -- my dad is the only person I've talked to, and he wasn't at the hospital when it happened, and my stepsister and brother-in-law were too distraught to tell him any of the medical details.

Even though I don't believe in god anymore, I find myself thinking and speaking about this in religious terms. "He's in a better place." "He's gone to be with Jesus." "I'm praying for you." Things like that. Am I praying? No. Do I believe in Jesus? No. I guess maybe I believe that he's in a better place, sort of, because with all of his health problems he might not have had a very high quality of life anyway -- so maybe resting in peace *is* better.

In an odd juxtaposition, the only other place I've been inclined to use religious language lately is in talking about my wedding. Marx and I are having a distinctively Christian wedding, even though he's vaguely pantheist and I, as mentioned, am agnostic. I guess I figure if there is anything that's holy and worth revering, it's love. And the Bible and Christian tradition have a lot of good things to say about love.

I suppose I just don't have language to express the most profound things in life, without the language of religion. I might not literally believe in the tradition I'm borrowing these words from, but I sense that there is something greater and deeper about them than I know. Maybe that's part of where religion came from, the need to express those things.

I know I'm not the only person here who has lost the faith of my childhood, or at least moved significantly away from it. Have any of you noticed anything similar in the way you think or speak about significant life transitions? Or any other aspect of life where you still hold onto part of what you once believed?

[krebscout]

I don't have much to say about your direct question, but I am so sorry, Em. That is such a tragedy.

[mic0]

That is so sad, especially since you all thought he was getting better.

I suppose I just don't have language to express the most profound things in life, without the language of religion. I might not literally believe in the tradition I'm borrowing these words from, but I sense that there is something greater and deeper about them than I know. Maybe that's part of where religion came from, the need to express those things.

I know I'm not the only person here who has lost the faith of my childhood, or at least moved significantly away from it. Have any of you noticed anything similar in the way you think or speak about significant life transitions? Or any other aspect of life where you still hold onto part of what you once believed?

As for your questions there at the end, yes. Maybe it has to do with these concepts that we've had since such a young age (I'm reading a lot about concepts, linguistics, how our thoughts are "structured," so sorry if this is kind of a stuffy thought), and even though we don't believe them anymore, that is how our brain still structures the ideas. Thinking for 20+ years that life and God and The Way Things Are all act and progress in one certain way isn't going to change overnight.

I usually stop myself when I start to think about things in a religious/spiritual way. (Yes, I group them together, maybe that's a problem, who knows.) A few nights ago for some reason as I was getting into bed I suddenly wanted to say a prayer about something. Then I remembered I thought it was a useless gesture and that doing so would not do anything for me. It was like a reflex that I didn't realize was still around. If you want to talk more about this kind of stuff I'd be happy to one-on-one, but I don't really know what else to say here. Anyway, sorry this was rambly. I really wish the best for you and your family, because that is a hard thing to go through. And I guess it's important to know that even though you need to use religious language to express those deep emotions, it's more important that you have/feel/appreciate those deep emotions than the exact wording you use to express them (in my opinion).

[Portia]

I'm so sorry for your loss - for it is your loss, as well.

I doubt that my (putative) wedding will involve many trappings of Mormonism, since if it's not the "right" wedding (in the temple) it's hardly a Mormon wedding at all. Except for not serving alcohol, I suppose, but being not-rich is another factor in that.

I do find that the pat, simplistic answers that are not only common but expected in our meetings grate on me more since I started doubting. I have to give props to the mainline Christians I have known: they seemed engaged with the Bible as a text and didn't fall on cliché quite so easily. Emiliana, we have a saying where a teacher will say "Church answers!" and they're aren't even relevant. It's stupid. In fact, if you think critically, then a lot of times what we repeat unthinkingly isn't even relevant.

I don't know if I ever really believed as strongly as I was "supposed" to in conventional Heaven as a true believer anyway, if that makes sense. In Mormonism, it's an organizational flowchart, and I just never really bought people milling around in conference rooms. I don't know if your tradition believes in child baptism or original sin, what have you, but we at least try to put the well-they-died-before-they-were-accountable spin on things.

It's an interesting question, and one I'll have to think on more. Probably no more conscious of it than I am of my "Utah" dialect in saying the D.I., etc.

[Emiliana]

Today was the funeral. I'm actually kind of glad that I don't have a god to be angry at right now.