It’s a dramatic title, I’ll grant you, but I had planned it to be even more so:
Church, Consumerism, and Covid: the three C’s that stripped me of trust and joy.
But then I realised, that whilst true at times, it’s not the whole truth.
Instead, I might reframe this as a process of unlocking. Each of these three strands have had the potential to wound me, and indeed they have at times, but they have also been forged together in the fires of experience creating a key to unlock a door.
Individually they have each offered their own learning at different times, beginning first with my experiences of church. In fact, they all continue as tandem threads today, but their origins were distinct.
My experiences of church as a teenager and young adult have had a profound impact on not only my vocation to date, but also my worldview. Growing up in the UK, much of my moral teaching was likely to have been grounded in a certain form of nationalistic Christianity, but it was my experiences of church that ensured these views were nourished enough to grow into their very own ecosystem. The church became to me like a gated community in which many of my needs were seemingly met, but at the high cost of shame and self-hatred. Through the teaching of the church, I manifested a version of myself that was outwardly capable, content and in control, but inwardly tormented by my inability to conform to what was being asked of me. It was these experiences that planted a new seed amongst that ecosystem – a seed of the plant of mistrust, to doubt that authority figures have my best interest at heart, and of disbelief that structures of rigid rules could truly enable anyone to truly flourish.
In a fit of perceived rebellion to my conservative church, and perhaps from a desire to break out of the path I had been conditioned to follow, I found another religious practice to devote myself to alongside my Christian faith: consumerism. Two unlikely partners it may seem to some, but my devoted worship of the new, the on-trend, and the glossy provided a separate and self-contained ecosystem for me to retreat into, away from the expectations of the gated church. It was in this jungle, the opposite to the tame front gardens and pristine facades of the church gated community, that I honed my skills as a conman – a double agent. I chose to rebel against the rigidity of the church by overspending, craving the bigger and the better, pursuing a reality that only exists for the super wealthy (at the cost of everyone else); whilst at the same time maintaining the manicured perfection required of me by my Christian peers. Yet, this time in the jungle of consumerism slowly developed in me an immunity I retain with me today: a rejection of the falseness of the perfect commodity-filled ecosystem.
Most recently it has been the turn of the third C, Covid – the final strand to seal this triumvirate. I’m referring not to the virus itself, but the response by governments and individuals around the world. It has compounded my distrust of the authoritarian rule instilled in me by the church and served as a booster-shot to the immunity I developed against the false idea of a clean, codified and always on-brand existence that was sold to me by consumerism. The collective shaming, ostracising and scapegoating of those who dissented, myself included, will sit alongside the other scars I’ve collected – a reminder of what can happen when we simplify to a good versus evil narrative; both within religion and that which is outside of it.
Which means that whilst it’s true to say that (at times) these three C’s have stripped me of my trust and joy, they have also equipped me to start changing everything. They have formed a key to unlock a door, which I have slowly begun to walk through now. As is so often the case with mystery doors in well-known fantasy novels, what is on the other side remains an unknown, but there is light and the opportunity to further unlock.
It seems to me that what is really asked of us, as we each journey through our own experiences, that have the power to chain us or unlock doors for us, is to walk humbly the path that is set before us and to listen deeply, so that we might offer what we have to the world, and receiving gratefully what the world offers back.