This post was originally released January of 2022.
There’s something about Sundays that will always be a little sacred to me. This Sunday morning included me waking up a little hungover and immediately checking my phone to make sure I had not texted anything regrettable. Luckily the worst damage I’d done was match with a cop from Staten Island who has a 5 year old daughter. Oopsie. Unmatch.
I proceeded to make myself a heaping cup of coffee, and chug water because I am responsible (except for last night when I didn’t chug water, which is why I am hungover). I then went through my I-am-30-so-I-basically-need-a-neck-tuck-yesterday skin routine, complete with a face mask. When it was time to take the mask off, I realized I was now out of face towels, so I guess it’s time for laundry.
After loading my laundry (which is on my floor #NYCblessed), I sat down with my beverages and continued my current read - Witch, Please. It’s a memoir about a woman from Kansas who was raised Catholic, then moved to New York City and is now a practicing Wiccan. I love a glow up, especially a religious glow up that includes Midwest roots to New York City. Obviously I am devouring this book because how relatable.
Then my stomach growls, so I head to the kitchen to eat a black and white cookie from my favorite Jewish market, Zabar’s. Later I’m making Challah French Toast for brunch. I am so cultured.
My phone pings. It’s my extended family group text. I “love” a text from my Grandpa about the Lord’s day.
I look at my witch book, Jewish cuisine, ability to nurse a hangover on a Sunday and chuckle to myself. Sundays are such a perfect display of how far I’ve come in my dismantling-to-rebuilding Recovering Evangelical journey.
There was a time in my life when I looked forward to every Sunday, not to lounge around and/or make Challah french toast, but because it meant church. I’d get to go to the place I loved more than anywhere else in the world! I connected with my God, sang loudly, caught with church friends, and guys I was trying not to crush on, probably cry at some point, and then get KFC. What’s not to love?
You’re the God of this City*
*These are Tobi Mac song lyrics, in case this specific Christian tune reference is too niche.
When I moved to New York, I was genuinely scared to leave behind my church community. As someone who had found so much joy, accountability, and refuge in a church home, I was terrified to be without it.
Well, God is so good and all that, so I ended up living ON THE SAME BLOCK as Tim Keller’s church, Redeemer Presbyterian.
I believed God had perfectly placed me there as a constant reminder of where my priorities should lie. Amidst the temptation of a city “steeped in sin,” I would never have an excuse to not “connect with the Lord and other believers!” each week. I got “plugged in” to a “city group” (the city version of “small group.” So urban) and felt bad if I missed a Sunday. I’d go even if, much like this morning, I was pretty hungover and would have rather been reading in my jammies.
As my deconstruction evolved, (devolved? Building up by breaking down. You get it) I eventually stopped feeling guilty about not going to church. There was a gym right next door to Redeemer, and I found Sunday morning yoga there to be more spiritually fulfilling than liturgy. I still committed to reading my Bible every Sunday though! I’d have a little devo before my sweat/stretch/self-salvation session. I’d sleep in, still do my Western religion thing, then limberly connect with the Lord via downward dog.
Eventually the Bible reading subsided as well. As I learned more about the Bible from an academic and historic perspective, I got more and more angry at the text than “spiritually fed.” I felt better guided in life by reading Erin Moon, Pema Chodran, either of the Obamas…
Furthermore, I’d read that thing so much, I was kind of over it. I knew what the Bible said. I mean, I’d spent most of my adolescent and young adult years reading that thing more than any other book. As my Jewish roommate Colin inquired “As a Christian, at what point do you start studying something else?” This was my “point.” I was Biblically burnt out.
Over time, Sundays didn’t involve any kind of regular connection to Christianity. I became the “worst kind” of Christian - an Easter and Christmas Christian. I stopped feeling so bad about this when I finally admitted to myself I don’t identify as a Christian anymore, (another post) so I am not beholden to any attendance expectation.
My Sundays became what this morning is: A time of quiet, doing whatever the fuck I want and not worrying about my eternal damnation. I’ve stopped believing God to be a micromanaging babysitter, so I eat my Jewish cookies, read how to be a modern day witch, and reply “Amen!’ to my grandpa’s texts. All in peace.
I can’t tell you exactly when my anxiety around how I should spend my time “in the eyes of the Lord” subsided. All I know is, as I stayed curious in answering my questions about faith and fucking – because we know in the recovering Evangelicals process, these things are messily intertwined – and committed to living a life that felt fully Mattie Jo, it just…did.
That being said, I still feel deeply connected to this day because Sundays will always remind me of:
Waking up and my family scattering out the door for church. Specifically all of us being IN the car, waiting on dad, the most non-punctual pastor there ever was.
Looking forward to seeing all my friends who went to different schools before and after service.
Taking diligent notes during the sermon in effort to know, REALLY know the Bible (#virgo).
My dad waiting at the church doors to seek out anyone who looked nervous, uncomfortable, or scared so he could make them feel welcome.
Sipping “free” (see: tithe funded) coffee.
Singing my heart out and being fully immersed in the celestial feels. Music and singing was the way I connected the most to God (before orgasms).
A day to stop. For just one day, my little world in rural Missouri got to stop while I connected with my God and my people.
Sundays are still sacred.
For all the bullshit that came along with it, church really did teach me my most valued morals:
Stop.
Take a breath.
Sing your fucking heart out.
Connect with others.
Actively seek out those who feel forgotten, unknown, or unloved and let them know it isn’t so.
Remember there’s something bigger than you at work in this life.
Even though the human race is trashing the planet with single use plastic and electing Donald Trump as president, we’re also capable of doing so. much. Good.
If you’re in the throes of dismantling your religious, and therefore, sexual and actually entire identity, stay the path. There will always be something about Sundays. But that something will no longer include fear that God hates you for doing whatever you want on a day that isn’t actually the Sabbath anyway.
Sundays can always be a little sacred.
I’d love to hear from you! What about Sundays remains sacred for you? Do you turn on One Direction and dance in your underwear to feel the same rush that worship once provided? Journal til your hand cramps? Yell at your boyfriend to turn down his violent video game sounds so you can meditate in peace? Am I projecting?
I’m sorry to hear about your de-conversion, which is really a conversion to something else, which sounds like “self”. Of course pursuing self interest will bring cold comfort, and in the end, despair.
What’s kind of puzzling to me about someone who de-converts is how you square it with the facts of Christian historicity which haven’t changed and are really locked-in to the past.
Was Christianity just feelings to you? Or was it an intellectual assent to the historical facts on the ground, like with the church fathers?