Religious Complications
Lynn never mentioned that she was religious, although she did have a ‘New Jerusalem Bible’, which she said was Catholic and that she just liked having it to document things in. We considered ourselves to be ‘spiritual’, but not religious. At least, I thought we did… WRONG! I had given up on religion way back in what?…7th grade. I was a happy Zen – philosophical Taoist. Lynn had befriended Michelle A. (Chellie) at LC3 when she was going there. I knew Chellie from partying with her and some of the crowd she hung with at the time. I did not know that she and Lynn were acquainted. In the meantime, Chellie had married Paul C. and had become a ‘Jesus Freak’. Lynn became obsessed with Chellie and ‘The Way Ministry’ of Dr Victor Paul Wherwil. Unfortunately, this was the very beginning of the end… IMHO. Toward the end, she used to complain that Judo was my ‘religion’. I never thought of it as a religion, but I was certainly more impressed and informed by it and its philosophy than any Christian ideology.
That said, I did try to do things her way to save our young marriage. I tried my best to accommodate her religious friends, the classes they insisted that we take, preferably together. And they weren’t cheap. All our new ‘friends’ were members of the Way, and they insisted that we meet several times a week, called ‘twig meetings’. By the end, I refused to go more than once a week. And yes, I did get back into Judo pretty heavily then. I had been a Sankyu (3rd class – brown belt) since just before graduation from high school. During this time, I worked my way up to Nikyu (2nd class).
Another problem was that everything I had committed to and practiced for years, yoga, Judo, meditation (that wasn’t ‘Christian’ AKA ‘prayer’) was what they termed ‘devilish’ and to be shunned. Yes, things went steadily downhill from there. But I’m getting ahead of myself again.
To be Continued
CynOp 
5 responses to “Lynn – Part 4 – Memoir Continued”
I love both the painting AND photo. You’re talented with both brush and camera, Liam.
It’s hard to keep a relationship going when beliefs are so radically different.
Like you, I gave up on religion years and years ago, and it’s no surprise then that I raised a son who is an atheist. I didn’t overtly do it—when he was a kid, I offered to take him to church, but he didn’t want to go. When he was in his early 20s, he married a woman whose family was deeply religious. But they agreed to live and let live, and though I thought it wouldn’t work, here it is some 25 years or so later, and they are still married and still very much in love. She does her church stuff, and he does his hobbies, and the rest of the time, they do what they do together.
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Thank you, Kat…; -) I’m pleased you like my attempts at art. As for deep beliefs and relationships, I guess it depends on whether those involved are committed to each other enough to accommodate the other’s quirks and convictions… I think your son’s case proves that point. In my case, Lynn was neither ‘in love’ enough nor open-minded enough; and by the end, I was sliding in that direction too. Much of it had to do with her closest circle of ministry friends, whom I later learned were counseling her to ‘get rid of me’ as soon as possible, sadly…; -|
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I’ve found that religious beliefs screw up more things than it ever fixes.
I know it really helps some, like people with drug an alcohol addictions, but down through history, it’s caused more misery than anything else I can think of at the moment.
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Yes, it does help some people. And as long as they don’t try to make the rest of us live by their religeous rules, I’m fine with it.
But my deep conviction is that religion, especially ‘organized religion’, is/has been the bane of human-kind.
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100% agree with your last statement.
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