Confessions of a former Wesley-Bapti-Costal

Because we are approaching the “sacred” holiday which marks the 2 year anniversary of my release from guilt, I find myself pondering my past and the path which brought me to where I am now.
I was raised in a home where religion/hypocrisy reigned supreme. We were at our local church every time the doors were open. My father was involved in the hierarchy of the church and my mother served as secretary/treasurer of different ministries. At home my mother was a doormat to a lunatic adulterer and my father was an abusive masochist. But at church, everything was happy and shiny. I’ll never forget black eyes, beatings, and my Father’s Layman of the Year award. I learned that double standard and practiced it well. As youth group president, I partied and did all sorts of things a good girl DOESN’T do. Is it any wonder I despise this human condition?
As an adult, I “came to my senses” and attempted to be what the church said God wanted me to be. Isn’t that asinine? To listen to a middleman instead of going right to the source? I helped in every ministry I could find and became a “good girl”. So why didn’t I feel any closer to God? Why did I feel even further from him? Maybe it was because I was taking someone else’s cues again and not his. When we decided to step down from our membership at our church it was at God’s leading. Of course it really was my compromise with God. He was telling us to leave altogether but I couldn’t fathom that. Once we were grilled and belittled by our pastor and his wife and then treated with so much disrespect and distain from people we thought were our friends, we decided to not return. And for me that first missed Sunday had to be Easter. Because there are 2 days that even people who don’t go to church, go to church: Christmas and Easter. I needed to make that harsh break with tradition (I heard someone once say that tradition is French for boring).
And it seems to me that if you are living your life with an all consuming love for others, why do you want to exalt several days over the others? Love should be a 365 celebration. (It’s why I cook for others. It’s my way of loving random people.) But celebrating Easter is silly. It is a conversion of the Jewish Passover and again that is another tradition. I don’t mean that I don’t like traditions or that holidays are somehow evil. I simply wish to know where these traditions come from and then choose to celebrate them for fun or nothing. Saying that these days are special, more holy than others, is just attaching God to a holiday. It’s like trapping the wind in a box. It’s silly.
I find the harder you try to reach God, the further away you get. Is there a lesson in the tower of Babel? Yes, but of course in Christianity that is exactly what you are supposed to do. You must work hard. You must build. There’s a to-do-list or check list of things you have to do to be close to God. And you are often judged by the things you don’t get done or are not doing. Is there something bad happening in your life?? How’s your prayer life? Are you doing daily devotions? This kind of reasoning is ignorant at best. I heard a “joke” once that a man asked a stranger to hold a ladder for him so that he could reach God. Another person came by and asked the man holding the ladder what was happening. He smiled and replied, “He’s looking for me.” I believe in a God within us and around us. He’s closer than our next breath and not high in the heavens judging us or waiting to zap us.
If you disagree that’s fine. I just have a hard time following rules my God did NOT create. Call me a heretic or a sad lost soul, but I may not hear you…I’m busy dancing to the tune of love.