When A Friend Loses the Spirit

About ten years ago, I met a friend I hadn’t seen for about five years. I was struck with how different he seemed. I’d heard that he’d left the church, and though we didn’t talk about that, our casual conversation felt “wrong” to me in some way I couldn’t define. My friend was also physically very changed, looking much older. I felt this, too, signified something important. At home that night, I told myself that the reason for these changes in my friend was because he had left the church and therefore had “lost the Spirit” and that I could see the darkness in his “countenance.”

(I’m conflating several different experiences in the above story. I’ve had this same experience with many different people who have left the church, family members, friends, teachers, colleagues, male and female, young and old.)

I didn’t think much beyond that brief determination of what was “wrong,” not for several years until I had my own faith crisis and began to suspect that other people were looking at me and thinking much the same about my “loss of the spirit” and “change in countenance.” I’m frustrated with those people who seem to have very little curiosity about my experience and find it all too easy to simply categorize me with the “bad people” who you might feel sad about, but you can’t really help because they’ve made the wrong choices in their life.

What I think now is so very different. I wish now that I’d spent some time with my friend to ask how he was doing and to make sure he understood I was truly interested in his life and his difficulties. I wish that I’d been able to see that whatever burden I saw on his features might be more than his own fault at making wrong choices, but rather might be connected to the losses that often come when one steps away from full church activity, including loss of family and friends that you had once assumed would always be at your side, and a loss too of your own sense of self and security that had once come from unquestioning activity in the church. I wish I had been more compassionate and less judgmental. I wish that I hadn’t needed to protect my own security at the cost of kindness to another. I suppose in one sense you could say it’s irony that I’m in the same position now. In another sense, it’s simply karmic justice, isn’t it?

I look back now and can see that this closing of ranks has a specific purpose. It makes it clear to those who are considering stepping out what the costs will be—though of course, no one really ever understands those costs until they leave. Seeing others who are rejected gives us a foretaste of what it will be like for us, and encourages us to stay, no matter what the cost to us personally in terms of authenticity and self-love.

Those of us who are still inside the protective bounds of belonging don’t articulate it quite this clearly, but that is what we are doing. If you leave, you will lose everything, we are warning. If you leave, you will never be happy again. If you leave, you will never be able to have a spiritual life. If you leave, God will reject you as the community does. If you leave, you will wish you were dead.

It’s impossible to leave a community of any kind without consequences. Changing a job often means friendships will cool with those you leave behind. Changing a hobby can sometimes mean losing friends, as well. Going back to school to retrain for a new passion can mean long, sleepless nights spent studying and a toll on the body. But rather than blaming people for making difficult choices, we can choose to be more curious about their lives. We can choose not to cut people off because their worldview makes us uncomfortable.