Lately I've found that my skin has grown too thin to participate in the conversation going on in my internet communities. This presents a particular problem for me, given that I place so much emphasis on the ability to talk with people, understand their viewpoint and express my own. I hardly ever have specific aims for such conversations, although they are usually precipitated by some offense committed on either side, and in this case, a particularly painful conversation took place on Facebook catalyzed by some of my friends' gross and hateful simplifications of "religion" as an ignorant, malevolent and destructive phenomenon in human life. The generality of these characterizations is what motivated my critique, and I tried to point out the way such reductions are themselves destructive, malevolent and ignorant. What I was really responding to was the hatefulness, the readiness to express such caricatures as a way of putting people down, especially people my friends haven't met. I posted my opposition on an academic point, but as I continued to fight for this perspective, I realized that this was really an emotionally motivated discussion, and that I was defending not "religion" (as so many of my friends wanted to characterize my position) but the loving religious people who brought me up and taught me about the value of loving public service, social justice and compassionate care. That kind of fight will always overflow whatever academic point I decide to make, and I realized that despite the fact that people claimed not to be talking about those "good" religious people, there wasn't anything I could say that would convince them that their discourse was hurtful to people I love very much, not least myself of course. Maybe there isn't anything I can say that would make my friends think twice about expressing themselves that way. When I have intimations that this might be true, my hope dies a quiet, whimpering death.
Today is Easter, and I've been on a Facebook fast this whole week because of the heartbreak I experienced during that conversation and in people's status updates to the same effect. I thought maybe I would login today, check my events and just browse around, feeling stronger and more open than last week. The first post I see, unfortunately, was from a friend whose company I once very much enjoyed but haven't seen in a bunch of years, and don't feel particularly close to anymore. She writes: "'jesus' was a chump and all you god loving idiots can just go ahead and delete me." Now, this person is intelligent, creative and has worked her world in a way that is both admirable and inspiring. I know that if she could see my tears she would feel bad on some level about writing that, but I can't bring myself to comment on her post. I DO want to delete her, just so I never have to read something like that ever again, but I recognize that to do so would be simply an act of avoidance. I can't walk away from everyone who hurts my feelings, or insults people I love. I can't disengage from friends just because they don't understand or appreciate my sense of the world, but I also don't feel that I can really engage these sentiments either. I find myself feeling like a bit of a martyr, suffering my friends' animosity in silence. Nobody understands my particular religious experience, it's not part of their image of what "religion" is. If I try to explain that I have a religious framework that fits pretty well into most humanist discourses, I'm still a "god-loving idiot" and in the manner so similar to narrow-minded missionaries who pray that I come to their particular salvation, I know that my friends simply hope that I will eventually come to my senses. If I suffer these insults in silence, aren't I doing the same thing? Is there a way to force them to respect my experiences, even if I don't think that my particular orientation is really explainable, let alone that someone could "convert" to my view?
It's so painful, I don't even know if I could talk to this particular person without devolving into an emotional puddle. For the moment, Facebook remains a little too much, my "public" is kicking me while I'm down, and I crave that open loving space that I find with others who think like me. A precious few, to be sure, and I worry about the elitism and isolation that comes with retreating to an ideological shelter. The challenges of diversity are real, and heartbreak is among the worst dangers in my particular universe right now. I love these people, and they break my heart. Such is life I suppose, I'm no stranger to it, but I've always resisted the notion that I had to break with people once they broke my heart, and distance doesn't seem much better. It's just more isolation, more loneliness, more misunderstanding. At least for the time being, I have to enclose myself a little, stop being out there so much, stop listening for a while because I can't really take it and the temptation to cynicism and ideological extremes is knocking at my door. I have to believe that this is just a provisional break, a purposive fast from public discourse, and that something will come from somewhere that will give me the strength and the confidence to listen to my friends without taking what they say so personally. Among my many "religious" convictions, I've had my rabid atheist friends point out that I believe without reason or justification that conflict and pain are both temporary and instructive, that much can be gained through suffering and loss, and that these experiences are all the more beautiful for that. If I can remain unapologetic in that view, maybe read a little Dostoevsky and remember all the wonderful things these friends have said and done in the long course of our friendships, I think I might be fine. God help me.
His Holiness Dalai Lama listens as cellist Michael Fitzpatrick plays as he enters the stage to speak at the Canseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Friday, May 14th, 2010. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
