Losing my religion

On God, anxiety, and faith with room for us all

Picture Credit: Holly Rankin Zaher. Photo is me standing with my pants rolled up on the shore of Bear Lake, a small reservoir on the Tecumseh Trail in Indiana.

Apparently about eleven years ago I posted the REM line: “That’s me in the corner, that’s me in the spotlight, losing my religion” as a standalone post and worried some friends who didn’t know what to make of it. Facebook has a way of reminding you of even the most obscure things that you’d never remember on your own. But as I sit here on the anniversary of 9/11, the 20th anniversary as we realized this morning in my writer’s group, I had to ask myself, can you lose your religion? Can you lose your faith? 

Or, is it really more accurate to say that the faith, the religion, loses you? I say I’m still a Christian because one day I told God I didn’t want to believe in them anymore, and I thought, “Wait, who am I talking to?” And that’s when I realized I was screwed. 

Nadia Bolz-Weber tells a story in Accidental Saints,  where a paris…