Day 12

 I went to the yoga sanctuary this morning. Had a wonderful yoga session and a smoothie. I went home and clean the house and figure out how to use the pool. But without a doubt the highlight of my day was a conversation with Bart. Bart is a former evangelical pastor who deconverted. He give me a lot of things to think about. The least of which was considering long-term therapy :). But here my notes from our conversation. I spent the rest of the day in my head noodling these over. Drove to town for some non-Mexican food to watch the sunset while eating a pizza. 

• Don’t try to forgive yet.  I’m not ready yet,  I’m still in trauma
• It is ok to be mad at people when you seeing them do bad things (rapist raping or evangelicals manipulating)
• I should spend some time trying to understand (academically) why fundamentalist Christian’s have been manipulated into that way of thinking (so understanding replaces the anger). He recommended the book “The Righteous Mind” 
• Unlike Bart I still identify with components of a faith based world view (I still choose to view an existential interconnectedness, while he seems to view the social construct for empathy based only on evolutionary biology). So my understanding based detachment will be different than his as I’m still a “member” of the tribe (even if it disturbs me to think that way about myself). I’m cautious of his natural pastoral instincts to try to “convert” me to his way of humanist/materialist thinking, but we both seem to be self aware enough to avoid that pitfall. This is my primary hesitation to use him as a coach (he is also a licensed therapist but that type of detachment is not my jam for this space.)
• If I can understand/pity evil Christian’s (not all Christian’s are evil), could I forgive them? It is ok to be angry when I see them abusing people. 
• If I forgive them, can I love them?  Ultimately I don’t need to save them from their illogical and harmful ways, but loving in-spite of their vile behavior has a better chance of bringing about positive outcomes than openly mocking them or just avoiding them due to anger.