Colorless World No More

~ Lena Lasarzewski grew up in Sweden and have lived all over the United States for the last 15 years. She currently resides in Bedminster, NJ where she works as a Sales and Marketing Manager for a Swedish company called Pharmadule

My name is Lena and I’m an ex-believer in a black-and-white world.

Like most people, I continuously go through spiritual transitions.  All my life I was both “losing my religion,” (to quote a famous R.E.M song) and regaining it by discarding inadequate answers and learning to ask better questions.  My major transition has been away from a pre-determined worldview handed down to me, to a worldview that I have discovered, created, and now own.  Here is my journey.

The religious subculture into which I was born is the opposite of the culture in which I grew up. Sweden is a “non-believing country” with only 3 % of its 9 million people going to church or believing in God.  The subculture of my church was a very small part of this already small number of believers.

In Bible study from a toddler to an adult, I heard a clear and consistent message:  life is black and white, there is good and evil and nothing in between, and as long as you walk through life with this in mind and believe these truths, you will be fine.  Only later in life did I realize that this black-and-white way of thinking had not prepared me for life.  I realized that being a black-and-white person had turned me into a judgmental person.  I constantly had to make decisions about what is black and what is white and to fit the complexity of life into these two categories, which in turn made it impossible to enjoy life or consider people, religions, and cultures on their own terms.  It was always “us” against “them.”

As a child I accepted the thoughts and beliefs of my parents and the church where I grew up.  I was neither equipped nor encouraged to question the beliefs or practices that I grew up with.  Instead of being invited to not only understand the beliefs of my community but also to contribute by questioning, re-defining, changing and continually growing them, I was asked to merely defend them.  Instead of moving me forward, the beliefs often held me back in a state of constant worry.

After high school I transitioned into the American culture.  On arrival, I connected with the subculture of my denomination in the States and realized how different it was from the church where I grew up.  Our church subcultures are reflections of or reactions to the cultures in which we find ourselves.  Being away from home and responsible for my own life, I started questioning my background and the things I had been taught.  My religious up-bringing had so molded my life that I soon became confused and felt guilty for not thinking, believing and living as I had before.  Eventually, I became so exhausted I took a break not only from organized religion, but from personal spirituality as well.  I began challenging the “do”s and “don’t’s I learned as a child and tried to rid myself of the feelings of guilt for changing my worldview.  It became a healthy cleansing experience.

I have been tired and exhausted. The road has been difficult.  I’m at the end of my latest spiritual transition. I’m seeking the courage to start over with a clean slate, to explore the basics of my religion again asking, as though for the first time, “What is Christianity?”  I refuse to live in a colorless world anymore!  Instead of being a mere watcher of a black-and-white movie, I now embrace all life. I’m excited to be discovering and helping create a community that can offer some new answers for my generation.   

Yes, I’ve learned that you can “loose” your religion, but that might be one of the best ways to find it.  Whether or not it looks the same as before matters less than whether or not you and your community own it.  If you find yourself at peace after the transitions, and if you continue to see ever more color and depth in the world around you, you’ll know your journey is going well.