By Tania ~ An excerpt from Alligator Pants: Walking Beyond My Faith I n the bottom of my bedroom closet, there is a box containing a sewing machine. I use it every once in a while to hem a pair of pants or fix a seam somewhere — no major projects anymore. But back in high school? Shiny alligator-print faux leather pants? A long-sleeved leafy autumnal dress with tons of buttons? A bright red and orange Chinese-style dress called a “cheongsam”? Oh, yeah, I sewed it all, and I wore it all, and I was darnproud of it. Nowadays, part of me cringes when I think about that, but another part says, “Well, good for you, young Tania! You did your own thing!” A few years after my sewing days, I read “ The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die ,” by John Izzo, Ph.D. He interviewed a couple hundred people over the age of 60 to hear their suggestions about making the most out of our lives. I wrote down the five points and kept a copy in my wallet for a long time. But the first point didn...

By Tania ~ H ello, everyone, It's been a while.... Over the last seven years, my visits to this site have been with a mixed bag of emotions, let me tell you! Seven years ago, in January 2012, I frantically searched the internet for some website, some writer, some video, some sanity, some clarity...something, ANYTHING that would that would calm my deep, deep fear that Christianity might not be all that I thought that it would be. For about a year, I'd been struggling with my faith; questions kept popping up for me, and the places where I usually got my answers -- church, the Bible, fellow Christians, my "quiet time" with God -- no longer provided enough substance for me. By the start of 2012, my uncertainties were still building up, and the silence from God was overwhelming. The faith of my 28 years toppled. Too afraid to talk with anyone in my real life, I typed in whatever combination of words it was that brought me here to exChristian.net And soon after that...

By Tania ~ T here are the stories of Cinderella, Snow White, and the Little Mermaid...and, of course, the men they fall in love with and -- depending on which versions of the stories you happen to read -- live with happily ever after. And there is the story that I'm most familiar with: Christian Girl Meets and Marries Christian Guy. Until I began to transition away from Christianity about seven years ago, that story was, I thought, the framework for my own personal love/romance/marriage story. It's the storyline that many Christian romance novels and movies use, and it's supposedly what will happen to you if you do just the right things. In this story, the girl is a Christian, and the guy she is interested in is also a Christian. That's a given. There have been how many books written and sermons preached on 2 Corinthians 6:14? "Do not be yoked with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with ...

By Tania ~ My world has expanded. I am seeing a bigger picture now. There is so much is out there, out in the real world. My focus used to be so narrow! T hose are some of the phrases that I catch myself thinking and saying nowadays, as “post-Christian Tania” who has settled more into this life and is continuing to let go of the bits of religion that linger. Chances are, there will always be some things that I miss about the lengthy chapter of my “churched” life, but I’m moving on. As time goes on, I am appreciating the expansion of my world. There’s the freedom to question, to explore, to totally turn things on their heads and see them in a new light. The thing I remember most clearly about summer of 2011 — the year of the start of my deconversion — is curling up on my fake leather couch in my basement suite and reading, reading, reading. Unable to find satisfying answers to my “big questions” by reading books written by religious (mostly Christian) authors, I decided to…yes, c...

By Tania ~ R ecently I received an email/sermon from a somewhat-young-to-middle-aged person in my circle of friends and family members. The email arrived in my inbox not completely out-of-the-blue, because we’d talked briefly on the phone about a week before and we generally do keep in contact somewhat regularly. But the intensity of the message was a surprise to me. I read it a few times, my thoughts ranging from, “This is a joke! Right? This must be a joke!” to “Oh, wow, so this is the mindframe with which this person is operating,” to “It seems that my decision, months ago, to back away from this relationship still seems to the best decision for now.” The writer of the email started off strong, asking if I still have certain virtues in my life. The writer knows that I used to be a Christian, and now I am not. (During the past several years, the writer has brushed aside my efforts to explain my reasons for leaving religion.) He/she then mentioned that he/she thinks I am a good ...

By Tania ~ I t stands about three feet to my right as I sit here with my computer and my cup of tea. Until a few weeks ago, I had barely touched it for a year. But now, I am living on my own again, and I have peace and quiet and space. I finally asked My Handyman to fix its damper pedal, and of course it was no problem for him. And now my Korg digital piano is serving its intended purpose, and it’s not just a piece of furniture on which to place those miscellaneous things that never seem to have a permanent resting place (library books, that thing to return to a co-worker, junk mail, etc.). It was a trip down memory lane as I unpacked several boxes that had remained packed during the four years in which I lived with roommates. I had kept many more kitchen things that I remembered (including lots of plastic forks), and I noticed that my scrapbook hadn’t been updated since 2012 (how did five years go by so quickly anyhow?!). And there were the piano books — Royal Conservatory books t...

By Tania ~ O n the first Sunday of April, I went to my "home" church for the first time in over two years. It was my aunt and my uncle's 50th wedding anniversary that weekend, and a part of the Sunday morning service at church was dedicated to the occasion. I wanted to be there with my family, so that is why I decided to attend. For me, going to a special event such as this isn't usually a big deal. I've been to probably a dozen weddings, and countless funerals, bridal and baby showers, and baptismal services. I've been to hundreds of church services, at many different churches. This time, however, was quite different, because over the course of the last six years, my transition away from Christianity has also included a big step away from the church where I grew up. I felt a bit awkward on that Sunday morning, but also pleasantly distracted and comforted by the realization that I'd be surrounded by my immediate family (who, although they do not al...

By Tania ~ I n about 24 hours, I will step foot into the church that I “took a break from” over two years ago. I am going there because it is my aunt and my uncle’s 50th wedding anniversary, and this anniversary will be acknowledged during the service with the presentation of a plaque to the celebrating couple. I am filled with mixed emotions — curiosity, worry, detachment, indifference. On the day that I’d last attended the church, I told myself I would not go back there for a while, except maybe for weddings and funerals. I think this occasion counts as something similar to a wedding, and so I will go. On November 16, 2014, I was visiting my parents and siblings, and I joined them for church. By that point, I’d already been transitioning away from Christianity for over three years, but I wasn’t as far removed from it as I am now. I’d still sometimes go to church on Sundays…and then go to Skeptics in the Pub on Mondays. I spent a lot of time in an online support group for decon...

By Tania ~ M y job as a housekeeper at the hospital offers some insights into facts of life that are, for many people, quite unfamiliar and uncomfortable. For me, after years of working in hospitals and nursing homes, most of it is not a big deal anymore — the places of aging and sickness and healing, the hospital gowns and bedpans, bells and alarms that ring all day. As well, when working in a hospital or a nursing home, the concept of “death” isn’t as foreign as it is in other work places — like, for example, at a department store or a credit union! In the unit I work at in KGH, death is not as “common” as it is in other units. After their surgeries, most people there are ready for discharge after three or four days; but every once in a while, that’s not the case. A few mornings ago, I was cleaning a patient’s room, and her husband told me that death was imminent — maybe a few hours, maybe a day or two. As it turned out, it was about two hours later that the patient passed away...

By Tania ~ L ast night was one of those rare nights when I did not fall asleep two seconds after turning out the light. Instead of picking up a book or flipping through a magazine, I chose Facebook. Probably not the most calming thing to do, that sneak-peek into others’ lives, which inspires a host of feelings from surprise to jealousy to nostalgia to inspiration to you-name-it. As I spent longer than usual on Facebook last night, scrolling through my home page and my own timeline, I contemplated yet again this concept of holding on…and letting go. As I saw pictures of the church “young adults” group, church weddings, and barbecues and road trips with the church people, part of me just wished to go back to those times and to have life more mapped out for me, Christian-style…for the most part, though, I am excited to have moved on and wandered into more unknowns. It wasn’t until a couple years ago that I realized that it’s okay to stop trying so darn hard to make things work. I ...

By Tania ~ L ife wounds all of us. In a hundred ways, we get hurt. Life throws things our way, and we ache, we cry, we stumble through the day or the month or the many years and just try to not be overwhelmed by the sadness, the anger, the confusion. If we're lucky, if we're resilient, if we're patient, if we're surrounded by people who let us share and overshare, if we're able to find purpose, if we're able to find the right combination of meds or meditation or mediation -- if we are one or all of the above -- the wounds don't last forever. They scar. And that's when we can learn, grow, help others. We cannot do that when our wounds are scabs. At the risk of sounding overly dramatic or sentimental or gory or what have you, I use this as an analogy for my deconversion journey. It's been four years now since the start of my deconversion. Four years ago, I was that girl. That girl who went to church every Sunday morning when she wasn't ...

By Tania ~ N ovember 15, 2015 -- that's the earliest date on which I will attend a regular church service again. I cannot do this anymore. I can't. I don't normally open a hymnal, read the title of the hymn that we -- the congregation -- are about to sing, and slam it shut...but that's what I did a few weeks ago. The inside of my head was screaming, for the hundredth time, I don't agree! I can't sing this! This is NOT me anymore! My brother and his wife were sitting beside me, and they sang, and the other people sang. I just bit my lip to keep from screaming or crying -- or both -- and tried to distract my mind with other things. I just can't do this anymore. And we stood for prayer, because that's what we -- they -- do. They pray for those in the church, in the city, across the world. And I stood, closed my eyes, bowed my head...and would have rather been out there, visiting someone in a nursing home , giving $5 to a homeless person who might no...

By Tania ~ T he time has come to say another “goodbye.” The door has closed. I don't know if it will open again. If it will, my guess is that it won't be anytime soon. I've grieved. I'm not sure I'll ever be completely “done” grieving, because the sadness runs a bit too deep. I loved a lot, and I cared a lot, and now it's time for goodbye. I've cried, and screamed. I've talked, I've exhausted myself with the talking. I've tried to push the sad and angry thoughts aside, but I also need and want to face them, embrace them, not just ignore something so precious as these things that make us feel, that make us real, that show we're not robots. I went to the cemetery a while ago. I had some flowers, and I left them at the grave of someone I don't know. It was a symbol – this time of walking and reflecting, of realizing that something special is gone. A closure, a small attempt to somehow try to connect what once was to what is no lo...

By Tania ~ A lmost five years ago, I was standing on the side of a highway when a semi-truck came around a curve, its 53-foot trailer fishtailing all over the highway. I yelled at the man standing beside me to run. Another man, who was also standing with us, saw the truck fishtailing, and he ran, too. My car, which had been pulled over on the side of the highway, was totalled. I didn't hear the crash. I didn't see much of the truck that hit my car – the tractor was blue and the trailer was white, but that's all I saw. What I do remember clearly is what I was thinking as I was running to avoid being hit: “Hmm. I didn't think this would be the way I would die.” After realizing that I had survived, my next thoughts were about my parents – how, for their sake, I was grateful to be alive, because I'd heard and read many times that the death of a child is the most difficult type of death to deal with. I had a few more thoughts at that time, of course. One of them was...

By Tania ~ D ear Christians in my life, For the first couple decades of my life, it was a given that if someone was, like you, a Christian, it meant that that person was somehow “nicer,” more generous, more thoughtful, more merciful – in other words, a closer resemblance to the Jesus he or she believed in – than anyone without that label. I've learned, especially in the last two or three years, that this is simply not the case. I've learned that it is a label for a person who has a few – or many – beliefs that no longer make sense to me; it is a label for a person who lives according to certain rules and regulations that may or may not make that person a more ethical, well-rounded, compassionate person. A part of me wishes that I could still be naive enough to think that someone who is a Christian is somehow going to treat me and others better than someone who does not identify himself or herself as a Christian; however, another part of me is grateful to be free from pa...