Has it really been a week since my last entry? What happened, did I blink?I have the luxury this year of having the last hour of my school week without a scheduled class. I use the time to write and reflect about my teaching experience for the week - and to think ahead a bit about what I need to construct over the weekend for Monday and beyond.Today that reflection carried on a bit longer than usual. I'm sitting with my laptop right now at the local Panera with the free Wi-Fi (wish I knew what that stands for, I only know it means I can post a DS journal entry from here!) and thinking about a conversation I have with my gay friend who got married two weeks ago.I had called him to be social... he didn't have long to talk as he was en route to a rehearsal. We often have this conversation - about why I hate the church so much, about why he doesn't. He asked me a thought-provoking question:"What is it you miss so much [about your old faith]? What did you need to leave?"My answer came quickly: "I miss community. I don't want the dogma.""There are communities that don't have the dogma.""I know. I've been to some of those and they don't quite fit right."He went on to suggest that he's puzzled by the contradictions I seem to express - like I want the dogma/don't want the dogma, want a church/don't want a church......and this was within the context of a conversation about me wondering when is it valid and healthy to walk away and never come back, or to stay and force the dialog, difficult as it may be. He is of the opinion that my total abandonment of the church and my old faith is as unhealthy on my part as the church's toxic dumping of me (which it did when I came out, and then did again when I expressed my atheism).He can be so annoying sometimes! lolI came here to Daily Strength because I got SO frustrated on another site, one whose purpose was to foster civilized conversation across the opinion differences generated in the culture wars between conservative christianity and the glbt community. I was part of that online discussion group for almost two years - but at the end got so frustrated said some rather brutally blunt things that weren't received very well.Rather than stay and try to repair the relationships there I decided it wasn't worth getting so upset over words that appeared on my computer screen written by folks I would never meet in person. I chose to leave. I'm a bit haunted by that choice, because I don't really have closure on some of the rotten things that were said in response to my rather floridly written anger.Shortly after joining here I received an e-mail from a member asking me about the "recovering fundamentalist" in my profile. I explained. He wrote back saying what I'm sure he considered to be a charitable and tolerant Christian response. Unfortunately, I heard too many old buzz-words in his reply and felt it necessary to tell him, perhaps a bit too firmly, that I did not want to be on the receiving end of a "witness."  I've been targeted by evangelicals enough in my life to never want the experience again.Sigh. He apologized all over the place, said he was only looking for friendship, said he wouldn't bother me again - and as near as I can tell has not visited Daily Strength at all since. No posts in his journal or in the community he joined.I can't help but feel guilty about this. Here was someone who was sincerely looking to connect and feeling a bit fragile and I stomped all over him because I have this severe allergy to anything that smacks of Jesus.Sigh again. In both online cases I see the mirror of my exit from the church and the rupture I still feel in my life since I left it.So why don't I go back? Because it's easier to accept a universe that IS. A universe that can't be completely explained and is likely to remain forever beyond my understanding. Because I can't believe in God - if there was one I'd have to shoot him for being such a fucking cosmic asshole. Easier to be at peace with an imperfect, ineffable universe than with an effing god who could do something about it and doesn't. Because every time faith tries to explain the universe to me it feels like my mind, my intelligence, my being, my experience gets trivialized, negated, trashed... and I can't stand the short-circuiting.So why can't I just leave it alone? Because picking scabs is so much fun?