Before I get into this theme, I want to make it very clear that I do not have an axe to grind with religion or faith itself. However, the purpose of any faith system should be to lift and give people hope. The sad fact is though that if only some of the tenets of any religion are adhered to and others ignored it can have the opposite effect.

​

Such people often display the outward signs of being religiously observant and pious, but at times feel woefully inadequate or fake at the same time. What often makes things worse for such an adherent is that they are often aware of this inner / outer conflict themselves, long before anybody else notices.

 

Within my books, Ania is a person whose faith can be described as nominal; she herself writes that she has "largely rejected the faith of her parents without necessarily rejecting her belief in God, Jesus, Mary and the Saints." Consequently, she has readily grasped the concept and consequences of sin and the judgement that comes with it, but has failed to take on board the positive message of salvation and the hope that naturally comes from it.

​

Culturally Catholic (as are most Poles), she often feels condemned and overwhelmed, even in situations when she shouldn't, and especially when it involves anything of a sexual nature. She was raised to believe that the only sexual activity sanctified by God, was that which took place strictly within, and only within, a heterosexual marital context.

​

Everything else, without exception, is sin.

​

It has never been my intention to pick the moral bones of this issue; let scholars, priests and all of those who are more qualified than I do this. 

​

Please note in what follows, I am not making a particular comment nor judgement on same-sex relationships or any kind of consensual sexual activity that could be described as adventurous, deviant or even extreme .

​

The core of Ania’s problem lies in that she is bisexual, with a greater preference for girls and her desire for often deviant sex. She enjoys her sexuality, but at the same time it triggers an overpowering sense of guilt which in her mind makes her dirty and a stain on God’s purity. To expunge her guilt, she then seeks punishment in the hope that it will bring her back into equilibrium. Such punishment, while she might not necessarily enjoy it, makes her feel whole but then it resets the vicious circle, dominated by guilt and indulged deviancy, which only continues to accelerate with each turn. This dichotomy causes her great stress and anguish and creates a cataclysmic inner conflict that makes it harder for her to deal with her past and live guilt-free in the present.

 

In those moments of contemplation, when she tries to figure out who and what she is, because she sees herself as a sinful depraved creature she over-identifies through a religious lens and sees her inner nature as a demon or through distorted metaphors – she really does believe that she is The Whore of Babylon in Gethsemane.

​

Such a negative worldview inevitably affects her self-esteem and at one point she describes herself as outwardly beautiful but inwardly contemptible.

​

To summarise, it could be said that she has embraced religion to some extent, which is about a set of rules and routines (e.g. I clean my teeth religiously twice a day – a secularised usage of the word religion) and failed to embrace an inner living faith which is the root of hope. The Bible defines faith as being confidence in the hope of something yet unseen (my paraphrase of Hebrews 11:1).

​

The real cause of this inner conflict, while having been hinted at previously, run much deeper than even how she understands it and will finally be revealed in Book 3: The Journey Home.