What if I'm Wrong?

“From keeping nativity scenes in public buildings to keeping “one nation under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, defending America from the perceived takeover of secular humanism became the purpose of the modern church… Evangelicals read Christian books and listened to Christian music. They sent their kids to Christian colleges, where they received Christian educations.  Apologists and theologians talked about the biblical approach to homosexuality, the biblical response to global warming, and the biblical view of parenting… 

It was within this social context that I and an entire generation of young evangelicals constructed our Christian worldviews. You might say that we were born ready with answers. We grew up with a fervent devotion to the inerrancy of the Bible and learned that whatever the question might be, an answer could be found within its pages... To experience the knowledge of Jesus Christ, we didn’t need to be born again; we simply needed to be born. Our parents, our teachers, and our favorite theologians took it from there, providing us with all the answers before we ever had time to really wrestle with the questions.”

– Rachel Held Evans in Evolving in Monkeytown

If there were a sentence in the above quote about the Evangelical homeschooling movement, it would perfectly describe my upbringing.  I grew up hearing the story of how I would tell people, when I was only four years old, that Jesus climbed down a ladder from heaven into my heart.  God was a character in my life who was always there.  I did not, in any serious way, allow myself to entertain the notion that God might not exist or that God might not be who I was told he was until after I had graduated from (Christian) college and gotten married. 

The absurd thing to me now, is that I honestly, with all my heart, believed that I knew God existed because I believed I had considered all the evidence and come to that conclusion myself.  I would hear other people talk about their experiences with God and I would incorporate that language into my own talk about God, not really understanding that I was equating believing the right answers about God with believing in God.

I think I’ve come a long way since then.  I wrestled with my questions and discovered a faith that is entirely different from what I was taught, but one that I embrace with all my heart. 

One of my biggest struggles now is how I teach my kids about God.  All that stuff that Rachel Held Evans explained happened because parents wanted their kids to know God in the way they had come to experience God.  They thought they were doing what was best for their kids.  With the homeschooling and the Christian everything, my parents thought they were doing what was best for me.  But I do not want to indoctrinate my kids into my faith; I want to help my kids understand God in a way he is real to them.

Yet, what if, by attempting to discard most of what my parents did and take a different approach, I'm just screwing my kids up in a different way than the way I was screwed up?

What if embracing their questions and not forcing them to accept my answers leaves them wishy-washy and completely unsure of anything?

What if not insisting they attend church with me every Sunday leaves them without a love for The Body of Christ?

What if allowing for discussion and not expecting immediate, unquestioning obedience undermines their respect for authority?

What if teaching them to respect other religions leads them away from Christianity?

What if I’m doing it all wrong?

These are only some of the questions that keep me from going back to sleep when I wake up at 3AM.  

I realize that raising kids is a process, not a project.  Some things I will certainly mess up no matter how much I don’t want to and some things I will get right on accident.  I keep coming back to these words from Brian Zahnd that give me hope that allowing my kids to grow up in the way that they should go, will at least be less damaging than the heavy-handed approach I was raised with: 

Perhaps we will have to believe that the gospel story itself, faithfully told, still has the capacity to astonish. Perhaps we will have to believe that the risen Christ can still make himself known in astonishing ways.  When we take it upon ourselves to explain the gospel so we can promote its benefits and get people to sign on, we unintentionally but inevitably diminish the mystery and beauty of the gospel.

I had to realize for myself that even though I’d known about God my entire life, my faith was not my own.  It was indoctrinated into me and wasn’t something I understood for myself. 

It wasn’t until I discovered for myself the astonishment, beauty, and mystery of the Gospel that I was able to know in the depths of my being that I wanted to be a Christian.  It may sound somewhat reckless, but I don’t even care if it is true.  It is faith.  I cannot prove it.  The acknowledgement that it may not be true in no way diminishes my hope that it is or my certainty that this is the way I want to live my life.

If I try to make anyone else, my kids included, experience God my way, I’m not leaving space for them to be astonished by God in their own way.  Drawing again from Zhand: 

Christianity is not a science; it is a faith…. Christianity is a confession, not an explanation. We confess Christ; we don’t explain Christ. We confess the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, and the Ascension, though we cannot fully explain these mysteries. We leave room for mystery. We honor the mystery. We recognize the beauty in the mystery. 

Perhaps I’m not doing everything right.  Perhaps my kids will have to spend years unraveling the way they were raised and will have to find their own way that looks nothing like mine, just like I had to do.  I hope not, but I acknowledge that it is possible. 

All I can do now is to keep raising them in the most loving way I know how and continue to confess Christ and Incarnation and Resurrection and all the other mysteries in my daily life.  I can leave room for them to be astonished by the beauty and mystery of the Gospel in their own way and remind them it is okay if we don’t always come to the same understanding. 

And I can trust that if it is true – that if God is who I believe he is – that it’s enough.

A Prayer Attributed to St. Francis

Lord, make us instruments of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon;

where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.

Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

– A Prayer attributed to St. Francis

 

Grant that we may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

I feel increasingly isolated from people I used to feel close to.  I don’t know what to say to anyone, so I’ve barely been saying anything at all.  I spend a lot of time reading, a lot of time "listening" on various websites, but not a lot of time on Facebook and not a lot of time engaging in conversations.  I have emails and messages that have been sitting unanswered for weeks.  It isn't that I don't want to connect with people; it really is that I have no idea what words to use. 

I'm afraid if I start talking, I'll say what I really want to say.  I want to say that I feel I was sold distortions of Scripture, but that I have a different understanding now and for the first time in a long time I don’t feel I have to apologize for being a Christian.  I want to say that our preoccupation in this country with guns and violence and personal liberty in the name of God grieves my heart.  I want to say that I do not see love in exclusion, I do not see truth in nationalism, and I do not hear the Gospel in every-man-for-himself.  I want to say that I am falling in love with psalms and collects and the Church and – maybe for the first time – with my faith. 

But when I've floated variations of these words to the people I used to talk to, I’m often met with cautioning admonitions or incredulous looks or side-glances or criticism for sounding like I agree with the “wrong” people.

I keep asking myself if it’s me.  I wrack my brain, going over conversations word-for-word in my head, asking if anything that came out of my mouth sounded like I was judging.  Did I speak words that sounded like disapproval?  Did I sound like I was insisting on agreement with my point-of-view?  Did I seem insincere when I said, “I understand why people think differently, but this is how I understand it”?  No matter how lightly I tread on the eggshells, they end up broken and slicing tender flesh.

I want to say out loud the things my heart keeps repeating.  

I want to speak Mercy.

Mercy, not sacrifice.   

Lord, have Mercy.  

Lord, in your Mercy, hear our prayer.  

I want to say that sometimes in the way-too-early morning, when I’m awake because my mind started racing at 3AM and rendered going back to sleep hopeless, I get up and walk outside and it’s dark and calm and I hear “be still” echoing in my thoughts.  I want to say that in those moments I realize I am finally starting to believe that this faith, this hope, may actually be a beautiful way to spend my life. 

I don’t want to argue.  If other people experience God in a different way than I am or if they have a different understanding than I have, I accept that.  I am not trying to convince anyone of anything or talk them out of what they think.  We can disagree.  All I want is to look at someone in the face and tell them how wrecked I feel and see understanding instead of disapproval. 

And on one level, I know it isn’t wrong to want to talk to someone who understands.  I know it is okay for me to wish for that connection.  Yet, this isn’t really about me and I don’t know how to balance it.  I’m failing miserably.  I can’t avoid people I love because it hurts to get those looks and feel their judgment.  And if another person isn’t offering understanding or consolation or love to me, I should still be seeking to understand and to console and to love.  But how do I remember to listen to understand instead of talking to be understood? How do I learn to soothe and comfort when tensions are high?  How do I communicate love in the face of disapproval? 

I think it may have something to do with a table. 

And breaking bread. 

Perhaps I should start there.

Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love. 

Lord, in your mercy, hear my prayer. 

Where to Go From Here

After we got married, Ryan and I rented one half of a duplex in a tiny, map-dot-of-a-town, right off US 68, forty miles north of Cincinnati.  We thought of going on a vacation early that fall, but then remembered we had recently graduated from college with a stupid amount of student-loan debt and he was getting ready to go back to school and we had no money for a vacation.  Instead, we both used our paid vacation week to stay home and tackle painting white the hideous grease-brown cabinets in the rental kitchen.

And we seriously underestimated the investment of time and effort required for that task.

Thoroughly exhausted and with our patience wearing dangerously thin, we decided to take one day and do something away from the house and away from those damn cabinets.  We got in my old Nissan and started driving south on US 68.  (Because obviously, if you're sick of working together for 18 hours a day on a tedious project, the ideal break from that would be to spend an entire day together in the car.)

I don't remember anything we talked about.  We probably spent a lot of time listening to music and not talking at all.  I remember we pulled over at a few places along the way to take photos, as well as taking a lot of drive-by pictures out the window.  I remember that by the time we got to Lexington, Kentucky the trip wasn't seeming like such an awesome idea.  While we could drive away exhaustion and frustration for a little while with the open road ahead of us, we still had to drive all the way back home to our bills and our real life and those damn cabinets.

And it was a long drive back.  

Sometimes I think about what it would have been like if we hadn't gone back.  I'm not talking about actually running away, I just wonder what it would have been like if we hadn't felt like we had to do the standard jobs-kids-house thing and had done something totally different instead.  There were times we talked about it.  We talked about moving to the city, where I'd go to grad school.  We talked about moving to North Carolina so he could pursue a different type of job opportunity.  But we didn't.  We always went back to real life -- near our families and where we grew up -- just like we did that day when we got to the other side of Lexington and turned around.

Our road-trip experience is only going to get me so far as a metaphor for my spiritual journey, but as I was reading the Daily Office this morning, something reminded of that trip and that same feeling of wanting to keep going because there were so few good reasons to go back.

In terms of my spiritual life, there are days I ask myself what was the big deal with how things were, back when I was still trying to fit that ideal of the good Christian girl my parents tried to raise me to be.  Some days I wonder what the hell I'm doing with all this unraveling and shattering and searching and weaving.  I am tired.  I feel alienated from a lot of people I used to feel like I was close to.  Would it really have been so bad to have stayed where I was?

I read the words of other people who have left behind a lot of the same things I have discarded and they seem so sure of their journey.  They are so sure of it that they can blog about it almost every day while writing a book about it and debating their thoughts about it on social media.  They have answers and direction and purpose.  It's not that I want to be those people, it's just that their certainty makes me wonder how I am still so unsure.  If I made the conscious decision to unravel it all and burn down what was left and leave all those paradigms in the dust, why do I still have that feeling in the pit of my stomach that I have no idea where I'm headed?

And that's the thing about going somewhere without any real plan.  At some point, the sense of adventure loses its luster and you get tired and irritated at yourself for agreeing to such a thing and you can't decide if it is worse to keep going or to give up and turn around.  Even if you're mostly sure it is worth it to press on, you can't be sure that what's ahead is actually better than what you left behind.  Perhaps what you're getting away from was painful, but maybe the unknown isn't actually better.

I am not sure.  I continue reading and questioning and praying and processing.  I'm squinting, trying to determine if this direction is really where I should be going.  I have this feeling that it's right there.  I can't see it, I can only sense that ahead is a better understanding of this beautiful mystery of the gospel and that this journey is about grasping the hem of Incarnation and astonishment and redemption and love.

I recently read Beauty Will Save the World by Brian Zahnd.  In it, he writes, "To rediscover Christianity in all of its astonishing mystery and beauty will utterly overwhelm us and make all of our notions about its devaluation feel completely redundant. It will leave our skepticism in shreds."  That is exactly how I feel.  Everything is slanting and my cynicism is falling away and it seems that rock around my heart is starting to crumble.  I can feel myself being broken and wrecked and I feel raw and exposed and I'm quite honestly a little frightened, but I keep going.  In a way, I'm not sure I could turn around, even though it seems that might be easier.

At this point I can't tell if it's me and my stubbornness or if the Holy Spirit may actually exist in the way I've always wondered was truly possible.  I really hope it's all true.  I really hope that if I keep going, someday, I'll manage to reach the point where my awareness of the mystery and beauty assures me I'm going in the right direction, even if I'm still not sure of where I'll end up.

I really don't want to go back.

Between God and Me and No One Else

A recent conversation with my husband, Ryan:

Me: "I have a hair appointment Thursday.  I'm going to have her cut my hair even shorter this time.  And dye it a little darker, too."
Ryan: "Okay."
Me: "It's kind of annoying having to go in for appointments more frequently to keep it shorter.  And always having to flat-iron it so it doesn't look weird.  I have honestly considered just shaving it off.  That would be way easier."
Ryan: "Haha.  Okay.  Your hair, your head."
Me: "Good answer, Babe."

And that is representative of how Ryan always responds in this type of conversation, not just regarding my hair.  My fitness level, my decision to have a permanent contraception procedure, my tattoos: I cannot think of anything having to do with my body – appearance or otherwise – that he has ever made me feel was anything other than my own decision.  And not out of indifference, either, but in a way that makes it clear that he will support whatever I decide.

It would simply never occur to my husband to think that I need his permission for any of these choices.  I'm only recently beginning to fully appreciate this about him.

When I was twelve, I wanted to start shaving my legs.  I tried to talk to my mom about it, but she told me I had to ask my dad.  My dad examined my shins (yes, really), said he didn't think they were that bad, so no shaving.  The discussion continued off-and-on for a few days, but he just didn't think it was necessary yet.  His mind was made up, the answer was no.

This is just one example of the many ways I was taught that choices about my body (or really any woman’s body) could not be made without the “wisdom” of a male authority.  In such teaching, the father is the intermediary until a girl is married, then her husband fills that role.  I still feel a twinge of humiliation about some of these things and still wrestle with the effects of being taught these (and other) distorted views about my body.  I know that my parents’ actions were a result of what they were taught in Evangelical/Homeschooling culture.  I know that they were not trying to humiliate me and they truly believed they were teaching me “Godly” principles.  I know I should be thankful that there are other areas where they did not adhere so strictly to the teachings from that culture. 

But still.

For years now, I have shaved my legs every single day.  Even during the cruel Midwestern winters when layers of warm clothing prevent so much as an ankle from peeking out.  Even when I was nine-months pregnant and unable to see my feet.  Even at times when Ryan and I are on completely opposite work schedules and don't see each other for days.  I shave my legs every single day for no other reason than I absolutely hate the way it feels not to have my legs shaved.  Read into that whatever else you will, but it’s my body and I’ll shave my legs if I want to.  I’ll also shave my head if I want to and get tattoos if I want to and never be pregnant again if I don’t want to.

I realize that will sound dangerously rebellious to some people; even as I wrote it, I could hear the teachings from my youth in the back of my mind trying to make me feel guilty for the boldness with which I am so publicly defying them.  But I've come to believe that much of what I was taught about bodies is a distortion of the truth.  Jesus was the Word made flesh, the mystery of the divine in physical, human form.  Why would God choose that if human bodies were something to be ashamed of?  Why would he give me a body if I couldn't even be trusted with the opportunity to make good choices with it?

I do not need to be ashamed of my body, nor do I need to look for the permission of some falsely-established human authority (father, husband, or otherwise) for the choices I make regarding it.  As long as I am not inflicting harm or dishonoring my commitments, no one else has a right to tell me what I should or should not do with the body God entrusted to me.

In fact, no one else has the right to make decisions for another person's body at all.  At my most basic, I am a person in a body – before I am a woman, a wife, or a mother.  A person’s body requires neither the approval nor the permission of another person. Maybe some of the choices I make (like my tattoos) are, at least in a way or in part, a physical symbol that I’m learning to embrace my body as a gift God gave to me and that I refuse to go back to a time when I was made to feel I couldn't be trusted to decide what is best for it.

And if I live more fully in my body with tattoos and shaved legs, that is between God and me and no one else.

"I do not recall ever being told that my flesh is good in church, 

or that God takes pleasure in it. 

Yet this is the central claim of the incarnation—

that God trusted flesh and blood to bring divine love to earth." - Barbara Brown Taylor

Speaking the Same Language

I was homeschooled beginning in forth grade until my senior year, when I enrolled in the local public high school. I went to classes there in the morning and took courses at community college in the afternoon. During that one year in public high school, I shared a table in study hall with two exchange students, Andre' and Maria. I know what you’re thinking and yes, that does tell you everything you need to know about how well I fit in that year. Lucky for me, Maria and Andre' are fun, friendly, welcoming people and became some of my dearest friends that year.

Andre' was from Brazil and spoke Portuguese and Maria was from Spain and spoke Spanish.  I am not a linguist, so forgive me if I don’t explain this well, but apparently the more Cuban dialect of Spanish that Maria spoke was enough similar to the Portuguese Andre' spoke, that they could have conversations with each other in their own native languages and almost completely understand each other. They weren't speaking the same language, but their own knowledge of words and phrases, along with context and possibly some English thrown in from time to time, allowed them to communicate with each other more effectively that way than in English.  It was fascinating to observe their interactions when they did this.

Several weeks ago, while discussing my new church with a friend, he asked me why I feel it is so important to go to church when I can clearly maintain my faith without attending church (as I have been doing for almost a year), through reading and personal study. He then admitted that it has always surprised him that I identify as “Christian,” because I don’t put off a “Christian vibe.” 

Back in my youth group days, a comment like that (especially from a "non-Christian") would have sent me into some sort of existential crisis, but I knew exactly what he meant. He and I have always been able to communicate well and discuss various topics even though we have some fundamental differences on faith and politics and social issues.

Something about this reminded me of Maria and Andre'.

I realized that the most meaningful conversations I have about my faith tend to be with people who do not share it. I think the reason I connect so well with my non-faith friends when we talk belief is that these friends care about the process by which we arrive at our beliefs in the same way I do. We may not have arrived at the same conclusions or share the same faith, but we understand each other because my sick-soul, messy, uncertain faith-process quite similarly mirrors the journey that led them to choose not to believe. Parallel journeys with different conclusions, similar enough that we can understand each other even if we haven't arrived at the same place.

Different languages, but with dialects that allow for connection and understanding and community. It is beautiful, and I would argue, holy, even if they would not use that same word.

I know. None of that explains why I need church.

As much as I care about and need my Atheist/Agnostic/Other friends, I've come to see that I also need to be part of a community where I can discuss my faith without the necessity of translating our dialects back-and-forth between faith and non-faith language. I have found a few of these people via blogging and social media and I don't mean to downplay how much I appreciate those connections, but I need some of those in-person connections as well.

I do have people in my life with whom I have Christianity in common. I have my family and I have friends from previous church communities. Yet even though we share the language of faith, our dialects are so drastically different it can be difficult to communicate without misunderstanding each other. We may try to have discussions, but we’re often left gazing at each other over a seemingly untraversable chasm of theological differences. I may have a close enough relationship with some of them that we can talk to each other without shouting angrily over the chasm, but our attempts can leave us exhausted from the effort required to make sure we are questioning thoughts and belief rather than attacking each other. It is often easier to find a common, non-faith-related topic to discuss to avoid making too much of our differences.

I need to be in community with people of faith who speak the same faith language and dialect that I speak. This is not to say that I do not love those who speak their faith differently or will stop trying to connect with them over our differences This is not to say that I no longer need my non-faith friends, because I do need them, and I love and appreciate them more than they could know. Yet I am also longing to sit at a table and hold hands in prayer and break bread and make eye contact with at least a few people who speak faith with the same dialect, accent, and syntax I use. I know we won't agree on everything, but we will be able to speak freely without translation required.

And that is why I need church.

Go Do

I work in IT.  That is not to say that I am an IT person, because I am not.  I simply work for an IT company, writing reports about things that go wrong and tracking identified actions to completion.  As part of the training I’ve received in this role, I finished course work and two projects to receive a certification for Lean Six Sigma Green Belt. 

Stay with me here, I promise the entire post is not about this. 

Lean Six Sigma projects are quite detailed with specific steps of data gathering and planning and risk analysis and result measuring and progress reporting.  If you manage a Lean Six Sigma project, you will likely be involved for months, possibly years, completing all the steps and requirements before achieving the desired outcome.  In the course of planning a project, however, if you identify what is called a “go do,” you can simply get the people you need and go do it, without all of the following of steps required for a full project.

I’ve been thinking that for quite some time my blogging has been similar to a drawn-out Lean Six Sigma project.  I’ve spent a lot of time researching and analyzing and writing, mainly regarding my faith, but without identifying or completing any go do items.   Not that I haven't been doing anything.  I work full time and have kids.  What I mean is that I haven't completed go do items resulting from all of this unraveling and listening and reading and weaving I've been writing about.

It is not necessarily bad that I’ve spent so much time writing in this way.  Sometimes writing is the only way I can organize my thoughts and figure out the how and why behind my feelings.  I type and type and type until things start to make sense or until I get to the root questions and then I can go back and cut and paste it into some kind of meaningful thought.  Writing is very important to me.  I don’t intend to stop writing.

What I do need to figure out is what direction my writing needs to take.  I have been moved or inspired or infuriated by news stories or other blog posts I’ve read and have started writing responses to many of them.  I have numerous drafts sitting in my dashboard hashing out my thoughts on everything from gun control to abortion to modesty culture to motherhood.  Some of these drafts are even completed and edited, but I always hesitate to click "publish" and almost always talk myself out of it  I’m simply not sure that is the direction I should be taking at this point. 

There are some truly amazing bloggers out there who have a calling to delve into these topics and turn them over with their words to expose the hurt and truth and complexities.  I appreciate those writers and reading their perspectives is extremely beneficial to me as I wrestle with where I stand.  But I also read books and listen to sermons and have conversations with people, often stopping just short of certainty or complete agreement on any of the seemingly urgent topics of the day.  It seems to me that if I’m unable to come up with an explanation that does justice to the complexity of how I arrived where I am with my beliefs, I’m not sure it is helpful for me to write in a way that is anything other than trying to make sense of my personal struggles.

So instead of writing to convince others to think what I think or to criticize what others are saying/doing/believing, I need to focus my writing on what allows me to work out where I should be going and what I should be doing.  And then I need to go.  And do.  Again, I love to read what is written by the people I respect and admire and I love to write.  But more and more I've realized that I need to focus on doing.  Not that writing isn’t doing anything, but I can't only read and think and write without it producing action on my part. 

Now that I think of it, it’s not entirely accurate what I wrote earlier about not finding a single go do in all this time.  I did identify one: find a church.  And I did it.  And it feels awesome to have stopped obsessing over the whole church thing and to actually have done something about it.  Now I just have to figure out what is my next go do and go do it.

Truth

I have learned a lot in the past few weeks.  If that sounds unpleasant, I assure you it has been much more painful than I am making it sound.  It seems as though every time I turn around I've messed something up or misunderstood someone or realized I've gotten off track or discovered something that hurts.

One of the many things I've learned is that the truth can be especially painful when I realize how far it is from my true feelings; The truth of a situation is not changed by how I truly feel about it.  This is probably something I knew once, had learned before, yet lost sight of.  Sometimes the lessons you have to re-learn are the most painful because in addition to what they re-teach you is the sting felt from knowing you’d let yourself forget.

Especially when you are dealing with the truth.

I'll use my job as an example of what I've learned about truth:  One truth about my job is that I need it.  We rely on the income I make from my job to help pay for things like food and a place to live.  Another truth about my job is that it is actually pretty great, all things considered.  I work from home four days a week, which allows me to see my family a lot more than if I was required to work in the office all five days and had to spend an hour each day commuting.  I'm also able to be home during some of the time Ryan is at work, which means one of us is here every day to get the boys off the bus instead of having to hire a sitter to do that.  Those things are truth.

However, when you factor in my true feelings about my job, well, that is a different story.  I don’t hate the actual function of my job, but there are many process and political things I deal with daily that make it quite unpleasant much of the time.  So, the truth is that I have a great job and I should be thankful for it, but my true feelings about it do not always reflect that truth.

I've long believed that a person cannot change his or her feelings simply by desiring to feel a different way.  I have written about this multiple times.  I feel how I feel.  Of course, how I behave from those feelings and the choices I make about them are my responsibility.  I have a say in what I choose and how I act.  However, I can tell myself a million times to feel a certain way or not feel a certain way, but that does not, in reality, change my feelings. 

Feelings are feelings and feelings are true.  They are true because they are the way the heart and mind process life.  Yet just because my feelings about something are true, does not automatically make them truth.  Truth exists, in reality, regardless of how I feel about it. Truth is not dependent on my feelings either way.  Nothing can be truth without also being true, but my feelings can be true without being truth.  And if I screw up and let the true-ness of my feelings get the better of me and allow myself to lose sight of the truth, I am at fault. 

My feelings do not change truth. 

I can want with all my heart for what I feel to be true, but it doesn't change the possibility of it being truth if it isn't; it is either truth or it is not. Sometimes the truth is better than I'd expected.  Sometimes the truth is difficult to face. Sometimes I may not even know what the truth is, only that it is different from what I'd thought. Sometimes the truth is a happy realization, but sometimes the truth breaks my heart.  Regardless, what is true in the way I feel is not necessarily the truth.

There are my true feelings.

And there is truth.

I would be wise to not confuse the former for the latter.

Cost

It's funny how when you're growing up you often don't realize how much things cost.  When I was little, I didn't realize that most of our house was cold in the winter because the fuel oil that ran the furnace was too expensive to crank the furnace up; I just thought my parents liked using a wood-burning stove that only heated more than one room if you used a box fan to circulate the warm air into the next room.  I didn't know we weren't allowed to ask for things at the store because we didn't have money to buy extra stuff; I thought it was rude to ask for things.  I didn't realize that I was wearing boy jeans because the only hand-me-downs that fit me were from my equally-skinny older male cousin; I really didn't give it a second thought.

It probably wasn't until I was about eight or nine, when my dad was established at a better-paying job and there was more money and the house was warmer in winter and I had more girl jeans than boys' hand-me-downs, that I realized money had been so tight before.  Granted, even in the lean times we still had it much better than a lot of other people.  Even if dinner was Banquet pot pies that could be purchased five-for-a-dollar on sale, we never went without.  Not ever.  My dad always worked long hours and we always had what we really needed.  But it wasn't until I was older that I understood both the fortune of never going without, as well as how stressful it must have been for my parents when times were tough -- when I was older and had a better understanding of what things cost.

Even though circumstances are a bit different for my kids than they were for me when I was little, we still want them to understand what things cost.  We talk to them about why we work and how things are paid for and why we don't have some things and why, even if we do have the money for something, that doesn't mean we are necessarily going to buy it.  As I was thinking about the way we are teaching the boys about money, I also started considering how teaching them about what things cost isn't only about money.  I want them to learn to be wise about their money, of course, but making wise decisions about cost is so much more than considering if they have enough money for a new toy or should be saving for a rainy day.

It is important to me for the boys to understand that there is often a cost associated with our actions an choices.  I want to be deliberate in teaching them about cost -- financial and otherwise -- instead of merely hoping they figure it out for themselves. I want to help them learn to weigh cost and make wise decisions for themselves, rather than me always telling them what they should choose. 

When they ask me “Why?” a million-gazillion times a day in response to every single thing I say to them from, “Go brush your teeth” to “Don’t swing that metal bat in the house,” my answer is almost always, “Why do you think?”  Of course we have discussions about why, but I want them to come up with answers to these obvious questions on their own, without me having to constantly explain personal responsibility and the consequences of their actions.  I want them to think about their choices and the cost of those choices.

I don’t want them to be paralyzed by the fear of making the wrong choice, but I do want them to learn to be deliberate and careful about what they choose. For now it may just be that if they choose to have soda with dinner on weekly treat night, they can't have ice cream for dessert.  Which would they rather have? It may be that if they choose not to do their homework when it is time, they don't get their 30 minutes of PlayStation time after dinner.  Which is more important to them, putting off homework or having time for something fun later?

Those are obviously not life-changing decisions, but my hope is that even on the days when it seems they will never "get it," somewhere in the recesses of their minds they are learning the importance of choices and the importance of owning their own choices.  I hope that as they grow they learn to hear those questions for themselves when they are making decisions: "What will happen if I do this?  What will happen if I don't?  Why am I doing this?  What is it costing me?  Is it worth it?"

I hope they will choose what is right, even at the cost of the approval of others.  I hope they will choose fun, but not at the expense of others.  I hope they will choose to be daring when they should and guarded when they should and have the discernment to know when the time is right for each.  I hope they will be willing to take risks, but only when they are also willing to accept that the results of those risks might not be exactly what they'd anticipated. Some things are absolutely worth the cost and some are not.  I hope I'm teaching them to discern the difference. 

And I pray that when they look back they will see that we worked together to help them learn to make the best choices for themselves, rather than me making all their decisions for them.  They will mess up.  They will not always make the right choice.  But I never want them to feel like their choices were all dictated by me.  I know I'm not a perfect parent.  I know I mess up in numerous ways.  I know I don't always make the right choices for myself.  I know this is all going to get increasingly more difficult as they get older.  But, God... I pray this is one thing I'm doing right.  Even at the cost of my own sanity.

Ugly and Scary and Stubborn

In his book, The Authenticity of Faith: The Varieties and Illusions of Religious Experience, Richard Beck uses Sigmund Freud’s assertions about religious belief in Future of an Illusion and William James’ observations in The Varieties of Religious Experience as the framework for analyzing religious experience.  He utilizes James' "healthy-mind" and "sick-soul" worldviews throughout the book as he explores and tests various dynamics of faith.  While James includes multiple religions in his work, Beck chooses to focus on how these descriptions apply to the Christian faith.  There is no way that in a single blog post I can do justice to the full content of The Authenticity of Faith and all the details, data, and insight it provides; I will, however, attempt to delve into how reading this book has given me a deeper understand of my own religious experience.

For the sake of expedience and context, I'll quickly explain that according to James, healthy-mind believers are able to find meaning in their lives by focusing on good and their faith is comforting to them because they believe it can overcome evil and suffering.  They embrace their faith wholeheartedly and rarely, if ever, entertain thoughts that it could be misplaced.  When bad things happen in the present, they seek consolation in their beliefs and in the promise of a joyous afterlife.

In contrast to the healthy-mind worldview, the sick-soul believers are those for whom their faith does not create a constant sense of well-being and for whom the promise of a wonderful afterlife is not a consolation in the face of existential discomfort.  Beck describes the sick-souls as those who "exist in the murky middle between belief and disbelief, between faith and unfaith."  These are believers who, despite doubts and uncertainty, continue to choose the realm of faith.  Beck goes on to explain:

I think the sick soul is willing to live in between faith and unfaith, belief and disbelief, because this is the only way they can remain truthful to their lived experience. The pieces of life and the life of faith are not so easily fit together. There are gaps, there are missing pieces... life is experienced as broken glass. Life is experienced as shattered... And as we handle the pieces, we are often cut and wounded. Life resists our attempts at putting the pieces together, intellectually and emotionally.  As a result the sick soul lingers, perhaps for a lifetime, in this ambiguous location, holding onto pieces, God among them, that don't quite fit together.

I've been trying for days to work out how to explain what this has shown me about my own experience.  I am still new enough to the study of both theology and psychology that I have no delusions I fully understand everything Beck explains or everything about the sick soul; I also know that reading one book on a subject does not made me an expert.  However, it is compelling to me to know that the sick-soul is something that has been identified and studied by people who do have a lot of experience in theology and psychology.  Again, I'm not an expert, but based on what I know so far I can say that I identify very much with the sick-soul experience of faith.

Growing up in an environment where it seemed, at least to me, that behaving in a healthy-minded way was the measure of a healthy faith, I always felt like something was wrong with me. I would hear people talking about their own experiences with God and feel like an outsider.  It has been a somewhat emotional experience to read about the sick-soul and realize that is how I experience my faith.  I have spent years trying and trying and trying and try, try, trying to figure out and explain why I simply do not identify with much of what other people have told me about their faith.  It is the oddest sense of relief to learn that someone has studied and can explain my experience based on real studies and data.  It also helps me justify how I can feel the way I do about my faith without abandoning it.

I've certainly considered giving up my faith, but that choice has never been right for me.  On some level, I feel in my bones and in my soul that God IS, even if I'm not completely convinced that my religion has it one-hundred percent right in what we say about God.  I know that there is something to my faith that is real, something intangible I can't deny, even though that knowledge is not necessarily comforting to me. I am also not consoled in the here and now by the thought of heaven or some better future existence.  I never experience or hear of a real-life horror and think "Yes, that's awful now, but it's going to be okay because someday we will all be in heaven" in the way that healthy-minded faith has a tendency to do.  I have learned to embrace my faith this way, despite all the sharp pieces that don't completely make sense or fit together.

I know this post is getting extremely long and perhaps I haven't explained enough of the background for this to make sense to anyone else, but I’ve tried to include the main points that have been rattling around in my head and heart for days now.  I don't want to give the impression that being a sick-soul is a negative thing, because Beck argues the opposite and discusses several of its virtues; I simply haven't highlighted them here because I know that I often fall far, far short of those virtues.  I'm not trying to present myself as an example of an ideal sick soul, I'm merely attempting to explain how identifying with that faith lens has given me hope. Imperfect as I am, knowing the potential virtues of the sick soul gives me something to aspire to.

As I've been evaluating all that I've learned about the healthy mind and sick soul faith experiences, I've frequently gone back and re-read entire sections of the book.  I'm still trying to wrap my thoughts around the various aspects of both worldviews and I have been thinking a lot about what is truth in my faith.  There are multiple verses in the Bible that give examples of either the healthy-mind or the sick-soul, but I keep coming back to Micah 6:8, which could really apply to either: "The LORD has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."

I may be a misfit in some religious circles and faith discussions. I may still be working all of this out in my head.  I may still wish at times I could be a healthy minded person because that would solve many of my struggles, but my mind doesn't work that way.  I may be a sick soul, but my faith is still real to me.  It may be a murky faith, even ugly and scary to some people, but I refuse to pretend it is anything else.  For me, my faith looks like caring about justice, it looks like loving mercy, and it looks like walking with God in the most humble way I can – as imperfectly as I may be managing any of those things right now. 

And my faith also looks like love – murky, flawed, imperfect, broken, stubborn love that perseveres despite all my doubts.





Note: I apologize that I have woefully oversimplified some of Richard Beck's very thorough analysis of religious experience and highly suggest that if you are interested at all in theology or psychology, you read his book. 

Do Better

I mostly do my job from home these days, but I go in to the the office a few times each month.  My cubicle in the office has tan walls, with a black overhead and black file drawers.  It is just like everyone else’s cubicle, but I helped choose the colors.  Years ago, when the company was updating the building, I sat next to Jen, the facilities manager, and those are the kinds of things she let me help with. We also chose carpet and made friends with the guys from the cubicle vendor who spent weeks on site setting up tan walls and black drawers. Usually I don’t think about that stuff, but I was thinking about it today.

Back then, I worked in the office every day.  As admin to one of our vice presidents, I didn't have any team members and since there were no other facilities people, neither did Jen.  Because she was in charge of facilities, she always managed to find a place for us to relocate and remain cubicle neighbors, even as other departments were shuffled and people were moved around the building.

We talked each other through many a work-week and commiserated about everything from bosses to car problems to relationships.  We ate lunch together most days.  She talked about the trips she and her partner took to the lake and I talked about home improvement projects.  We shared memories about our families and growing up.  I found out that she has almost no photographs from her childhood because they were destroyed when her dad’s house burned down years ago.  I know that she always knew she liked girls and never even tried dating a guy.  I know that she and her prayer buddy from church prayed with each other every day on their way to work, each from her own car with phones on speaker.

When I told her I was expecting my first kid, she was thrilled.  She loves kids.  She put up with me and my hormones every day and managed to contain her laughter on her side of the cubicle wall when I turned into crazy-pregnant-bitch over stupid work stuff and gave people a piece of my mind (They totally deserved it, but I swear it was the pregnancy hormones.  And because I had never been like that before, she thought it was hilarious).  She was one of the first non-family people to visit me in the hospital and hold Luke after he was born.  Weeks later, she put up with my incoherent ramblings when I returned to work from maternity leave, a blurry-eyed first-time mom, still trying to figure out what to do with the beautiful, maddening baby at home who woke up every two hours, all night long, for months on end.

When I transferred to a different job on a team and had to move to the other side of the building to sit near them, we both got very busy with new responsibilities and things changed.  We still tried to do lunch from time to time, but it was difficult to coordinate schedules.  We both had too much going on.  I didn't even hear it from her directly when her job was outsourced and they let her go.  We played phone tag a few times after that, but then nothing.  I haven’t talked to her in several years.

I know this is what often happens when people work together every day and see each other all the time and know each other’s stories and then move across the building or to another company across town.  You think you will keep in touch, but you don’t.  Life is busy and hectic and there just. isn't  time. And when you've had as many jobs as I've had -- working at least two jobs from the time I was seventeen until Luke was born when I was twenty-six -- it is impossible to keep track of every single person.

But today, when I walked in to the office and sat in my cubicle with the tan walls that I helped her choose, I thought of how nice it would be if Jen were on the other side of the wall and I missed her. A lot.

There are some people it is not okay to lose touch with.  There are some people you have to keep track of.  There are some people who are worth the effort and who deserve better than giving up after the second missed phone call.

I have to do better.  I don't know if I'll be able to get back in touch with Jen.  We have some mutual friends who might have her current number, so I'm going to try.  But whether I can or not, I was reminded this morning that regardless of what job I have or what other busy stuff I have going on in my life, it really is the people who deserve to be a priority.  Losing touch with people who are that important to me is not okay.  I may not have a calling in a job I'm passionate about, but my job has allowed me to meet and get to know some remarkably wonderful people.

That is worth keeping in mind.  That is worth making the effort to stay in touch.  That is worth making sure I do better.

Deep Breaths and Shaking Hands

I made myself visit a church this past weekend.  My kids were staying with my parents Saturday night and I impulsively told my mom that I would try to visit a church Sunday morning if they could keep the boys until after lunch.  I immediately hated that I'd said it out loud, thereby committing to it, but sometimes it takes a few seconds of impulsivity for me to push myself into something I’ve been avoiding.  I mean, I can't just keep writing and talking about finding a church and not actually do anything about it.  That's not how it works.

It really shouldn't be that big of a deal.  I've attended church far, far longer in my life than I haven't.  Sure, each congregation has its own culture, but I have been to a lot of different churches and the service part is inherently not that difficult if you are able to sit quietly, follow the lead of people around you, and look forward for an hour.  It should have been easy for me to go.

But it wasn't.

I arrived a little early and sat in my car in the parking lot, The Lumineers playing through the speakers, talking to God in my head, and reminding myself to be open.  That’s when I realized my hands were shaking.  What the heck?  I know I'm an introvert and sometimes intimidated by crowds, but I'm pretty decent at forcing confidence when I need to.  After reflecting on it a few minutes, I concluded it wasn't that I was scared of walking into the building and sitting with people I didn't know, but instead that I am scared of becoming all the things from before that I've worked so hard to unravel and put aside. 

I am afraid of acting like I'm okay with things I'm not okay with because I don't want to rock the boat.  I’m afraid of defaulting back into the lingo and putting back on the front I’d gotten pretty good at before.  I’m afraid that I will feel like I have to hide my heart and my questions and my true voice.  And I'm even more terrified that I will follow through on those feelings and hide those things because that is what it feels like to me to be in church.

But I took a deep breath and got out of the car anyway.

I've been thinking about this and trying to write about it all week.  Now that I've started to understand some of my biggest fears about going back to church, I have to face those fears and navigate the process in a way that addresses them.  I think one thing that is going to help me with this is the realization that I'm not actually looking for a church, I'm listening for a church.

What I'm listening for is a place where people are encouraged to speak with the voice God gave them. We all hear God differently and experience God differently and speak about God differently and this is what give us each our own voice.  I want to hear from and learn others in their own voice, even if what they say doesn't sound like what I would say with my voice.  As long as what is being said does not go against what we knew from scripture to be true about God, there is a lot to learn from hearing things explained through the experiences and voices of other people.  What I am listening for is a church where everyone's voice doesn't sound the same.

I think that when I finally hear in a church that different voices are heard and appreciated, I will know I have found a place where it will be okay for me to speak with my voice instead of through the old filter of what was "acceptable" for me to say or to think. When I find a place where I hear people asking questions, I will know I have found a place where I will be able to ask questions. When I find a place where each person isn't required to speak in the same voice, I will know that I've found a place where I won't have to hide who I am or what I think in order to be part of the community.

So what I really need to do right now is to listen. And listen. And listen.  I need to listen so I can learn and understand.  And when my listening leads me to ask questions, I need to still be respectful of the traditions and the cultures of the congregations I'm visiting.  All of these things are necessary if I want to figure out how to live in a faith community again.  I have no idea if what I'm listening for is something I can find in a local church in the traditional sense, or if it will be in some other kind of regular meeting-together-of-people who are trying to work out and live out their faith with each other outside of the church.  But I do know that trying to find what I'm listening for involves a lot of paying attention and working to really hear what is going on around me. 

I know I need practice listening in a way that helps me learn to form the right kinds of questions that will help me get a true understanding of a church and the people whose voices are heard there.  I know I need to learn to reserve judgement, because first impressions can be misleading.  I know this listening and keeping an open mind and learning the right way to question isn't something I'm going to know how to do overnight and I will probably make some mistakes along the way.  At this point, I am completely overwhelmed, but with a lot of listening, whispered prayers, listening, questions, and listening, I’m going to keep trying. 

And I'm going to keep taking deep breaths and making myself get out of the car, even if my hands are shaking.

A Resolution Update

A little over a month ago I posted a list of books I'd started and needed to finish.  I decided I was going to read at least six of the eight books before starting a new book.

To date, I have finished reading the following books:
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Bossypants by Tina Fey
Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Gospel Medicine by Barbara Brown Taylor

I am still in the process of reading:
Home by Another Way by Barbara Brown Taylor

I gave up on these two (for now):
Right Here, Right Now by Alan Hirsch and Lance Ford
Home: A Memoir of my Early Years by Julie Andrews

And I just started reading The Authenticity of Faith by Richard Beck.  Yep, that’s right.  I started another book before I finished six from my list.  I really tried, but Right Here, Right Now is just not what I need in the here and now.  And as much as I love Julie Andrews, I am going to wait and try her book again when I'm more in the mood for a memoir.

I could have easily finished Home by Another Way by now, but it is my current church service.  Reading Barbara Brown Taylor is my Sunday morning ritual before the boys and I do our scripture and discussion, so I decided not to rush through it just for the sake of meeting my six-book goal.  And really, no matter how wonderful the sermons, they aren't meant for reading an entire book of them straight through in a day or two; it is important to take time to reflect on each one. I decided that rather than waiting till I finish the book of sermons on my Sunday schedule and not reading anything in-between, I'd start The Authenticity of Faith.  It has been on my reading list since I finished Unclean a few months ago and I feel ready to tackle it after finishing several lighter reads.

I guess maybe I should feel a little disappointed that I didn't make myself finish one of the other books to meet my resolution, but I'm not.  It will only take me a few more weeks to finish Home By Another Way and I'm already being challenged by the Beck book, so I think I made the right choice.  I'd rather adjust my goal and keep my reading momentum than take too long of a break and have to struggle to get back into it.  Plus, who really keeps all the terms of their New Years' resolution anyway?

Only Happy Endings - Part 1

I have this thing where I cannot watch movies or television programs with a lot of violence.  This, of course, means that there are a lot of them out there which are raved about by my friends and professional critics alike that I am unable to watch.  Yes, I know it’s just acting and yes, I know all the blood and gore and scars of that violence is fictional, but that doesn’t make any difference to me at all.  When I watch violence on a screen, it deeply disturbs me.

I also have a quirk where I only like books or movies with happy endings.  I know there are literary and cinematic masterpieces this excludes me from enjoying, but I’ve come to accept that.  I do not find tragedy and heartbreak entertaining, so if I am choosing to spend my time on something for the purpose of being entertained, I want things to work out and I want people to be happy. 

From the time I was very young, I read memoir after memoir of persons who lived through some of the worst times in history.  I don't read so many of those anymore, but I do pay attention to world news and current events.  Too many real bad things happen in the real world and I can’t sit through accounts of awful things portrayed in entertainment without thinking of that.  Even though the violence or horror in entertainment is fictionalized, I know that much of it was inspired by actual horrible things that have happened to actual people in the past.  Even though I didn’t know those people, that doesn’t make me less horrified. 

And those are just things that are out there as part of history that happened to people I will never know, in places I will probably never go. 

In real life, I love people who have dealt with more pain and heartbreak than any person should ever have to experience.  There are other people who have a piece of my heart who just can't seem to catch a break, no matter how hard they are trying to do things the right way.  And just today I learned that someone I’ve never met in person, but whom I nonetheless consider to be one of my kindred spirits, got some heartbreaking news yesterday.  Tears are spilling over as I write this, wishing there weren’t so many miles between us and that I could hug her and play with her kids as she works through the process of going forward from here.  When I look around, there is plenty of real heartbreak and struggle and hardship in the real lives of real people I know. 

My insistence on good things and happy endings in entertainment isn't because I can't handle bad things or heartbreak; it's just that real life already has more than enough.

So, I’m sorry if I can’t watch your favorite television show because it has too much violence.  I’m sorry if I can’t enjoy your favorite movie because it has too much tragedy and a depressing ending.  I’m sorry if I didn’t like your favorite book because I couldn’t handle my heart breaking over all the horrible things that happened to a fictional character.  Real life is shitty enough a lot of the time and my heart is often too broken and raw from loving and hurting for people who are dealing with real bad things. 

I simply cannot handle spending my entertainment time on bad things too.  Please just let me have something to remind me of good things and let me have my damn happy ending. 

Even if it isn’t real life.


Update:  After having a few conversations about this happy ending thing, I'm going to write a follow-up post within the next few days.  I may not have fully explained myself here and think there is more to explore on this topic.

On Compliments and Weirdness

I have a weird thing about compliments and I've been called out a few times recently for my response to them.  I’ve been told it is rude to respond to compliments with self-deprecating humor or disagreement like I usually do, but I just don’t know what is the right way to respond. 

I am five feet, three inches tall and have a small frame.  I have long brown hair and blue eyes. I am somewhat oddly proportioned, with a long waist but a short upper-torso.  I have skinny arms and a small forehead.  My nose fits my face, but my eyes are more hooded than I would like. 

Aside from the ability to dye or cut my hair if I want, the rest of what I've described above was completely out of my control. I didn’t have any say over the face I ended up with, just as I didn’t choose to be near-sighted.  Trying to take care of my body and look presentable is up to me, but acting like I had some say in what I look like seems like saying I could have chosen to be born somewhere other than Ohio.

And this is why I never know how to respond to any compliments I may receive on my appearance.  It's not like it happens all the time or anything, but when it does, I simply don’t know what to say.  I look how I look.

When you really consider compliments on appearance, they come down to this: something about the way one person looks is appealing to the person giving the compliment.  If it is physical characteristics, the compliment is basically: "Good job being born with physical characteristics I find pleasant to observe."  If it is in regards to some other aspect of appearance, like the person's clothes or hairstyle, the compliment boils down to: "I noticed you choose a hairstyle or outfit I like." 

I brought this up at a recent work happy hour, because obviously after you've all had two drinks this is the perfect thing to get all psychological about – especially when you’re just a bunch of people who work in IT and none of you are experts in psychology.  Everyone (read: all three people) I've discussed this with agree with me that it is difficult to know the correct response to compliments on appearance. 

I admit that even though I'm terrible at responding, I love it when someone compliments my appearance.  A kind-hearted (read: non-creepy) comment can immediately brighten my day.  If a compliment is really just a person stating his or her opinion, why do compliments still make us feel good about ourselves?  Is it that we appreciate so much that someone took the time to notice us and the effort to say something about it that the logic is behind it doesn’t matter?  Should we feel weird about giving compliments based on appearance if the other person doesn’t have any control over our opinion?

All this writing about it and I still have no idea.

Really, how we act and how we treat others should matter more than how well we appeal visually to others.  Kindness or compassion or hard work or making positive use of our talents.... Those are things we have the ability to choose and try to cultivate in life.  Maybe compliments on appearance seem weird because they are based on things we can’t entirely control rather than aspects of who we are that we can control.

I guess it’s not an either/or situation.  It’s fine to appreciate if someone takes the time to compliment appearance and it is also important to put effort into more than our exterior.  I still don’t know exactly what to do or say in response to compliments, but this whole conversation has made for some funny jokes at work now.  I may still be awkward about compliments, but if the result of all of this is something to laugh about at work, I guess it was totally worth bringing up.

I realize I’m completely overthinking it, but sometimes I do that.  I guess I should just say “thank you” to any compliment and move on without going over all of this in my head every time.

Yeah.  That’s probably what I should do.

Making Peace with Bonhoeffer

“Finally, one extreme statement must still be made, without any platitudes, and in all soberness. Not considering oneself wise, but associating with the lowly, means considering oneself the worst of sinners. This arouses total opposition not only from those who live at the level of nature, but also from Christians who are self-aware.  It sounds like an exaggeration, an untruth. Yet even Paul said of himself that he was the foremost, i.e., the worst of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). He said this at the very place in scripture where he was speaking of his ministry as an apostle. There can be no genuine knowledge of sin that does not lead me down to this depth.  If my sin appears to me to be in any way smaller or less reprehensible in comparison with the sins of others, then I am not yet recognizing my sin at all.  My sin is of necessity the worst, the most serious, the most objectionable. Christian love will find any number of excuses for the sins of others; only for my sin is there no excuse whatsoever. That is why my sin is the worst. Those who would serve others in the community must descend all the way down to this depth of humility.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together

Before I proceed, I want to say that I've shared only an excerpt from the book and if you haven’t read it, yes there are entire sections on confession and holding each other accountable.  I wanted to say that so no one makes the mistake of dismissing the sentiment above or what I'm about to write as some kind of “everything is permissible, even blatant sin” argument.  As much as I love and agree with the statement, “Christian love will find any number of excuses for the sins of others,” I do not, in fact, believe that means we should pretend that everyone can do whatever the hell they want with no consequences. 

That said, I finished Life Together and think I've made peace with Bonhoeffer.  I found so many insights in the second half of the book that it will take me years to process all of them.  I may have a college degree from a Christian university and be a life-long reader, but I am still pretty new to reading theology.  It can be inspiring, but sometimes frustrating and difficult to process.  I'm learning as I go.  I'm glad I committed to finish reading the book, because there is a lot I would have missed if I had stopped reading when I found the first part difficult to manage.    

I think there are some things we each believe on some level, but that we don't fully understand until we read or hear them explained in a way that "clicks" with our own mind and heart.  For example, when I was reading Exclusion and Embrace and I knew as I was reading I had always believed so much of what was in that book, but I hadn't put in the years of research and studies required to be able to explain what I believed with the wisdom and depth of insight in which Miroslav Volf is so fluent.

I had a similar experience when I read the above passage from Life Together, only this time with a twinge of realization of how far I am from that ideal.  Of course I, like many people, don’t think my own sins are really THAT reprehensible in comparison to the sins of others, otherwise I probably couldn’t live with myself. But I am deceiving myself to think that when I mess up it is somehow not as bad as when others do. Thinking my sin is more acceptable or is more easily forgiven is prideful and wrong. Sin is sin.

It is okay to be disappointed when I feel that others have completely missed the spirit of love by clinging so tightly to the letter of the law.  It is right to call out abusive words and actions.  But none of that can be done from an attitude that I am more right or have the upper moral or spiritual ground.  I can believe with all my heart that what someone has said or done is so wrong that I can’t even reconcile it with any thought of decency.  Yet, I still must not think that my sin or where I go wrong is somehow acceptable compared to what I perceive to be that person's sin or where they go wrong.

I have to be accountable for the things I do and where I fail.  I have to own the times I am wrong.  I have to be humble enough to say that even though I can see those things right in front of me that seem like GLARING NEON SIN BILLBOARDS on others, I have to know that my own sin billboards are twice as offensive.

For quite a while I felt that I should speak up and point out what I considered to be glaring errors in the way others behaved or how they thought of certain things. I felt that because I was learning to think differently about things and that I should help others get there too. But that isn’t my job. My job is to listen. My job is to focus on removing the proverbial plank from my own eye.

It is a struggle to "descend all the way down to this depth of humility," let alone to stay there.  It is always a temptation to justify my shortcomings by comparing them to what others do that I'd like to think is worse.  But after spending time with this passage over the past few days, I realize I have no grounds for comparison.  I have no grounds for feeling superior.  I have no grounds for excusing myself while condemning others.  Humility and love are the only acceptable lenses through which I can view the sins of others.  My sin is the worst and I must act accordingly.

"This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: 

“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—

and I am the worst of them all."

1 Timothy 1:15

Warped

A woman I know once told me that when she first started commuting daily on the interstate, she prayed God would always let her merge onto the highway with no issues.  She said that since that day years ago, there was always a break in traffic as she came down the on-ramp.  That is a nice story, and I was raised to believe that God cares about all these little details of our lives.  But I have to confess something I've realized recently:  If I’m expected to follow a God who will regularly adjust traffic patterns so that one lady can be less stressed about driving on the expressway, but who can’t seem to be bothered to do anything about genocide or war or starvation or kids dying of cancer, I don’t think I want anything to do with that God.  Do I know that God is not intervening and causing cars to part like the Red Sea for this friend?  No. I have no idea.  He may be. But these are the kinds of doubts and questions I struggle with daily and this struggle sometimes causes me to feel like my faith is weak.  So many other people are so very certain.

________

When I was in college, I went to see the campus counselor for several months because of something that happened to me when I was little.  Worse things have happened to other people, but it was damaging enough that I felt I should see a professional to help me figure out how to deal with it.  She was a nice lady, but when I told her about it, I’m pretty sure she was thinking, “That is really not that bad.”  Okay, maybe she didn’t really think that, but I honestly don’t remember anything we talked about that helped me feel any differently about it.  I know some people have dealt with worse, but that doesn’t mean that it was okay for this thing to happen to me.

________

Both of these seemingly unrelated things came to mind as I’ve been wrestling with my One Word.  For a couple weeks I’ve been working a riff on these lines about weaving:

Warp means "that which is thrown across.”  Weft is an old English word meaning "that which is woven."  The method in which these threads are inter-woven affects the characteristics of the cloth.  Because the warp is held under high tension during the entire process of weaving, warp yarn must be strong.  The warp of a fabric, in other words, acts like a net to capture the weft, holding these threads firmly so that they will not escape, causing the textile to unravel.

I have been putting a lot of effort into the concept of warp.  In trying to focus on figuring out how to put my unravelings back together and what characteristics I want my life to have, I thought that establishing the warp, especially for the context of writing about it, was pretty important.  I felt that I needed to clearly define the warp and focus on it for a while.  The sentence "Because the warp is held under high tension during the entire process of weaving, warp yarn must be strong" initially inspired me to write about how “love” is the warp.  I mean, isn't that how love is?  It has to be strong and made out of something substantial.  It can't be just a distraction or something half-hearted.  There is so much tension there – with who we love, how we love, the love we accept  – and how God’s love allows us to live out love in the right way.

But that post would not come together.  I worked on it for days and it never made sense.  As much as I strive to do everything out of love, I don't.  I'm flawed. My life doesn't fit into a neat metaphor that way.  I’m still sorting through so much, which isn’t a task with a clearly defined beginning and end.  I'm so busy reading and listening and learning and living and dealing with the new and the old that I can’t set a timeline for figuring everything out or saying that everything I do can be summed up in something so perfect.  And I refuse to pretend something that isn't reality just because I've committed to the word “weave” for the year and want to write something pretty about it.

At about this point in my frustration over the mess I seem to be making, I realized it's not love, it’s me.  I am the warp.  My life is the warp.  I'm not the one weaving, not really.  I know that I am making choices daily about what I make my life out of, but there is so much out of my control.  I may be making decisions about what to incorporate into or leave out of the pattern, but I'm not entirely in control.  I am the one in the tension, in the process, and the weaving is happening whether I’m trying to make it happen or not. 

Is God the one weaving?  Maybe.  There was a time when, just like the friend I mentioned earlier, I tried to believe that God was up there directing every detail of my life – from the grade I got on a test to finding a pair of shoes in my size on sale.  But I just don’t believe that now.  I do believe we are created in God’s image and I do believe that God is there, but I also think many things just happen.  They happen as the result of choices or sin or... who knows?  Maybe a butterfly wing fluttering or a tree falling unheard in the forest.  I have to do the best I can with what I have and with what happens and try to hold on to hope – hope that somehow, long after my present has become my past, the characteristics I end up with are mostly good and what has been woven is strong enough that it doesn't unravel. 

This is why the weaving is more about taking what comes and figuring out what it will be in my life.  It doesn’t mean not caring or not being as intentional as possible, but there are many unknowns and unforeseens and I can’t control all of it.  Some things are just going to happen, even if they shouldn’t, and some things are going to turn out far differently from what I had planned.  There will probably be times I realize that I’ve focused all my efforts on incorporating something, only to find that it doesn’t belong.  There will probably be times I suddenly notice something vital that has been there all along, but that I didn't see until something happens to make it obvious.  I know there will be times of unraveling and reworking, especially as I learn and live and grow.  And as frustrating and painful as that will be, it is real and it is okay. 

I’m learning that I am strong and I am getting used to the tension.  I guess I will find out if I am strong enough to keep up with the process.

Boys and Girls

I have no idea what made me think of this, but as I was doing laundry this morning I thought of my first "real" boyfriend.  I write "real" because I guess he wasn't technically my "first" boyfriend.  My "technically first" boyfriend was a guy in second grade who asked me on the playground to be his girlfriend and then never talked to me again. I remember that guy had red hair and got in trouble for eating glue when we were in first grade.  I guess some things just aren't meant to be.

Anyway, my first "real" boyfriend was a guy I met at my first real (no quotes necessary) job when I was fifteen.  He was a grade younger than me and had beautiful blue eyes and hair like the kid from Terminator 2.  Other than seeing each other at work while we were working, we went on a total of three dates.  Only these weren't actual dates, they were things we planned to do with our friends and show up at the same place at the same time.  Did I mention I wasn't allowed to have a boyfriend?

He broke up with me after the work Christmas party because I wouldn't let him kiss me.  That worked out fine because by this time I had felt guilty enough about hiding the "relationship" from my parents that I'd told them he was my boyfriend and they'd insisted I tell him we could only be friends.

After that, my parents took the approach that if I wanted to go out with a boy for an activity (not a date, I wasn't allowed to call them dates), said boy had to call my dad and ask permission.  I think I've written about this before, so I'll try to summarize.  I wasn't allowed to have a boyfriend and I wasn't allowed to plan activities with boys who wouldn't ask my dad for permission.  It was also very rare that I was allowed to go anywhere in a car with a boy unless other people were present in the car as well.  In fact, I think it only happened twice before I was eighteen, both times to a homecoming dance with a friend, with strict instructions that I was to be returned home immediately after.

There were also several guys who I was allowed to go on an activity with and who jumped through all the hoops of calling my dad and finding other people to go too and then my parents decided they were too old or too fill-in-the-blank and there would be no future activities with those guys.  And my dad would tell them that the next time they called to ask if I could go out.  For me this was all was somewhat humiliating and socially limiting, but I can (mostly) understand why they did it.

All of this led me to thinking about the boys and.... ugh... girls. Or maybe it was thinking of the girl thing which got me started thinking about the old boyfriend thing. Not sure. Anyway, right now, girls are just other kids at the boys' school, other kids who sometimes come over to play.  I don't want to mess that up by breaching the subject too soon, so we haven't really talked about girls other than in the general, respecting-other-people way.  I keep telling myself I have time, but I know it's going to go so fast and we will be talking about girlfriends before I know it.

I'm not going to tell them they can't have a girlfriend.  I'm not going to try to control every decision they make.  But I kind of feel like I don't have a context for how this all works outside of the way I was raised.  And I kind of feel at a disadvantage because I've never been a boy.

As the boys get older, I worry about them feeling pressured to do things they shouldn't or behave in ways other than the ways they've been taught to behave.  I worry about them liking the wrong girls.  I worry about them not talking to me about what is going on in their lives.  I worry about them taking relationships too seriously or not seriously enough.  I worry about them getting their hearts broken and I worry about them breaking someone else's heart.  I just worry.  And I kind of feel that maybe the way the relationships of my youth were handled (for me) didn't fully prepare me for helping them navigate theirs.

Maybe.

Or maybe it did.  Or maybe it doesn't really matter. We're all doing the best we can. My parents were doing what they thought was the best thing for me just like I have to do what I think is best for my kids. It won't be perfect and I'm sure time will reveal mistakes I've made with them and ways in which I've failed them. But I'm doing my best. I hope and pray the way I'm raising them is teaching them to respect and value both others and themselves enough that they can make the right choices at the right times.

And I hope to raise them each to be the kind of guy who wouldn't dump a girl after three kind-of dates because she isn't ready to kiss him.