Leaving church to go exploring

Spring 2017
First, I confess my anxiety at even putting down what I think. I imagine what people will say. I think of all the people who have probably said it better than I can. But oh well, I have to get it out.

When you've lived inside a certain framework for a long time, you don't notice it. You take for granted that everything you know and experience fits inside your understanding of the world, God, faith, humans. Well my religious (and really, epistemological) framework has broken down, and I see that it was small. But the great unknown beyond my old boundaries is terrifying. So I have spent months standing on this broken wall torn between patching it up and blocking out the new view, or to abandon the old structure and venture out.

Some of my elders bristle at this kind of language.  Heretical poetic nonsense! Orthodoxy is safety! Doubt is a slippery slope to hell! Well, maybe their criticisms are harsher in my head than they would be in real life.

I've made a decision to venture out. I've been drawn forth by love and curiosity. The inside of the old frame has become a slow suffocating torture, and I have to get out before I stab some innocent bystander, my fellow faithful churchgoers.

The bystanders are indeed innocent. Their Republican charismatic evangelical framework is working for them and they seem content. It used to work for me, it just doesn't anymore. Part of me wants to tell them about the view beyond--Science is so interesting!--but I don't want to upset them. 

But I have to let some people know that I'm making changes that will affect them, and not all of them will like it. WHY? Why do you need this change, it doesn't make sense. You're better off sticking with the tribe.

Rob Bell has given me courage: "Whenever someone tells me they want to leave church, I say, 'Yes! Go! Explore! We need more adventurers to go questing for truth. Come back and tell us all about what you saw and learned."  (Some of my elders think Rob Bell, another heretic, is dangerous. I hesitate to credit him.)  But, how generous! Can you imagine if pastors and leaders let people go joyfully and asked them to come back with wisdom? 

I was feeling guilty about leaving church again, and a little resentful toward people who caution me against questing. So I watched Moana again today. God, I feel it: Moana is torn between her love for her people and her love for the sea. She feels called to go on a voyage, but her family insists her place is on land. I love my church family.  But the answers I need to find are not in the safety of the village.

Later that year...
Well, I'm still questing and questioning. Figuring myself out. I don't know if I'll ever go back to evangelicalism, but I haven't let go of God. I am still wrestling with him.

Last year I became very depressed, seemingly out of the blue. I started thinking about death often, not suicide, but how short and meaningless my life is. I went forward for prayer at church, but I felt increasingly distant on the inside. Last year's election, in which most of my fellow churchgoers supported Donald Trump, didn't help. I talked my husband into a fabulous visit to France to see a sweet old friend of mine, and even on that trip, I felt bleak. Then I decided to seek real help, but it took another six months of emptiness and misery to make an appointment with a good therapist (who is also a pastor, a pastor with a doctorate).

The therapist immediately dug into my automatic relationship patterns--performance, fear of rejection, placating, to name a few. I'm making progress. I am no longer gripped by a primal terror of abandonment if my husband leaves the room during a conflict--that was a big breakthrough for me. Although some days I feel like a lonely little girl, I am working on going through pain, instead of trying to avoid it. It's better to admit I feel lonely and scared, have a good cry, and start over tomorrow.

I used all my wrong patterns in my relationship with God, but it wasn't working. Paul Young said it took him 50 years to wipe the face of his father off the face of God. I learned to be a good girl for my parents, to support them through the terrible pain of divorce. I tried to be a good girl for God and not ask for too much, but at some point the deep doubt and pain has to come up.

Anyway, I decided that if I am always chasing God like an insecure girlfriend nervous about disappointing him, if I'm always on a mental roller coaster of he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not, if I hype myself up trying to feel loved, do ministry hoping for approval, and love my neighbor out of guilt... If I keep spinning my wheels, I'm not giving him a chance to show himself as the First Mover, the Grace Initiator, or the Good Shepherd. So I have given up, again. My current posture is, Here I am, God. Please find me.

The Mixed Bag of Political Correctness... and of human beings in general

I need to get this off my chest because it's driving me bonkers. But I'll start with some reasonable statements to calm myself down, before taking my wordsmith stick and beating the nonsense like a red-headed step-child. (See what I did there?)

Political correctness is simply a cultural feature. It's a movement, an agenda, an idea that influences culture. It galls me that I have to point this out, but the original intention of political correctness is rooted in treating people with respect and honor. Yep, I used the current evangelical buzzword, honor. 

Political correctness, like so many things  every idea, is imperfect and has potential to become warped. Every good idea, started with good intentions, can have unintended consequences or evolve into something less helpful. Boxing gloves were intended to protect the hands of boxers, but ended up causing increased cases of brain damage. But I digress.

In spite of recent spikes in racial slurs, most Americans still agree that it's unacceptable to use the n-word. I think most of my conservative friends agree, it's a good thing that the n-word has become taboo. But they will chafe if we acknowledge that this cultural trend owes a debt to "political correctness."

In spite of the president's statements about women, most honest Americans do not think it's appropriate to sexually assault women, refer to a woman's menstrual cycle, or imply that a woman's hair color corresponds to her intelligence or temperament. (see what I did there?) Most of us agree on this, left and right. We can thank the influence of political correctness for contributing to a positive shift.

And we as a society have become more aware of how we speak to and about others, whether it affirms or demeans them. You'd think Christians would be on board with this, in general. Love your neighbor and all that.

Alright, the bad: Some versions of political correctness means we cannot criticize someone else's views with respectful disagreement, let alone can we cut to the chase: "that's a dumb idea."  (This is a strong cultural undercurrent here in Oregon--there are no wrong answers!) I can make a positive spin on this about open-mindedness, but I understand how it can be frustrating to those with unpopular opinions, like the school board member in Silverton who is getting roasted for being (crassly) anti-immigrant. (Tangent for another time: Does an employee represent his company every time they set foot outside their home? I mean, does he or she represent the company every time he or she leaves his or her home?)

Speaking of gender pronouns, here is my grammar nazi rant, feel free to skip: We still don't have a working, everyday, grammatically correct way of referring to a hypothetical individual without using a gender pronoun.  So in baby books and blogs, they may refer to "your baby" as "she" in one chapter, and "he" in the next chapter. Or there's those extreme flaming feminists (wink) who refer to the hypothetical baby as "she" throughout, as if to compensate for years of "he" and "mankind" being defaults.

I write the above paragraph smiling. Although I have strong feminist sympathies, fighting battles over grammar seems silly to me. I also sympathize with the conservatives who might say, "nobody cares!"

And then there are the many awkward hang-ups of how to refer to people. Very proper white liberals always say "African-American," but black people I know use the word "black." And I have friends who are African-American in the sense that they moved here from Africa not many years ago. So they are more literally African-American but they don't really relate to American black culture.

I live in a neighborhood full of Latinos, but most of them are Mexican, and refer to themselves as Mexican. I've seen a bumper sticker that said, "Not latino, not hispanic, MEXICAN." Okay, sheesh. When I was a kid, the proper word was "Hispanic," and apparently the state of Oregon still uses that standard, based on how many times I've checked the box, "white non-Hispanic." But I never hear Spanish-speaking people use the word "Hispanic."

(Cheat sheet: the quickest, easiest way to find out how to show people respect is to simply ask them what they prefer. No formula needed.)

How we speak about people matters; we all want to treat others, and be treated, with respect. But it's difficult to just express respect in a natural, warm, human way if we get too hung up on speaking with perfect political correctness. Language is messy; it evolves, and it's easy to misconstrue. There's no way to set permanent standards. And nobody likes having their semantics dissected and criticized when they didn't intend any harm.

More recently, though--and I think this is why some people love Trump--political correctness has taken on a weird shape. There are not only politically correct ways of addressing people in order to show respect, but increasingly, there are politically correct opinions. My earnest liberal friends are fish who don't know they're wet: it just so happens that political correctness, more and more, lines up with liberal ideology. So any divergent opinion, regardless of how logically well-founded, is incorrect. I think this is why conservatives are hopping mad, being dismissed and shut out of debates because they've already been judged as "incorrect."

So now that all my conservative friends are saying, yes, yes, it's so frustrating, I am going to brandish my wordsmith stick. It's a little rusty but it will have to do. And I'm going to point it more narrowly at right-wing Christians, specifically those who spout their political views wrapped in Christian lingo. And even more narrowly, the ridiculous "prophecies" I've seen and heard floating around charismania that the president is "anointed to tear down the spiritual stronghold of political correctness in our country." (At this my liberal friends either have their mouths hanging open in disbelief or they are sitting back in smug judgment.) I use italics because it's the whole reason I put the effort into writing all this:

Political correctness is not a "spiritual stronghold" or any kind of spiritual entity requiring "anointed" opposition. It is a human idea with mixed outcomes, positive and negative.

Furthermore, a man's commitment to destroy political correctness is NOT a measure of his godliness or his positive impact on society. If we're going to talk about morality and the well-being of society, we have bigger fish to fry. And even if you think political correctness as the great demon of our age (eye roll), certainly you must acknowledge that there are many other pressing issues to grapple with??

Anyway, as Christians, don't we have plenty of other true spiritual illnesses--both inside and outside the church--to keep us occupied with repentance and redemption? Greed, judgment, self-righteousness, jealousy, bitterness, fits of rage, neglecting the poor... I don't see how political correctness could possibly top the list of social ills. I do see how it provides a convenient focal point, a demon du jour.

At this point, my liberal friends who are reading this are probably saying, Where the fuck does this come from?? (Cuz we like to be incorrect when it comes to the language taboos of conservatives, we just don't like them to use our language taboos. Wink.) Well, I'll tell you. The notion that political correctness is Ev-ill comes from a world where spiritual leaders have no boundaries between their political and religious views, but mash it together into a toxic cocktail and demonize anyone who says differently. (There are toxic mash-ups on the left too, but I'm not in deep enough to criticize them in detail.)

In this world, sermons are re-runs of Sean Hannity hyped up into spiritual language with Bible verses peppered in (maybe). Somehow many of the "prophecies" just so happen to exactly line up with conservative talking heads. Such prophets will ignore their man's literal actions, and accuse anyone who questions their pronouncements of blessing on the anointed one. (I was told I must have a "religious spirit" for questioning the president's "anointing.") It results in homogeneous churches where they say they want to love "sinners," but alienate anyone who doesn't share their political views.

In that bubble, my conservative friends are also fish who don't know they're wet. They stay insulated from any idea that is contrary to their favorite prophets and spiritual leaders. When I'm in that world, sometimes I want to scream, "The emperor has no clothes!!!"

BUT, my dear liberal reader, the reason I don't scream is that I know these people. I know their big hearts, their good intentions, their sincerity. Although I feel it's important to stem the tide of nonsense with my small voice and small tools, I cannot put these sweet people in a basket of deplorables. I know so many die-hard conservatives whose ideology I find stupid, yet I know they would give me the shirt off their backs and always offer a shoulder to cry on. We're human. We're mixed bags!

Here is the current nature of western public discourse as I see it: boil things down to very simple choices of for or against. Ignore complexity; pick a side. Divide people (and governments, and institutions, and businesses) up into bad guys and good guys. Refuse to acknowledge good in people on your "bad" list. Refuse to acknowledge bad in people on your "good" list. Champion the good guys, demonize the bad guys. Shout at your enemies, comfort your friends.  But I'll say it now and many more times: there are no precious few true good guys and bad guys. Most humans, including politicians, pastors, talking heads, religious folks, flaming liberals and religious flaming liberals, are mixed bags. A single person can have wonderful and terrible ideas. Can have a mind for justice on one issue and glaring blind spots on another.

So everyone, please, right and left: political correctness is neither an angel or a demon. It is what it is: a cultural trend with potential for good and harm. We can set out to correct the excesses without demonizing the whole thing. And we can defend the positive outcomes without getting butt-hurt over legitimate criticisms. Although I don't mind using a big stick on stupid ideas, I refuse to demonize people, right or left, and I keep appealing to reason. As my smart friend Ben Curry said, "Come to the center. We have cookies."

On Friendship

My friend just left my house after a sweet visit. We hadn't spent time together since I had just one baby; now I have a toddler and two big kids. A lot of crazy things swirled around us winding down to the end of our friendship and I didn't understand her or our other friends... I just shut down, shut them out, and crawled into a self-righteous cocoon (i.e. ministry) for a few years.

I have said lots of stupid and hurtful things over the years to various people. Sometimes they were acid and I knew it; other times I just spoke from my heart without thinking of how it would come across. I've hurt lots of people. I've apologized to lots of people. I've seen various responses.

Obviously the most precious and healing responses are "thank you" and "I forgive you." (Hint: you can say "thank you" even if you're not totally over it.)  Many people cautiously forgive and act cool, but don't open opportunities to rebuild trust and restore closeness. There's just a little extra distance in the relationship ever after. Some people don't respond at all to an apology, they just withdraw for a while--a couple weeks, or a couple years--to get over it on their own and then act like nothing happened. And I can't blame them--sometimes it takes me weeks or years to cough up the apology.

I had thought of contacting my old friend many, many, many times. We shared a locker in high school. She was a Biggest Fan friend, who encouraged me no matter what I did. We stayed in touch through college. She prayed for me like crazy while I went through family drama. She helped with my wedding. But then the breakdown, and the years of silence... I always thought of her on her birthday. I creeped on her Facebook page once in a while to see what she was up to. But I was too ashamed to get in touch.

In all the times I have apologized for being an asshole, this is the first time someone responded so kindly: "That must have been difficult for you." I wronged her. I withdrew my support for my friend in a difficult time. And now that I finally apologize eight years later, she calls my apology courageous. It makes me want to cover my head and weep.

She was in my heart as I reflected on a recent "find out who your friends are" experience. I tried to accommodate friends I hoped to make, over the friends I already have, and regretted it. It got me thinking about cherishing the friends I have, the ones who stand by, the ones who are there. The ones who tolerate my devil's advocate speeches, the ones who are glad that I tell them the truth, the ones who loan me sweatpants when I don't want to stay in my booty shorts to hang out with friends after the gym. I am realizing (very slowly) that good friends are not so easy to find... especially for a big mouth like me!

(Nothing against the potential friendships that don't quite work out. Sometimes it's just lack of time, or chemistry... Some people are not ready to invest. Some people are just full up on friendship and don't have time to add one. That's ok. It's disappointing, but it's not personal. It is what it is.)

It's a bit like Marie Kondo's big epiphany in The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: instead of focusing on what to get rid of and what is not there, focus on what is there. Focus on what is left when you've cleaned up, those things that have made the cut and stayed with you. Enjoy what is there.

I couldn't decide on a New Year's resolution, and it's very late, but maybe I could make it a Lent resolution, a Lent-and-the-rest-of-my-life resolution. Cherish the ones who are there. Cherish the sister who does call instead of fretting about the one who doesn't. Cherish the friend who helps instead of resenting the ones who don't. I'll leave the door open for new friends, but this year I'm going to make it a priority to invest in my friends who are already tried and true.

Sad Bananas

This is the face I make when I visit Etsy looking for some fresh cool "tiebacks" for my grown-up curtains in my grown-up house, and I see burlap straps with an old black fabric button.

I just learned the words "tieback" and "finial" last year visiting Anthropologie for the first time. (I want one of these beautiful doorknobs, I said to my friend. Those are tiebacks, she said. Oh.) I learned writing this post that tieback is one word. I am 33. Also, I just bought my first-ever pair of red rubber boots for stomping around outside in the rain, so I'm not totally sure if I am maturing or regressing.

But one thing's for sure, after being poor for most of my life, repurposed trash for sale doesn't often impress me, it usually just makes me sad. I still get a creative kick out of recycling stuff and working with what I have, but that's just for my own enjoyment of using my brain. I don't try to *sell* the kids' crowns I make out of cereal boxes, no matter how brilliantly resourceful I feel making them. Out of the hundreds of tie-backs for sale on the internet, someone paid Etsy to sell a piece of burlap with a black button. Sad bananas.

Yes, it's true, I'm a burlap hater. It's heavy on shabby and light on chic. Yes, I am crafty. No, I do not want to wrap burlap around vases for your wedding. Maybe it's because I'm anti-popular and the trend has run as wild as a toddler fresh out of the bathtub. I'm sorry, I just can't. Please make the burlap stop. The rustic hay bales can stay, but the burlap has to go.

I don't have anything else to say, I just thought it would be funny to post my sad bananas face when I realized I was cringing scrolling through Etsy.

If you know where to find some modern, pretty, hook-shaped, not-going-to-draw-blood tiebacks, let me know. Also, if someone would design a blocking app to create my own personal Burlap Safe Space, that would be greaaaaaat.

Who says that!?

My husband and I just bought a house. We plan to be here for a long ass time, and I got past my commitment anxiety (a recurring theme) and decided I want to really put down roots in this community. So I started looking for opportunities to meet the neighbors. 

I prayed for some extra grandparents for my kids. My in-laws are wonderful, but my parents recently moved far away. Both of our next-door neighbors are grandmas, check!  And a sweet friend who is old enough to be my mom is just around the corner.

I also have been praying/ wishing/ hoping for friends for my husband and me. We both have friends, but we don't have many friends in common, especially couples. Sometimes I have to hunt a little to find my tribe. But finding another couple that we can hang out with comfortably, in which all four of us enjoy one another's company, without any sexual tension.... that couple is a needle in a haystack. Especially for a couple of weirdos like us--I'm very outgoing but I get bored easily with small talk, and my husband prefers the company of his FE motors to the company of human beings.

When we were looking at this house, I spotted my husband's new best friend (according to me)--behind the wheel of a late 70's Ford pickup in the driveway across the street. After we bought the house, the guy came over to help my husband move a motor in, and they got shop talking. His wife walked over to say hi. She is beautiful, red-headed, with a little girl about a year younger than ours. She smiles a lot.

Well, as an ambitiously friendly neighbor, a week later I washed a jacket that my 2-year-old had outgrown, and took it across the street. I was very excited to have somewhere to send my adorable little girl's adorable hand-me-downs. And I am trying to hold back my imagination, but I imagine this being the beginning of a beautiful friendship. 

But what do I do? I give her the jacket saying it's the first of many, if she wants. She thanks me and says "That's so sweet!" And then I run my mouth. "I don't know if you already have plenty, or if you also like to shop, but I love to buy girls' clothes. I have really nice hand-me-downs." It comes out in a tone like I'm bragging. She just smiled and thanked me again.

As soon as I got home, I said to myself, you idiot! Who says that!? "I have really nice hand-me-downs." What an obnoxious thing to say.  Then I remind myself not to over-identify (more on that another time) with the emotion of the moment and just forget about it. (Clearly I didn't, because here I am writing about it.)

You may also be wondering, yeah, who talks like that? Well, you'll sympathize a little more when I tell you, most of my life I have been on the receiving end of hand-me-downs, and they are often shitty. I am very pleased to be able to give very nice hand-me-downs, that do not have stains, holes, or worn out elastic.  I also wanted to reassure my potential friend that I would not be giving her junk like a lot of people do.

I wonder if she remembers what I said, or what kind of impression I made. Hopefully she has not thought about it nearly as much as I have. I wonder how we could get to be friends. But I should probably play it cool. I hate it when I try too hard.

I Don't Know

I've often thought I should start a new blog page titled What I Really Think. It would have many of the musings and thoughts that I write on Facebook and then quickly delete, worrying about what people will think and who I might offend.

What I Really Think would have my true opinions about all kinds of things--religion, politics, relationships, parenting... Usually I have thought it over from several angles, and usually people say I have an interesting perspective. What I Really Think would be cathartic, but I would probably alienate most of my friends sooner or later.

I have a dozen drafts on different topics, in the spirit of What I Really Think, but they always fall apart before I finish. I start to see the holes or the unanswered questions and abandon it before writing the conclusion.  Perhaps it's my laziness not to follow my logic through; perhaps I'm pretty terrible at logic and my opinions are crap. Or maybe it's my reluctance to commit to an opinion--I blame that on my Pacific Northwest culture. Open-minded and open-ended to a fault.

Well who cares. No one wants my judgments, do they? Occasionally people ask what I think, but more often they say, "That's a good question." Today it struck me--good questions are far more interesting than concrete answers anyway. Again, I'll credit Oregon culture, but isn't it more valuable to turn something over in your mind often, to continually examine, than to speed toward some conclusion?

So I'm going to start writing more honestly. Maybe if I don't have some polished gem of truth to write about, I can at least write about my process and my questions... and my little tiny speck of an ordinary life that is a whole world to me.

Love sees beauty

One of the sweetest things about leading worship in a church is having a perfect view of all the beautiful faces singing to God from their hearts. Sometimes there are tears; sometimes I see struggle on their faces as they pray. But I always see beauty.

I imagine God sees a lot more beauty than me, since He is also looking deep into the shining heart who wears a quiet face. Sure, He also sees more junk than I do, I can see a little of it. But if I am overwhelmed by the beauty of the saints from my corner of the platform, how much more is He? God is love--love always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

"I look across the room and I see Jesus in your eyes," my pastor said a couple weeks ago, beaming with her mother heart of love. She saw beauty.

When I see God's people during worship, I see weakness but also earnest faith. My heart swells like a mother who longs to encourage a struggling child. This is God--He loves to love, His selfless love is so abundant He pours it out on whomever will receive it.

Sometimes the faithful feel small, but His goodness is all around them and in them. Oh, with eyes to see, we would see His glory shining upon us! We would see the Kingdom of God already in our midst. "The saints in the earth, they are the majestic ones in whom is all my delight," the Psalmist wrote. If a man may take such delight in the saints, how much more does God delight in the ones He redeemed with His own Son?

As I was meditating on these things, I thought of the verse that says, "You are His workmanship." So I looked it up and saw--I hadn't realized--this statement appears right alongside those famous verses in Ephesians, "By grace you have been saved through faith, and that is not of yourselves, it is a gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast."

I had a light bulb moment: We are not saved by our works--we are His work! What beautiful things He does! How wonderful His handiwork! Everything He does is excellent and good! Like that Kevin Prosch song says, "You do all things well! Just look at our lives."

And here is the rub, when these words are hard to say. We don't always look or feel like excellent handiwork. It's easy to look at a sunset and say to God, "You do all things well," but not so easy say while looking in the mirror.

Yet we must. What other choice do we have? Everything He does is good--goodness flows from His nature and character.  He is the definition of goodness. He cannot not do good! If we are His, then we are His work, and all His work is good, so we are good work.

To refuse to believe that you are a good work is to say He is not a capable craftsman, or He is not good. Are His hands tied? Is the One who designed the universe stumped by our problems? Certainly not. He is the visionary of all visionaries--He sees great beauty on the empty canvas, the half-finished canvas, the blood-smeared and tear-stained canvas.

Precious saints, how lovely you are! You are lovely to me, in your earthiness and foolishness and stumbling earnest. How lovely are you to the Father?

"How lovely are Your dwelling places, O Lord of hosts," the sons of Korah wrote in Psalm 84. Isaiah said the Messiah would be Immanuel, God With Us. And this is the already-but-not-yet truth of it: "the tabernacle of God is among men" (Revelation 21).

The Sons of Korah served before God's Presence in David's tabernacle. It seems like they were probably writing about that "dwelling place." Some translations change it to singular to make it sound better, but it is plural. God's dwelling places are beautiful. We are His beautiful dwelling places! And He fills the temple with glory. We are not so lovely on our own--sin distorts the image of God into wretchedness-- but the redeemed are filled with the light and presence of God, clothed in beauty, dignity and strength.

Precious saints, what a lovely dwelling place you are. How beautiful the Spirit of grace dwelling in you and covering you. Though you feel the brittleness of being an earthen vessel, yet the power of God abides in you. Just as an ugly face is beautiful in candlelight, just as a covering of snow makes mundane things beautiful and clean, the Spirit of God shines on you and clothes you in grace.

His lovely dwelling place is not an imaginary temple, a place far away, a place we go to when we feel spiritual. We are His lovely dwelling place, the home of God.

Father, I believe I am Your home, Your lovely temple. You make us beautiful; Your grace shines on us. Let me walk, now, beaming with confidence in Your grace. I repent for heaping shame on myself and putting myself down. I am Your workmanship, and You have good works prepared for me. Give me grace to trust Your work and Your Spirit in me. Give me wisdom to have confidence in You without arrogance or presumption in my heart. And help me, Father, to see Your people the way You see them, as lovely dwelling places, homes of Your Spirit. Give my heart delight in the saints, the majestic ones, so I can honor You by honoring them.
♡ Amen.