Hooray for Sparkly Pens!

 Oh Amazon, I adore you. Especially since I live at LEAST 45 minutes from oh, just about EVERYTHING.

This is what I've been doing with sparkly pens lately: 

So many possibilities now--I was getting sick of neon orange.

The Worthiness of Trees

I was wandering around in the woods yesterday and thinking about trees.

Here is rambling, rantish excerpt from my journal:

"... I think trees are a-moral created by the Creator. Do trees see themselves as fallen or evil or drenched in sin? If they are eaten from the inside by an Asian Longhorn Beetle, do they need to repent for their rotting insides? Are the beetles 'bad' and the trees 'good?'

Did the trees ask to be created--did they have any say at all in their existence? "No thank you--I'd rather be an Oak. I can't stand all that sticky pine sap..." 


I believe we all come from one Source--created and sustained lovingly from that same Source. The energy of this Source never leaves us--it is in us; around us. It is the oxygen we breathe and the gravity keeps us connected to the earth. It is the wind that shakes the birch leaves when they greet me--waving madly--so happy to see me as I walk down the road.

Maybe Human Beings are worthy too. As created--just the way we are. Stamped from the inside with the image of the Great Creator. Do trees trace their 'fallen-ness' back to their sinful ancestral seed and believe that because it was 'bad', all of the trees that spring from that one will be 'bad' too?

Friends on the Journey

I started this blog looking for a safe place to figure out my faith. I was desperate and scared--and I felt all alone in my crisis of faith. Turns out, I am far from alone, and I have more peace with my life and faith now than I did a few months ago.  So much has happened internally with me--it would takes months and months and years and decades to describe the inward journey I have taken toward God this past winter. So instead I will list the books that have been good friends to me along the way (in no order whatsoever other than the way I piled them on my desk to see all of the titles):

1. Dear Heart, Come Home by Joyce Rupp
2. Evolving in Monkey Town by Rachel Held Evans
3. In Search of Belief by Sr. Joan Chittister
4. Losing God by Matt Rogers
5. Crazy for God by Frank Schaeffer
6. The Early Church by E. Glenn Hinson
7. Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith by Kathleen Norris
8. The Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd
9. Loving What Is by Byron Katie
10. Everything Belongs by Fr. Richard Rohr
11. Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn
12. An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor
13. The Mosaic of Christian Belief by Roger E. Olson
14. Spontaneous Healing by Anddrew Weil, M.D.
15. Healing for Damaged Emotions by David A. Seamands

I'm also thankful for my real-life interactions with supportive friends. A turning point for me was meeting with my pastors a few months ago. Prior to that meeting, I found myself sitting in church week after week, and thinking 'What if I don't believe any of this--or if I'm buying some beliefs of Christianity but rejecting others? What if this journey takes me too far afield of 'Christian Orthodoxy?' Would there still be room for me here as I am? I'm exhausted from pretending that all is well with me week after week when it really isn't.' So I decided to lay it all out before the pastors--to be  honest with them about the depth and intensity of my crisis.

The thing is, I have been in a church community all of my life, and the thought of just quitting wasn't something I wanted to do. I love church. The place where I go every Sunday is so much more than a set of doctrines and beliefs that I have to a) Agree with at all costs  or b) Disagree with this or that, and therefore leave. The place where I go on Sunday is filled with people who love me and have supported me through the grief and awfulness of life. Regardless of my beliefs (or unbelief), this place is my community and my family--where I live and work and bring meals to friends who have babies and help a neighbor with grocery shopping when she is not up to going out and where we laugh and cry together. I guess I just needed to know that I wouldn't be cast out or burned at the stake as a heretic--I needed to know that there was room for me, too. And I was so afraid of the answer.

So I met with them and cried my eyes out and told the truth that has been eating away at me for so long--all the questions, doubts, uncertainties--about my anxiety about it all, and my loneliness. I needed to know that even though it SEEMS like everyone else is sure about this Christian life--surely I'm not the only one struggling? And can I still be a part of this church family even if my theology leans further to the left? And is this a place where I will be welcome as is for real, and not in words only?

And they heard me with compassion and acceptance and welcome and love. I am actually crying right now thinking about it as I type.  What I suspected was true: I am definitely NOT the only one in the congregation wrestling with intense faith questions. And I'm not the only one who has come into their office wondering if they are still welcome if their theology doesn't line up exactly with the tenants of the Wesleyan Church.

As we talked and met together a few more times, I felt the claustrophobic, frightened space that I had been occupying all winter open up. It felt so good to be authentic and honest--and to be accepted and understood. What I loved was that they didn't give me a list of Bible verses to look up (I probably already know them all, anyway) or tell me I needed to pray more or read more or do more stuff for God. What they did was give me space--space that I wasn't even giving to myself. Space to be confused and doubtful about the goodness of God. Space to grieve the loss of my sister, and what that meant for my faith--the whole question of why bad things happen to good people and where was God when the doctor made the mistake and she died? They gave me space to sit with the questions that have no answers on this earth, and to be a little more ok with this mystery called God.

I feel like I can breathe now, and where I am is exactly where I am supposed to be on this road.

Options

Some days, when I think about my faith, I feel hopeless and lost. Being a Christian, a GOOD Christian was my sole identity for 25 years. Saving the lost was my true purpose--THE reason why I existed in the world. But now that pieces of my understanding of Christianity are falling away, I'm not sure what I'm going to be left with.

I'm sad and resigned because it often feels like all or nothing. Like I have to make this HUGE choice--either believe everything I have ever been taught or held to be true over a lifetime of 'evangelical zeal', or walk away entirely. Sometimes I really believe that those are my only two options.

But sometimes, in a teeny corner of my heart--I see a pinprick of light. I read Kathleen Norris, and I hear something--barely audible-- a whisper: 'hold on...' and I suspect that maybe my options aren't so limited after all.

Thank You Tony Campolo

I remember reading something that Tony Campolo wrote years ago about homosexuality. He said that he and his wife didn't share the same views as to whether being gay was a sin or not. (Maybe it was the book 'Adventures in Missing the Point?).

This shook me up--I was FLOORED by the nonchalant way he mentioned their difference of opinion. I thought (at the time) that the most important part of being a Christian was having the 'right' beliefs. I remember thinking, how on earth are they still married if they don't agree on something as fundamental as THAT?! What if that ever happens to Dan and I? Won't we be 'unequally yoked?'

Lately, as I have been seriously reevaluating my faith, I have pictured Tony and his wife--calmly, and with much love and deep respect--allowing the other to have a different view.

And that gives me peace.

Self-Oppression

Lately I've been evaluating the things I am telling myself. What I am discovering is that much of my anxiety about this comes from way deep inside me where all of my expectations and assumptions and filters and rules live--the ones I don't even think about. I have this invisible steel frame of 'shoulds' and 'supposed to's' that rule my life, with or without my permission.

The trick for me is to recognize when and where these 'rules' show up in my thinking (first clue: anytime I feel anxiety)--and then decide if I'm going to keep it or trash it, depending on what is actually rational and true. What is diabolical about this whole process is that these 'shoulds' and 'supposed to's' live just beneath my consciousness, and they feel REALLY, REALLY true--no matter how ridiculous they seem to my rational brain. (I should never fail or make a mistake. I should never annoy anyone. I am supposed to be perfect. I should be more efficient and enjoy domestic undertakings. I'm supposed to be a good mother and play with Sadie any time she asks me to...)

Deprogramming my automatic negative thoughts is a giant undertaking. My head aches with the sheer amount of lying thoughts I take at face value to be true at all points of my day. I'm trying to find a way to be gentle with myself, and to accept the truth about myself.

I think my struggle to 'figure out' my faith is ruled by this inner steel frame as well. Somewhere in the recesses of my subconscious,  I have a list of beliefs, 'shoulds', and 'supposed to's' that I MUST hold as absolutely true, no matter what. Even when I know they make no sense--even when I don't agree with them anymore. They still own me like a evil dictator, and their propaganda is piped endlessly into my thoughts. I wish I could blame something or someone--but I know my own thoughts are the source of my oppression. The only way to find peace is to make peace with myself--and do the work to tell myself the truth.

It's like I'm volunteering to be in prison when I'm actually free. 

Wishful Thinking

Here's what I hope and wish to be true: that God is WAY bigger than I have imagined, and that God is the umbrella over every one and everything. I want Jesus to say to everyone 'You will have endless chances to choose me--if not now, then you have all of eternity to decide, because I will not let one of you perish.' Or that when He returns, and the trumpets blow, and everyone in the universe sees Him for Real, they all recognize Him instantly--even if they called Him by a different name while they lived on earth. I want to believe that if God is Love, (not to mention All Powerful,) then no one would be out of God's reach. And that it would be against God's nature to send any of creation to be tortured in Hell for eternity.

Believe me, I hear all of the verses in my head that would prove otherwise. In fact, I hear them all the live long day and I'm pretty terrified that I'm going to find out they are 100% accurate in the way I have understood them.  but I still have to tell the truth about my life. And the truth is, right now, the 'good news' I was taught in my conservative evangelical upbringing doesn't sound very good to me anymore. I want a new understanding of the love of God and the Grace that I keep hearing about. I realize that I can't just wish for God to be a certain way and then poof! He is.  But I'm holding out hope that there is MUCH I do NOT understand about how God loves, and how God works.