Random Person: They were THE Christians, and now look at them. If all that can happen to them, what chance do I have of making it?
And therein, is the bigger question, the bigger fear.
How can bad things happen to good people... and how do I make sure it doesn't happen to me?
I don't have an answer. Truthfully, I'm not capable right now, not strong enough right this moment, to even attempt to ask that. The sheer weight of that question is just too big. Yet the circumstances that have led to "bad things" happening to me and my not-so-small tribe influence every single aspect of life as we know it now. So, on some level, I have to deal with it. I have to figure out how to take bite-sized pieces and digest them, lest I choke on the whole.
The thing I found most startling about this entire exodus is how brutal the fight for each hand hold has been. Picture this: A person, on the ledge of what is always called something like "God's Window". One of those really tall mountain tops out in the middle of nowhere so the views are stunning, sunsets and sunrises life changing and the peace around just soul satisfying. Then, for whatever reason (be a push from behind or a leap out) that person who was taking in the vista is plunging to the earth. Verses memorized in childhood and adulthood alike, verses about plans to prosper me and angels not letting even one hair on my head be damaged race through the mind because there's nothing to do in the midst of the fall. Flailing and screaming accomplish nothing because the volume and magnitude of the fall, the sheer gravitational energy being exerted is more than any scream can fix. For me, I knew that, so I fell without a fight. It didn't matter how I came to the ledge from which this monumental plunge happened, it didn't matter whose hands were at my back or who was beside me. I was doing down. Period. And down I went, mostly quietly, trying to remember landmarks on the way down so the path back up would be marked familiar. As generally happens, I landed with an unceremonious thudding, a crater forming in the planet that hadn't been there before, yet was more or less completely unknown to the realms. One of my favorite movies is Stardust and in the movie, a star falls into the magical land of Stormhold. When she falls, her leg pains her, there are bumps and bruises and a burnt streak in the landscape. That pretty much sums the feeling up. Moving, walking, trying to figure out where to go and how to get there is nearly impossible, certainly unplanable.
Somehow, somewhere along the way, some part of your soul knows you're in danger if you just sit in a crater of fallen-ness. That's where so many things come into play that a very good many evangelical Christians haven't understood about my person path. I've been called to judgement and rebuked, "prayed for" that we would "rejoin the fold" and so very many other things that really just hurt. Because when you're in the midst of a crater from a world-changing fall, you have to climb out. Someone shouting you should pray more, doesn't help the climb. Someone asking how to spell your name to add to their weekly prayer request, doesn't help the climb. Someone telling you that you should be singing joyous songs of the very people who had a hand in or witnessed you being up on that ledge in the first place, doesn't help the climb. Sometimes, in fact, those very acts feel like stones being thrown down on your head.
On this climb out, the first I've done with an entire family in tow, I've realized a few things. The whole American "pick yourself up by your bootstraps" and "rugged independence" mentality are just horse shit. Plain and simple. Just like poverty is more complicated than good financial planning and eradicating malaria isn't answered in a simple mosquito netting. Climbing out of betrayal and depression, wounds and seriously deep questions about life and faith and God's purposes aren't answered in my own strength. In the same breath that I realized I wasn't big enough, I also realized my community had very little practice with being the community that pulls me up all broken and bloody. Many in my community were the very ones wounding me farther with their 'helpful' comments to right myself and others were on that ledge looking down. That's where my journey to right-ness began, from my deep and sincere need to get out of my pit but a realization that I needed help.
The conservative, evangelical christian background that I come from didn't help me one little bit here. I had no prayer book for when I had no words to pray. I had no professional counseling outlets because, largely, the church doesn't "do" professional mental health workers. Worst of all (for me) was that there was no space to be a doubter. Not necessarily in God, but that might have been nice. Remember, I was trying to bite off small pieces of this really big thing, a really big question, HOW. Small pieces aren't easy to eek out of that, and it's hard work, sweaty, smelly work, and I found there was a lack of grace for the wrestling match that is Doubt. Doubt in myself. Doubt in my choices. Doubt in my organized church and doubt in where to go from here. Compared to some, my doubts were small. I never doubted the sovereignty of my Lord, Ha Shem. I never doubted that my path of faithfulness was anything but beautiful. Those doubts would need even more room, more grace, and I can see why people have left the fellowship of believers in those times. It felt like (my personal perspective here, my personal truth as I live it) I was trying to climb a sheer marble cliff, with no handholds, no cracks or crevasses... and no one throwing down a helpful rope.
So I turned to foundational things.
Things I hoped and prayed could give me some kind of traction, some kind of Sabbath,a peace of wholeness, completeness. I went into to look at beautiful rocks in nature on a Sunday instead of the places where I knew rocks had been thrown from in the past. I self-protected and avoided certain places and people, all the while seeking God in such a way so that I could start to re-assimilate His Holy into the fabric of my heart without all the mess I simply could not deal with. I found reading my standard Bible was too hard, held too many un-dealt-with-packages of grief and loss and mourning but my soul needed to hear Truth. So I found a people who spoke of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, MY God, in a way that wasn't steeped in evangelical inch-deep-mile-wide mentality. I took my kids to a Jewish place of worship, now our cornerstone of community and mental health. Believe me, the irony here isn't lost on me. But, I'm allowed to ask questions there. For the first time in my life, I'm not an insider, expected to speak insider speak and do insider things. The space to wrestle down my demons of Doubt and Fear and Baggage is built in, partly because biblically, I'm surrounded by people who have historically fought the demons of Fear and Doubt and inherited Baggage, just like me (individually) but also generationally. Also, though, because I have zero expectation other than just to be present. Learning the spiritual practice of connecting to the One who is described as "Was," "Is," and "Is To Come"... the One whose very name is defined by BEING, it's new to me, and I'm loving it. I'm finding it's okay to recognize boundaries within my own soul and it's okay if I have a bad week, need a hike, reconnect with my own breath or find God's stillness on a mountain. I'm unlearning some broken truths planted deep within me, and replacing them with good, full, whole Truths.
My family now practices Shabbot dinners on a Friday night. I'm not sure what it actually is supposed to look like since I've (so far) turned down every invitation to join an actual Shabbot meal. For me though, it's in the idea that I set aside a time, a space, for my family to get the best from me, the best from each other, and the best atmosphere to experience the Lord in and through one another. So the house is cleaned on a Friday, or at least, we attempt it. I don't like being a task master or getting frustrated and then shouting because of socks everywhere or papers all over the floor. I intentionally start cleaning days early so that by Friday night, I can take a mental break from dishes and vacuuming and whatever else comes up. We have candles and good plates, because I want my kids to know they are special enough for the "good stuff" even when it's not a holiday. I don't want them to get this warped idea that the house is only ever clean for guests, or that they aren't special enough for our good plates. And then, because the house is clean and the meal is sorted (even if that's just ordering pizza), we light candles so that everyone wants to linger around the table, enjoy the beauty of tribe. If we can, we invite others to share in this space with us, because who better to share the enjoyment of your family than with others who like them as well?
Falling is hard. Climbing out of the crater after the fall is damn near suicidal. Somewhere early on, I remembered truth that dear friends at Grace Point Methodist Church in South Africa had said, "If you don't know where you're going you will have a hard time finding it when you get there."
Foundations.
Fundamentals.
I want my kids to love the Lord God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. I want my family to be close, connected, and feel like no matter what is going on in the world, they can come into the sanctuary of our home and find some rest. I've found that as I work toward and cling to the goals, standards really, that I've set forth for my family, I'm finding more hand holds myself. Having space in the home for love and acceptance and apologies has helped me carve out space in my own heart for the love and acceptance of where I'm at, and how I got here, but also how far I've come. Each time I make a physical move toward wholeness for my family, it feels as if there is a move towards wholeness in my own heart. And each time I find myself more whole, I realize that my own personal HOW gets smaller, easier to chew. Maybe someday I'll be able to re-enter certain places, certain institutions. Maybe not. My goal is not to be a denominational person. My goal is to be a whole person, worshiping God, and I'm getting there, in my own way, on my own time.
The Shema
Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. Blessed be the name of the glory of His kingdom forever and ever. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you today shall be upon your heart. You shall teach them thoroughly to your children, and you shall speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road, when you lie down and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for a reminder between your eyes. And you shall write them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates.... I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God; I, the Lord, am your God. True.
