Origin Story: On the Bathroom Floor

 At times, I wonder if I’m qualified to be a Christian writer.  I have no moments of addiction, no near-death crises, no dramatic rescues to form my origin story.  The story of my origin as a Christian is a little more ordinary.  My childhood church planted the seeds of faith, deep within me, in the stories and songs I learned in Sunday School and children’s choir.  Church was a close part of my life, a part of my cultural and ethnic identity as a German-American Mennonite.  So much a part of my life, that after my baptism at fourteen, I walked out of church and didn’t return for about fifteen years.  It was as if I checked that box off my list and went out to explore the rest of the world.

Exploring atheism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Unitarianism left me with a rich and varied theology.  I had the pervasive idea that if I was a good enough person, if I meditated better, if I subdued my ego, if I participated in social justice, recycled, voted for the right candidates and ate local-sustainable food, then I would be at peace.  My Christian upbringing taught me values and gave me sacred stories, but all that sin and redemption stuff didn’t matter to me.  After all, I was a good person; I sent money to Free Tibet and Heifer International.  I didn’t need to be saved.  Don’t get me wrong, I liked Jesus and all, but I didn’t need him to save me.  I had that covered; I was getting pretty good at yoga and I could chant the Jewel is on the Lotus.  I was doing just fine--well enough.

Until the day that I wasn’t good enough.   Until the day when I collapsed on my bathroom floor in tears, paralyzed by guilt and anxiety.  There was no near-death crisis here, merely an ordinary crisis of spirit, a beginning-life-crisis, if you will.  Grieving the loss of my beloved father, contemplating a risky change of career, desperate and terrified to become a mother, I had made some poor decisions.  I failed to love my neighbor (and my loved ones) as myself; I failed to love myself.  I had been brought low time and time again, only to promise to myself and my vague idea of God , “I will do better next time.  I will try more.  I will fix myself.”    Again and again, I promised myself and my God.  No matter how much I tried, I just wasn’t good enough.

In a moment of desperation, I said out loud, “I am NOT good enough.  Do you still love me?”  Ostensibly, I was speaking to my husband, but really I was crying out to myself and to my God.  The answer, to my shock, was “YES!”  Brought to my knees by my striving and my failures, I died to my ego and surrendered to the love of God in Christ.  I didn’t realize at the time that it was Jesus who answered me, but I knew I was loved, particularly, unequivocally, unreservedly.  In the midst of my ordinary sins of omission, the little lies I told myself and others, the posturing, the playing the victim, the gossiping, the every-day sins of life while I was trying to be “good”, I was LOVED!  I felt it, palpably, like a cool cloth on my heated brow, like a hand to lift me up, like a rock under my feet.

The love of Christ gave me the strength to climb up from my knees and back into my life.  The love of Christ allowed me to rest, to stop striving, and to start living, not to “be good” but to do good in the world.  Knowing I was already loved and saved, with all my sins upon me, changed me.  The peace I’d longed for came in drops of water, flowing into a stream, and building to a loving ocean.  I could live a little more honestly, speak a little more kindly, act a little more lovingly, because I was a person already resting in love.

I had missed the main point of the lesson.  I had rejected the idea that Jesus had to “fix me”, because I was sure I could take care of myself.  I missed the whole thing; that Jesus was the love that sustained me, no matter what may come or how I sinned.  I didn’t have to do anything special to find Christ, because he was always waiting for me.  I didn’t have to “take Jesus into my heart” because he was already there, just waiting for to quit doing things and to notice him. As Robert Farrar Capon says,  I didn’t have to plug in to Jesus, because he is The Light of the World, not the Lighting Company.  I just had to open up my eyes and see.

Baby JEEEsus

I don’t think that much about baby Jesus, certainly not outside of Christmas.  I like babies just fine, but it isn’t the image of the virgin birth or a baby born in a manger that brought me back to Christianity.  I came back to church during Lent; the heartbreak and healing of Good Friday and Easter brought me home all over again.  Don’t get me wrong, Christmas is great, but that's not the image I turn to in moments of trouble.

    Most of the time when people talk of Baby Jesus, I think of the immortal Ricky Bobby, of Talladega Nights, praying over a dinner of KFC and Pizza Hut to “Baby Jesus, lying in your crib, can’t even talk yet, watching your Baby Einstein DVDs, thank you for my smoking hot wife”.   Baby JEEEsus is a punchline.  I love Christmas songs and I love babies, but the God in my prayers is an adult God.

    Recently, I saw  Baby Jesus in a different light.  Perhaps the familiar story had lost it wonder--as often happens to an adult come home to the faith of her fathers.  Perhaps, as a mother of two little girls, I saw it a new perspective.  For some reason, the incarnation of God as a helpless human baby took on a new meaning suddenly.  

    No one understands the helplessness of a baby more than a new mother.  I remember holding my babies so tenderly, so carefully, so tightly, while occasional thoughts of danger and destruction flashed through my mind.  “What if I dropped her?  What if I fell down holding her?  What if the car crashed?  What if she slipped under the water in the bathtub?”  Those moments only lasted a split second; I chocked them up to new mother’s anxiety and appreciated how they made me more vigilant.  So, what does it mean that God willingly takes on that type of helplessness?  What does it mean that God allows himself to be cared for by a regular, low-class Jewish woman with a carpenter husband and a baby that isn’t his?  God sure must trust people a whole lot.

    As children grow, it’s not just the physical world that terrifies mothers.  I hope and pray that I’m making the right decisions raising my girls.  I want them to respect me, to obey me when their safety is on the line, to feel secure in their own persons, to feel loved and accepted, to test their abilities, to persevere through hardship.  I want to help them learn discipline and compassion.  I want them to know the love of a mother, so they can love others.  I want to love them into being the people they were born to be.  Some regular, low-class Jewish woman with a carpenter husband prayed for the same things for her son.  Some mother loved him into being who he became.

    Suddenly, it hit me.  The incarnation isn’t just God deigning to become human in order to teach us and to love us.  Yes, Jesus did teach us and he did love us.  But before he could do that, he was taught and he was loved--by us.  God loved the world so much that he gave his only son (John 3:16).  And someone loved that only son so much that he grew up to become all he should have been--God in flesh.  God trusted humans so much that he let us shape him, just a little bit, let us teach him how to walk, to talk, to read.  He trusted humans enough to let them love him into being one.  I know lots of people and I’m not sure I trust any of them that much.  People are pretty rotten, selfish, lazy, and annoying.  Who in his right mind would lay his life in the likes of those?  Once, again I am wrong.  That little baby trusted his parents to raise him into a man; I need to trust my fellow man to life up to his potential, too.  God loved us into being, and then he gave us the supreme gift of allowing us to love God into being, too.

    That my friends is why, this year, I, too, will pray to “Little Baby Jesus”.

Seeds and Sparks

Sometimes understanding grows like a plant, nurtured from a tiny seed.  Sometimes it lights up like a sudden spark, giving heat and light to those around it.  Healthy environments allow for both types of learning to occur.  I am an especially lucky church member, because I can experience Christian formation at St. Ignatius on many levels.  I can assist in the primary Sunday School class, where the teachers inspire the children with Bible stories of God’s work in the world.  I can volunteer with Vacation Bible School, where we bring sacred stories from the Bible and children’s literature to life.  I can explore the Episcopal faith with our confirmation class, and I can examine the mystery of God’s action in our lives in adult study.  I can observe many stages of the growth process, as we plant the seeds of faith, tend them, and harvest the fruit they bring.

Recently, a conversation in our adult study class illustrated perfectly why I love this church and this community so much.  We were exploring the nature of God in suffering through reading and discussion.  As two of us respectfully and passionately debated our viewpoints, we understood that we saw God in different ways.  Our differing perspectives sprang from our experiences and our personal interpretation of scripture.  I said, “As much as you must believe in your perspective, I must believe in mine.”  Although we disagreed on certain points, we came together in our assertion that the God of Jesus Christ is love, unconditional, personal, active love working in our lives.  Another participant pointed out, “Isn’t it wonderful that there is room in the Episcopal Church for all of these views?”  Through sharing my own ideas and listening respectfully to another, my own view of God widens and deepens--and there is room for greater depth and width within our faith.  

When I first came back home to a Christian church, I was nervous about discussing matters of faith with fellow Christians. I loved to talk spirituality, theology, and the nature of things, usually with a diverse group of believers.  My Unitarian Universalist, spiritual-but-not-religious circles contained atheists, Buddhists, humanists, pagans, and even a few Christians. Amongst these “not-Christian” friends, I often argued the liberal Christian perspective.  I was comfortable in that role.  Upon entering the Episcopal Church, what would I find? Would there be room enough for me--someone who is decidedly affirming of my friends who happen to be LGBT, someone who has serious doubts about the idea of hell, someone who desperately wants to believe in universal salvation?  I didn’t expect everyone to agree with me; maybe I would even gain a different perspective in conversation.   Would I have the opportunity to bump my views against the views of others and experience the spark of greater understanding created by the friction?   When the seeds of our faith are nurtured and strong, we are at our best, listening to each other in love.  At those times, moments of respectful disagreement cause the sparks of illumination to fly. There is room for diverse viewpoints, even (or especially) within the church of Jesus Christ.

When I watch Sunday School teachers captivating children with the story of the Ten Commandments, or analyze the gospel of John with our confirmation class, or discuss the nature of the Trinity with adult friends over coffee, my own faith is tested, challenged, and strengthened.  I see the seeds we plant in children flowering in our young adults and bearing the fruit of the kingdom into the world.  I see my fellow Christians sparking the light of faith, by which the world will see.

Windows and Lenses

“One Light, Many Windows”  is a saying amongst Unitarian Universalists and the spiritual-but-not-religious crowd.  It is a quote from Forrest Church, who gave us the metaphor of the world as a vast cathedral with myriad stained glass windows.  God is the light that shines through the windows and the windows are the world’s religions, the ways we see God in our own lives.  This is a beautiful metaphor for the U.U. life, one where all perspectives are valued and people work together for a common goal of respecting each and every person.  God shines a light on all of it, through the many windows, into a common area, where people come together.  People value each window, realizing that some windows/faiths will resonate more strongly with others.  People choose freely which window to venerate at any time, to venerate all windows, or to venerate none of them and just live within the space.  It’s a beautiful idea.  That idea brought me to church in the beginning, but it caused me to leave it in the end.

Allow me to expand the metaphor a little more to tell the story.  I loved being a Unitarian Universalist.  I could continue with my spiritual-but-not-religious idea with a group of people creating positive change in the community.   As long as I valued and respected everyone else, I was free to believe my own beliefs, to find my own window.  I was free to craft my own theology, as it suited me.  I was free to find my own salvation.  What can be wrong with that?  It's great for so many people.  Well, I worked on it for awhile and, to my surprise, I found that the theology that spoke to me, challenged me and called me was good old-fashioned Christianity.  Picking and choosing from Buddhist, Hindu, humanist, and pagan theology only left me with pieces of ideas that did not mesh together in a meaningful way.  It is too easy for me, in my lack of self-discipline, to only choose the ideas that already suited me, to avoid challenge, and to support my current perspective.  So, the more I explored, the more I found myself sitting at the window of Christianity.

Here is where the window changed.  See, windows let the light in.  They mark the outside and the inside.  They act upon the passive, observing people within, who receive the light.  The more I gazed at one window, the closer it came, until it bent around my eye to color the entire view.  I was fascinated with the story of the dying and rising God, the God who gave up his divine nature to become incarnate in human flesh, who lived amongst us, loved us, ate with us, told jokes with us, taught us to love one another, and then died in disgrace as a final act of surrender to power.  The God whose act of sacrifice and surrender turned the world upside-down, defeated death, and gave new life to all; the God who came into the world NOT to condemn it, but to save it.

The mystery of the story of Christ began to color the way I saw the light of God--it became a lens.  Marcus Borg calls Christianity a lens with which to see the world.  What’s the difference between a lens and a window?  Well, a lens is personal, it becomes the way I viewed the world, it became part of how I saw everything else I touched.  Once I become accustomed to it, I could not put it away without distorting my view.  Different people have different lenses, just as they have different perspectives, different experiences, and different needs.  For me, the miracle of Christ changed from a lovely window at which to gaze to a lens that informed my view of everything in my life.

The view with that lens rallied me out of passivity.  No longer an observer at a window, I needed to participate with others.  I wanted to find people who shared that lens, meet them, talk to them, and work with them.  I wanted to sing hymns, hear the gospel, pray the Lord's Prayer, and celebrate the Eucharist.  I wanted to join the party.  Once the light of the God lit up the lens of Christianity in front of my eyes, I rose out of my seat and into the kingdom.

Who am I to do this?

The Holy Spirit keeps bugging me; there must be something I am supposed to learn.  The idea that I’m supposed to be “listening for the Holy Spirit” keeps popping up in my life recently. It all started a few weeks ago when my priest told me, “Let the Holy Spirit guide you.”  I bit my tongue from my first thought, “Yeah, whatever…” and listened to his inspirational pep talk.  By the end of our conversation, I had tears in my eyes.  The faith he has in my ability to listen and perceive God’s will moved me.  Whatever else he learned in seminary, Fr. Tim sure knows how to motivate a person.  So, I thought, I waited, I thought some more, and made the decision, hoping my idea was somehow reflective of God’s will.  Holy Spirit, check that one off the list; I got it now. But, she was not done with me yet.

At church the next Sunday, the sermon was a little heavy on the “Spirit moving you” message.  I wondered if the lesson about focusing on the positive, having faith, and listening to God’s plan, was directed right to me.  Later on, I teased my priest about his message and our conversation earlier in the week.  I said, “OK!  I get it.  This Holy Spirit thing is something I need to work on.  I will have faith.”  You see, like most people I know, I’ve got some control issues.  I seem laid-back enough, until you get right up in my business and start messing with my stuff.  Or, until you give me a task without clear guidance and tell me to “listen to my gut”.  That makes me pretty damn nervous; then the fretting, worrying, anxious busy-body comes out.  Listen to my gut, yeah right--my gut has told me some crazy things in my life.  I mean, seriously, I should not be even basing my choice of breakfast meat on my gut!

So if listening to my gut is out, what, then, does it mean to listen for God?  In the midst of my questioning, I heard an answer of sorts.  I know I didn’t figure it out myself--something nudged me into realizing it.  I realized is that it’s not about ME.  That is a statement I’ve heard quite often (usually from my husband during an argument).   But this time, rather than a reprimand, it felt like a reprieve.  It’s not about ME--not my choices, not my desires, not my ability, not my mistakes.  It’s about something much, much bigger than me--it’s about the Kingdom of God.  

We live in a fragmented, individualist society, prizing independence and teaching our children responsibility.  I want to believe that my choices matter, that I am in charge of my own success, that my ability stems from hard work and strong character.  That’s not necessarily true.  This is where the Holy Spirit gets all in my face.  This is when I realize that it isn’t all on me.  There is something beyond me that catches me when I falter, that nudges me towards the light, that woos me into a loving relationship with God and with the world.  When I wonder if I’m capable of making wise decisions and positive change in my community, it’s OK if the answer is, “Not on my own.”  The true answer is, “I will, with God’s help.”   As a member of the body of Christ, we are all vessels through which God will bring in his kingdom.  When I wonder, “Who am I to accomplish this task?  Who am I to lead?”, the Holy Spirit answers, “You are a blessed Child of God!”

Coffee with the Holy Spirit

Sometimes, I think priests and ministers just like to confuse me.  When I seek answers from the clergy in my life, I usually only find more questions.  No one must be able to pass Seminary 101 until he masters the rabbinical art of answering a question with a question.  If I had a dollar for every time I heard, “If you think you understand it, it isn’t God”, well, I’d be able to treat myself and a few friends to Starbucks.  Recently, I took on a new project at church.  A little nervous, I called my priest, hoping for some guidelines, goals, and objectives.  My teacher brain wanted to know what our end result would be, so I could figure out the steps to achieve it.  I should have known better.  Instead of a nice, specific scope and sequence, he told me to “trust my gut” and “listen to the Holy Spirit”.  “Really”, I thought, “I ask for reassurance and strategy and you tell me to listen for what God wants me to do?  Come on, dude!”

I mean, do normal people in secular jobs go around listening to the Holy Spirit?  I pray for wisdom and patience.  I pray for discipline and forbearance.  I pray for guidance.  But, I don’t think I’ve EVER thought, “the Holy Spirit is telling me to do a Narnia Vacation Bible School.”  Or, “the Holy Spirit is guiding me through that difficult parent conference.”   I’ve never, once thought, in the moment, “Oh, thanks Holy Spirit, for helping me out.”  I mean, wouldn’t that be a little crazy?  Living a meaningful, mature Christian life is kind of new to me.  Do other people have relationships with the Holy Spirit?  How will I know when she shows up?  What kind of coffee does she like?  In this rational, modern world, what space do I make to recognize the Holy Spirit?

I do believe the Holy Spirit guides my life, in a general type of way.  Looking back on stressful decisions, I can identify moments when something miraculous, grace-filled, and extremely synchronicitous led me in a surprising direction.  It made sense to call upon God for help when I was laid low, anxious, frustrated, and a total mess.  I feel a little silly calling upon the guidance of the Holy Spirit to choose an adult study curriculum.  But this is the moment when the rubber meets the road, when my faith affects my everyday life.   I’m a relatively new adult Christian, still finding my feet in this complex faith.  

Theologian Marcus Borg calls Christianity a lens through which to see the world, and at first that lens gave me new eyes.  I stared at familiar things with new interest, finding new meaning in old stories, seeing previous experiences in new light.  Lately, the lens has become a familiar tool of practice, my regular way of seeing.  A tool I work with to forgive and ask forgiveness, to find peace, and to give thanks.  Now, I’m supposed to use that tool to find guidance from a mystery, to wait upon the Holy Spirit to guide me.  Not so easy!

What I need is faith, and not faith in myself.  I’ve always struggled with self-doubt. Even when I long to serve, I wonder if I truly have the knowledge or the skill to pull it off.  After all, who am I to decide things?  Who am I to lead?  I cover it up with competence and hard work.  I prepare, I think, I cover my bases, I get A’s, and I stack up credentials.  If I can’t manage it, then I probably won’t commit to it.  This combination of humility and work ethic has served me well in life so far, and I hide behind it often.  I’m pretty sure that’s why my familiar plan won’t work right now; I need to learn that sometimes the answer is beyond me and that’s OK.  Sometimes, the answer isn’t even the point.  Sometimes, asking the question is the most important thing.

If a person believes that God is “the great love in which we live and move and have our being”, then God surrounds us every minute of every day.  Once in a while, we notice God, when we are quiet, or peaceful, or desperate, or at our wit’s end.  Once in a while, we give up trying to control, to plan, to manage things.  Once in a while, we take our self-doubt to someone and he says, “Trust in the Holy Spirit”.  And, once in a while, we don’t laugh it off, or deny the possibility.  Instead, we live with the question, we hope and pray, with a little tear in our eye, that the Holy Spirit shows up and joins us for coffee.

Thoughts on apple-picking

Ahhh, September, time of warm days, cool nights, golden corn, and apples.  Apples are everywhere on my facebook feed.  Kids in apple t-shirts picking apples at an apple orchard, riding apple-themed carnival rides, eating apple cider donuts while drinking apple cider.  It makes me want some apple brandy or something.  Seriously!  When did apple-picking become THE not-to-miss fall adventure?  When did something so simple and basic as buying fresh apples from the grower become a contrived extravaganza?  Why do I feel like a slacker parent if my child’s apples come from the grocery store, not hand-picked for $25 on a sunny September day in a picturesque orchard and posted on facebook, twitter, and instagram?

OK, maybe I’m a little cranky and a little harsh.  Shouldn't I applaud the parents having a wholesome outing with their kids?  Isn’t it admirable that people want to connect with the places their food is grown?  Isn’t it a positive trend to buy locally and support local growers?  Yes, yes, and Yes.  But, I’m still cranky.  See, I know about freshly picked apples, from way back.

My childhood Septembers were also apple-heavy.  There was the church apple fritter stand at the town festival.  If I have ever eaten a piece of heaven, it is a cored, sliced, tart, fresh apple, dipped in batter, deep fried, and sprinkled with powdered sugar.  The ladies of First Mennonite Church of Sugarcreek guard the batter recipe with their very lives.  Those apple fritters have caused me to drive 400 miles one way to indulge in them.  There was also the apple butter my mother’s family boils every fall.  As I kid, I played in the leaves while parent, aunts, uncles, and grandparents boiled apple butter in a cauldron big enough to boil a few of the grandchildren.  By tradition, the oldest woman adds the spoonful of cinnamon.  When I was a kid, it was my Great-grandma Smith.   Now, it’s my own mother.  We would come home with enough jars of canned apple butter to last until next fall.  So, trust me, I know about the joy treats made from fall apples.

I also know the joy of picking fresh apples from a tree.  Growing up, if we wanted some apples during September, we walked out to the northeast corner of the pasture.  Some previous farmer had planted a few apple trees that yielded the little red and yellow kind.  I used to ride my horse out to pick them and feed him the cores when I was done.  They were lumpy and small and I had to watch out for worms and rotten parts.  But, the taste of them on my tongue--tart and sweet, crunchy and juicy--that was the taste of the end of summer.  So, I know the beauty of an apple just liberated from its tree.

I guess it bugs me that my natural childhood memories, picking fruit because it was there, making special treats to raise money, and canning to preserve for the rest of the year, are now hijacked by themed t-shirts and carnival rides.  We celebrated apples in September because that is when the fruit came in, so that’s when it affected our lives in my rural community.  It was work, not entertainment.  Today, it seems so contrived to me, so artificial, and so compulsory.  After all, are my slacker ways are costing my kids a great "apple experience"?  Will they be mad at my if there aren't any pictures of them in apple t-shirts, picking apples from a tree, with their little faces covered in apple donut?

Perhaps I am missing the point.  Bravo to the smart farmers and orchard owners who thought of this.  Maybe I should get on the bandwagon.  As a matter of fact, I should put my mind to it.  If my family could come up with some cute hay-bale themed t-shirts, some hay-bale carnival rides, and treats like haystacks or something, maybe we could sell admission when the hay comes in.  People could pay $2 for the chance to lift and stack the hay bales into the mow.  Throwing them from the wagon costs $3, and it’s only for people over 40 inches tall.  Why stop at stacking hay?  For just an extra $5, people could spend 10 minutes shoveling fertilizer.  They could have the experience of spreading it on the fields, or take it home for their own gardens.  We would supply the pitchforks and shovels, and you can take as much as you can carry.  I wonder what kind of shirts I could sell for that?