For the sake of pseudo-anonymity, let's call her C. I met C back at the beginning of an attempt at an ill-advised dual Master's Degree in English and Women's Studies at a large Midwestern university.
Yeah, OK...it was this one.
I was 21, at which point my life was a veritable car crash in which I was realizing I a) didn't want to be the college professor my father had set me up to be and b) had some enormous issues with him anyway but c) was having a pretty awesome time having drinks and long-night talks with a group of the most motivated, intelligent women I could ever hope to meet.
This is Brutus. He's the mascot.
I ditched the MA program but kept the friends, and if you've ever wondered what it's like to have been part of a group that could as easily discuss sex and makeup as the evils of post-colonial Rhodesia, well, I'm here to tell you I've lived the dream. It was Camelot, basically, and the glory that was Rome, without scamming magicians and the evils of unchecked hubris.
These are buckeyes. Real ones? Poisonous.
Chocolate/peanut butter ones? DELICIOUS.
All right...think I'm finished.
The circle of friends loosened, as circles do, particularly when a Master's program is only two years long and people eventually graduate (like C) or drop out (like me) and go on to move and get jobs and have all sorts of babies.
I miss all of those women. We stretch literally from sea to shining sea now, one in California, one in Illinois, three in Ohio, C in Pennsylvania, and I got carried back to ol' Virginny, and oh my LORD if you want to explore the hegemonic marginalization of the subaltern as personified in post-slave narrative, by all means, Google those lyrics.
C has been there for me through so many important life moments. She was a bridesmaid in my wedding and woke up at the ungodly hour of 5 in the morning to do my hair. As soon as I figured out I was pregnant with Eva-- right after Mr. Milkweed and I lined up all seven positive pregnancy tests on top of the stove-- C was the first to know. She knows about the best in my life, and about the absolute worst. We've got some solid roots.
So when she sat on my couch a few weeks ago after our kids were finally asleep, and our husbands had wandered off to other parts of the house, we spent some time talking about God. She listened to me talk how God is shaping my future and how I'm learning to cope with some rough things that shaped my past. We talked about the both/and nature of so much in life-- how we hold what's welcome and easy along with what's uninvited and hard.
Hello, Duck Bunny. You are also both / and.
She told me about believing in God and finding solace in the tenets of Buddhism and other traditions. I told her about believing in the divinity of Jesus and the comforts and challenges of living a life shaped by Scripture and liturgy. I talked about wanting to help people move through doubt into the beauty of Christian faith, and she talked about her discomfort even with the word "doubt" because it presupposes that God works in a certain way. Who are we, she asked, to advocate for one form of belief over another? Who are we to say which way is right?
Cue the stage lights, right-- cue the orchestra, because this was the moment when I was going to make an simple, gentle, articulate profession of faith. I was going to tell her how Jesus is basically God's thesis statement, and why "I am the way, the truth, and the life" is an arrow shot to the heart of all the grace, hope, and redemption that make me want to get out of bed in the morning. And also, though I'm not sure how it works, I would have said I believe that there is room in the story of the Kingdom of God for those with little to no use for the King.
I still have lots of questions, I would have told her. I think that's OK because who's got all the answers about anything, ever, at all? I've got faith, and I've got questions. Both/and.
Cue the curtain, fade to credits....except it was more like grab some snacks and change the subject.
OK, so I'm certain of one thing: I need to spend a lot more time processing where my story intersects God's story. What, as I understand it, is being professed in the creeds? This isn't about rewriting or picking and choosing. It is about putting my own words and experiences next to those things I recite by memory every Sunday. Where's the juxtaposition of my life with the Life, Death, and Resurrection? What are the simple facts of why I believe?
I'm not looking for obvious answers here, and I'm also not looking to write my way through those answers and be done with it. How can I talk about them? A lot of versions of Christianity have a script you're supposed to follow: when you were saved, or accepted Jesus into your heart, and what that was like and how radically different life has been ever since. I'm not saying there isn't a lot of authenticity to the ways people fill in those blanks, but Jesus isn't some kind of magical Bandaid. I'd be a lot more interested to hear about how someone became a Christian but then lost a job/got divorced/endured a long illness yet kept on believing. How has my faith supported me through my own valleys of the shadow?
I'm not about to say my discussion that weekend with C was any less special or bland or devoid, somehow, of the presence of the Holy Spirit because I was a crappy evangelist. The thing is, I know why I didn't even bother with any sort of profession of faith. I was afraid that she would take it as an insult, somehow, of her own faith journey.
I love C. I didn't want to insult C. But why not be more strident and clear about what I believe to be the very source of love itself? Who knows what use God could make of my words? And besides that, I know C wouldn't have minded.
It's fair to say I've got a hefty stew bubbling away on the backburner. Keep the ladle in the drawer, because it's going to be quite a while before it's ready for consumption. I have decided, though, that speaking honestly is not to insult others who have made other choices. What is insulting is to assume others aren't able to listen with respect and kindness.
I am a member of the Body of Christ, and the God whom we proclaim is strange, fascinating, and compelling. It's my challenge to dig deep and do this work; to figure out where my story and God's story intersect-- I mean, to really know and understand it-- so that the next time, I can give that story the voice it is due.
1 comment:
Hey M-L,
Just read this. I think maybe you're being too hard on yourself regarding the conversation. For one thing, all those things you said you didn't say, I still heard--and I actually think you were right when you said (that weekend) that there are lots of places to begin a conversation with people with different perspectives that isn't "the way and the truth" etc. Sometimes "evangelism" is going to be better served by less "showy" stuff (using your metaphor here). Of course it's a great idea for you to figure out what story you want to tell about your faith, but it's ok for there to be pauses and silences (and snacks) in the meantime--God works with those too, right? And of course I would have listened if you'd said more, and I'll keep listening because I'm interested. I'll also hope to contribute something too. But I don't think there's any simple way for that to look when two smart people find different ways of connecting with God--how to talk about it, in itself, is a complex thing beyond figuring out what you want to say.
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