A Christianity of Boxes

I used to think that there was one right way to be a Christian. In my mind, there was no room for theological differences, or even differences in some preferences. No nuance, no sliding scales, no sometimes or maybes. Simple black and white. My whole childhood was black and white, everything fit into neat, tidy boxes. I remember well the discomfort in high school when I bumped into people with different beliefs; I didn't want any conflict, but they were wrong. I went to a college that was linked with my childhood denomination, and though that school officially agreed with what I had been taught my whole life, I met Christians from different backgrounds. Sure, we agreed on more or less most of the same things, but there was a hint of Christian diversity in my bubble for the first time.

My experience leaving college was messy and painful, and it pretty much destroyed any part of me that was still consciously hanging onto that black and white framework. I had seen too much to believe neat, tidy boxes were the way to sort my faith. As I spent the next years trying to put my life back together and figure out how to navigate as an adult, I found other people of faith who taught me great things. I discovered blogs and books and regular people just doing their best to love Jesus.

I grew up believing that rigidity was the mark of a true Christian. Now I believe that the best posture I can take is one of openness. I know full well that just as I've discarded many things I held onto dearly in the past, one day I may let go of beliefs I hold strongly now. I am more comfortable with uncertainty; I embrace it, in fact. I find great relief in admitting that I don't understand a lot, and there are so many things I don't know.

Sure, there is a part of me that still like rules. I like the tidiness of knowing what's right and what's wrong. But the messy uncertainty of learning to love freely is infinitely more rewarding than checking off boxes for good behavior, even when I know I'm falling short of loving well. The more I discover others who are throwing out checklists in favor of radical love, the less alone I feel, and the more excited I get about the love of Christ. That's when it feels magical, which is the unspiritual way of saying that I think the Holy Spirit likes it when we chase love and share love and revel in love.

Intellectually I have it all sorted out (as much as you can ever sort things out). I know what I feel in my heart, how I want to love and be loved and not feel as if I have to earn love. The reality is that I still have the echos of my childhood rules flitting through my head, so sometimes (OK, a lot of the time), I still feel as if I need to check off all the boxes even though my brain tells me the boxes are no longer helpful for me or even good for me. Often I am able to help block those echos by reading authors whose work speaks to the part of my heat that loves rather than the authors who like lists. Authors like Sarah Bessey and Glennon Doyle Melton make me feel like the only box I need to check is the one that asks if I am trying to love people (including myself). No caveats, no followup questions, not even a perfect response or completion. I like to remind myself that generally everyone is just trying to do the best they can, and that means I need to accept that my best probably doesn't equal perfection, but that's OK because nobody's does.

Why Christian?

I've been trying to figure out how to talk about the Why Christian? conference I attended a few weeks ago without sharing every single detail, because the details matter less than the big picture. I chose to attend the conference because I had been greatly impacted by the writing of the hosts of the conference (Rachel Held Evans and Nadia Bolz-Weber), plus WX15 was in my backyard (aka Minneapolis), so it was logistically possible to attend.

Big picture: the Holy Spirit was moving in St. Mark's Cathedral. Every woman who stood before the crowd shared her story, shared her love for Jesus. To see strong, female leaders of such diversity was something I had never seen, and it was, quite simply, a thing of beauty. To hear from women of different denominations, different ethnicities, different sexual orientations, different lives all share the one thing they had in common was so powerful. It makes me think of Paul's words in Gal 2:28, "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

So often in Christianity it feels like we are talking about how we're different. How we're different from the world, how we're different from those Christians over there who are doing it wrong, how we're not like THOSE people over there. It was so life-giving to celebrate our commonalities instead and have our differences fall to the wayside in light of truth of who Jesus is.

Jesus chose to inhabit a human body. He lived among regular, ordinary people. He was the recipient of judgment, scorn, and violence. And yet he loves us. His love is so much bigger than I can even dare to imagine. One of the most powerful moments of the weekend for me was receiving communion. At my churches we've always had a pass-the-plate or go-get-your-elements-and-then-take-it-to-your-seat-so-we-can-take-it-together sort of approach to communion. Taking communion at St. Mark's was different. I was looked in the eye and told that Jesus broke his body for me, that he shed his blood for me. For ME. It was intimate and personal in a way communion has never been for me, and so different from the shame and guilt that often leaves me not participating in communion at my own church.

I spent so much of day two (Saturday) in tears. Part of that was grieving the loss of my aunt who passed away that morning. Part of it was simply responding to the stirring in my soul. When redemption and grace showed up in the form of Amazing Grace played on the trombone, when I was told I am worth Christ's sacrifice, when my soul yearned for a kingdom where our pain and hurt will be no more and our sorrow is turned to joy, I couldn't help but weep. And let me be clear: I am not a public cryer. I think I've only cried in front of my therapist twice in the six and a half years we've worked together. It's really a testament that I felt safe enough even among strangers to let my heart flow through my eyes.

That weekend was the first time I'd ever heard gay, bi, and trans people share their stories in person from a place of wholeness. My whole life I have been told that first and foremost gay people are sinning. That's always what the emphasis was. At Why Christian? gender and sexual orientation were not the emphasis. Sure, people talked about them as they pertained to their own stories and the church in general, but the emphasis was love and passion for Jesus. How Jesus loves us as we are. How God created us and it was good. It was such a beautiful reminder to see the dignity in every human being, to call out and respect the Imago Dei in each of us. I felt so deeply in my soul the importance of loving others well, especially the people we don't understand, the people on the fringes, the people who are hurting. I felt the importance of loving myself, of recognizing God's love for me even when I feel my sin disqualifies me from being worthy of love.

Love God, love others. This is how I've been describing my faith lately. I just don't know about so many things, but I know that I believe in love. I truly believe that the love that was shown among the conference speakers and attendees was a sliver of a taste of what God's kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven will be like. It was such a sacred, moving, healing experience. I was reminded of why I choose to be a Christian even when I doubt, even when I face unspeakable loss, even when I am in the depths of despair and when my friends let me down. I cling to the hope of love like Christ showed, that he laid down his life for us. Love is powerful. That's what keeps me hanging on for dear life in the depths of my soul even when I feel like I'm drowning. It is an addicting, intoxicating love, and even when I can't feel it or even believe it fully, I have the hope that it's true.

I am so grateful for the stories shared, for the grace extended, for the unity displayed. I was changed at WX15 and so very encouraged. God is love, and love wins.

Learning to Embrace My Puzzle Piece

If you know me well, you know that I enjoy quite a few rather nerdy hobbies. I enjoy quiet, solitary things, and one of them is jigsaw puzzles. I'm sure I inherited this trait from my dad, who used to spend hours and hours on a huge puzzle in our basement.

Tonight at my small group we were talking about the Kingdom of God, and what that means in the here and now. We talked about how we are to let the Holy Spirit flow through us, and when we do that, God is reflected uniquely in each of us. We all play a part in the Kingdom of God, and no one is the same. It's like we're all puzzle pieces.

Have you ever put together a puzzle only to find out that the last piece is missing? It's incredibly frustrating. I once put together a 500 piece puzzle, but there was a problem. There were definitely 500 pieces, but two of them were the same.

When I got to the end of the puzzle, I had an empty space and an extra piece that was of no use to me. As I was thinking about our small group conversation, I realized how important it is not only to realize that we reflect God uniquely, but that we need to realize that we shouldn't try to be just like someone else. It's easy for me to wish I looked like that person or had a more fun personality like this person. But if I change who I am, I not only leave a hole where I was created to fit, but I could steal the spot of someone else. I need to remember to work in my own strength and let other people find their places.

Saul and the Holy Spirit

Right now I'm working my way through the Old Testament. I started with Genesis, and I'm pretty much just reading straight through. I'm in 1 Samuel right now, and I'm seeing some awesome things I hadn't noticed before.

Saul was an answer to prayer for the Israelites. They had been asking for a king, and even though God wanted them to be happy having him as their king, he granted their request. God gave all kinds of warnings to the Israelites about what having a king would mean, but they didn't really care. I think it's so interesting that God would answer the prayer of his people even when he knew it wasn't necessarily what was best for them. It makes me want to be a lot more deliberate in saying, "Here's what I want, God, but I really want your will for me, so help me to want what you want." It's also another good reminder that we tend to be so short-sighted, and God sees the big picture.

I'm starting to get the connection between the prophets of the OT and the prophecies of the NT. The Old and New Testaments have always seemed so disjointed to me, so separate. When I think of the Holy Spirit, I mostly think of Paul. It took me by surprise when I read about Saul and Samuel encountering the spirit of God. I guess I've always assumed that when God spoke to his OT prophets that it was with an audible voice. I'm not really sure why. In 1 Sam 9, Samuel is told by God that a man was coming who was to be anointed king. That man was Saul. The thing I really love about this is that Samuel didn't just know there was going to be a man, he knew specifics. When Saul met Samuel, Samuel said, "Go on up the hill ahead of me to the place of sacrifice and we'll eat there together. In the morning I will tell you what you want to know and send you on your way. And don't worry about those donkeys that were lost three days ago, for they have been found. And I am here to tell you that you and your family are the focus of all Israel's hopes." (1 Sam 9:19-20 NLT) The reason Saul was where Samuel was in the first place was because Saul was looking for his father's lost donkeys. Samuel had that specific word from the Lord, and I'm sure Saul had a hard time wrapping his head around that. Saul didn't even have the chance to ask Samuel about the donkeys, but Samuel was able to tell Saul what he wanted to know. Crazy.

After Samuel anoints Saul to be king, he says this: "At that time the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you with power [Acts 1:8, anyone?], and you will prophesy with them. You will be changed into a different person. After these signs take place, do whatever you think is best, for God will be with you." (1 Sam 10: 6-7) That is such an amazing thing. The Holy Spirit changes people. It's so amazing to read about this all over scripture. And I don't know about you, but I want to be so full of the Holy Spirit that God is in whatever I do. I also want to be paying close attention to Saul, because he was totally filled with the Spirit of God, yet he totally screwed up in the end. Saul is not the only one in the Bible to do this. I want to learn to recognize the pitfalls in my own life in the hopes that I won't have that kind of 180 in my own life. I tend to be really good at seeing the sin in other people, but having a hard time being so honest and blunt about myself (plank and speck syndrome for sure). It's also good, though, to be reminded that even the Bible superheroes were human and screwed up. I feel more connected to people when I know they're not perfect, and I feel more hope that God will love me despite my mistakes because he loves others despite their mistakes.