ex good christian women
insecure christians
this was a guest post i wrote for rachel held evans‘ blog last week (see, i do know how to use capital letters!). i wanted to re-post it here so i had in my archives; plus, some of you may not have seen it or wanted to comment over there because there were loads of them. anyway, i’d love any thoughts you wanted to add to it.
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I had an amazing conversation last week with a non-Christian counseling grad student who had a project in this class to “move toward something in their culture they were uncomfortable with.” He chose Christianity. His experience with it wasn’t a positive one so he was trying to bravely explore it. We had a delightful conversation because he asked the best questions, the kind where trite Christian answers won’t quite do. He wasn’t talking about atonement theories or biblical interpretation of certain passages (for the most part, I think only Christian insiders give a rip about that kind of stuff).
He asked–Why do Christians never seem to feel very good about themselves?
I laughed that he had hit the nail on the head. The basic premise of Christianity is that there is nothing good in us. That original sin has ruined us and we are miserable sinners, unworthy of anything good without the blood of Jesus. That depravity is our essence.
With that as our starting place, my experience has been that despite all of the “God loves me” messages that get tossed around in church services and Bible studies, nothing completely fills in the cracks of that deep chasm. That somehow, no matter what, we just aren’t good. We aren’t worthy. We aren’t secure. We aren’t loveable. We are fatally flawed as human beings.
I know this well in my own life. I come from a liberal, non-churchy family that believed in the basic goodness of people (we were those people who evangelical Christians worried about!). When I opened my heart to following Christ, I needed a real, tangible God and was strangely and beautifully drawn to Jesus. I always say that if I had just stuck with that and never became involved in the kinds of churches I ended up attending, I would have been better off in the security-as-a-person department. But alas, that is not my story, and the rigidity and rules sucked me in, and I learned about what a miserable person I was without the cross of Christ. I ended up feeling worse about myself than when I started, and I brought a lot of shame and guilt to the table from the beginning! Christianity seemed to cement in me my badness. It reminded me constantly how much I fell short and how unworthy I was without God in my life.
About 17 years ago a wise and beautiful friend rocked my world with an important theological twist that some of you might say “duh!” at, but it was never taught to me in my hyper-conservative-evangelical circles. We were made in the image of God. That goodness is in us from the beginning. Sure, sin and brokenness has infiltrated this Genesis 3 world, but we must remember it all started with Genesis 1. Man and woman, created in the original image of God. That is our essence even though brokenness buries it.
I think that the spiritual journey is to uncover God’s image that was originally placed there.
I know from experience in my own life and journeying alongside many others that this is no easy task. It makes it far worse when the starting place is “I am really a miserable wretch.”
The Apostle Paul in Romans 7 talks about the struggle of our humanity to lean into sin. This passage is used all the time to hold up basic depravity, but we forget the twist that is there–”It’s not me, but the sin that lives in me” (vs. 7:12).
As a mother of five, the last thing in the world I want my kids to think is that they basically suck and are unworthy, unlovable. I want them to know they are beautiful, created in the original image of God with his imprint built into every fiber of their being. I want them to know they are worthy, secure, free. With a great human capacity to sin, fall, fail and really mess things up, sure. But I do not want a faith that forces me to build in them a basic insecurity from the start. That feels cruel. And completely counter to what I know about being a loving parent, and I’m only a human one.
My experience in working with people in pain in the church is that there’s an awful lot of insecurity going around in a system that is supposed to be built upon freedom, healing, and wholeness. Far too much fear, depression, inadequacy, unworthiness exists in countless Christ-followers when they have a chance to be really honest. Something is gravely wrong with this!
But the systems we’ve created and the theologies we’ve clung to perpetuate it.
Ultimately it not only damages us personally and relationally, but keeps the real power of the church paralyzed and stuck.
And really insecure.
Read Moreyou can’t have courage without fear.
i am glad some of you had fun with the loving God different ways exercise. this past saturday night at the refuge we did part 2 and split into 10 different groups & spent the evening processing these questions: 1. what individual practices help you connect with God as a naturalist, contemplative, caregiver, etc. 2. what practices would you like to see us bring into our community life together? 3. what are some ways we could share communion together in a way that’s honoring to your particular connection? it’s amazing what beautiful ideas emerge from these kinds of conversations.
also, i haven’t forgotten the co-pastoring series, really. i got a bit derailed and haven’t had time to edit the interviews i did but do hope to finish them by next week.
meanwhile, i thought i’d share a little piece i wrote for the voca femina share party in denver this past friday night centered on fear. it was a spoken word so just reading it sort of misses the punch. however, i know that many of you are trying to find courage to step into all kinds of things–leaving old things, starting new things, transforming relationships, and trying to practice and dream again–so i thought i’d share it here. it was a lovely, inspiring evening as always; a free space to share beauty feels really holy to me. you can check out the pictures here. voca femina continues to just travel its own journey without a lot of tending to; the share parties seem to be where we feel the most energy & life. there are things that somehow just don’t quite work the same way online!
so here you go, a few things i’m learning about fear right now, inspired by my recent acupuncture experiences. that woman is a therapist-spiritual director-acupuncturist all rolled into one.
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fear.
damn it, i hate fear.
i wish i didn’t know it so well. that its tentacles hadn’t wrapped around my heart & my soul so deeply, sometimes sapping my courage like some kind of cruel sport.
fear kills.
fear destroys.
fear paralyzes.
fear maims.
but i’m learning something important right now about fear. something deep inside the marrow of my bones, in the blood that flows through my veins into my heart and my head and my hands and my feet and my eyes and my ears.
fear can’t win.
it tries, oh it tries.
but i must–oh i must–refuse to let it.
refuse to let fear win.
refuse to let it silence me, stifle me, wither me, squelch me, punish me, abuse me, paralyze me.
life’s just too short. too precious. too fragile. too beautiful. too sweet. too rich. too deep. too wide.
to let fear blind us from beauty and hope and love and peace and peace and freedom and joy and peace. and peace. and peace.
so what’s the way out from under its grip?
how can i move when i feel so stuck?
i must find courage. i must find courage. i.must.find.courage.
i know it’s there. it’s in me. it’s in you. it’s in all of us. yours helps mine and mine helps yours. and yours helps yours. it’s stronger than we think. deeper than we know.
available right now.
not once i do this or do that or read this or read that or know this or know that or figure out this or figure out that or therapize this or therapize that.
it’s here. right here.
courage.
lovely, strong, tender, mighty courage.
deep in the marrow of my bones and the blood in my veins and the ventricles of my heart.
courage, crying out–”use me. use me. use me. i may be small. i may not be as loud as you wish. but i’m here. i’m here. i’m here. to help you. to strengthen you. to move you. and just so you know, i may not look like it, but i’m way stronger than that ugly bastard named fear. quit. letting him. win. quit standing there yelling and screaming at him. instead, maybe reach out and make friends with him. “
you can have fear without courage, but you can’t have courage without fear.
you can have fear without courage, but you can’t have courage without fear.
that’s what courage is. doing hard things scared.
i can. i must. i will. i am.
you can.
you must.
you will.
you are.
- kathy escobar, from voca femina, august 2011
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God, help us do hard things scared.
Read Morefriendship, freedom & a lot less fear
“there is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.” st. thomas aquinas
uh oh, i’m on my “men and women need to learn how to be friends” kick right now. I think it’s appropriate in light of the shared leadership conversations, too, because it gets to the center of so much of what’s broken in our systems—both in and outside of “church.” we know how to be over others or under others, but rarely do we learn how to be alongside each other. yesterday a friend shared that when reading a blog post that someone had basically commented “well, i personally would never be alone with a woman because i can’t trust myself or her.” when i read this i felt sad for a few reasons: 1. it’s so common. 2. it’s so guided by fear, and 3. it’s so limiting. 4. it doesn’t need to be this way.
staying separated greatly limits our ability to be deeply connected in the ways i think God intended. we can’t learn some of the things we need to learn about life & love & people & friendship when we’re always living out of fear in relationship with one another. also, by keeping ourselves separated, we are perpetuating deeply grooved systems of hierarchy. in the end, we all lose.
the way to break down some of these divides is to learn how to be friends.
most of us haven’t learn this very well. a lot of our family experiences didn’t teach it. work often doesn’t teach it. many of our churches certainly haven’t taught it. so we’re sort of left to fend for ourselves and learn it on our own somehow.
against a lot of resistance. yeah, there are a lot of forces working against men & women learning how to be friends. patriarchy, sexual weirdness, negative church-messages & our own default-toward-not-knowing-how-to-do-healthy-intimacy-with-other-people all get in the way. my friend dan brennan talks a lot about this in his work on cross-gender friendships.
one of the reasons I feel so deeply dedicated to healing & recovery & the beatitudes & the 12 steps & transformational opportunities is that as we keep growing individually as human beings we can learn to be better friends corporately. it is true that when we have hidden addictions & are saddled with shame and insecurity & honestly just never learned how-to-be-a-friend-or-have-a-friend, we really can’t do these kinds of relationships safely, unless there is help & guidance. there’s just too much baggage that gets in the way. but, if we can find avenues for healing, we can start to break free from unhealthy patterns and learn how to do relationships differently.
in so many ways, i think that’s the big, beautiful idea of the spiritual journey—to become a better friend to ourselves, to others & with God.
the world needs people who know how to be good friends.
i think that’s what we are trying to learn in the life of the refuge community together. it is bumpy. sometimes ugly. and often scary. men learning how to be friends with men, women learning how to be friends with women, and men & women learning how to be friends with each other. to stop being “over” or “under” another but learn to be “beside”. across ages, life experiences, faith experiences, socioeconomics & a host of other differences. sometimes people say that they feel like they are in grade school, maybe even pre-school, stumbling and bumbling through learning how to be friends.
i love that idea because i think that’s what “church” is supposed to be—a place to learn. Jesus school. a container to be challenged. a safe place to practice.
to me, in another weird paradox, even though it seems stumbly & bumbly like pre-school at times, it actually is graduate-level work. and oh, so beautiful! to learn to be friends, real friends, is no small task. walking persistently with humility & courage is grad school stuff. real friendship, as Jesus reminded us, is “laying down our lives.”
over and over we will be humbled. we will be challenged. we will be afraid. we will make mistakes. we will need to give grace. we will need to receive grace.
but hopefully we will also laugh at our pre-schoolness & celebrate our victories & keep listening, learning, and growing on the journey together. i am so thankful for all i continue to learn through these deeper, healthier, scarier relationships with men & women, too.
i really don’t think living in fear was ever the idea. i think Jesus sets us free from captivity; the question is whether we are brave enough to try to step into it.
God, help us be brave & teach us how to be friends.
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ps: my friend john martinez, one of the co-pastors of the distillery church in new york, is doing a summer teaching series on down we go. i love their community & am so glad we’re friends across the miles. here are some posts about it:
- making a diverse, paradoxical, interdependent, with chain
- the kingdom isn’t going to just drop out of the sky
- casey anthony, we are really just like her
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freedom.
“the spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
they will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. “
- isaiah 61:1-3
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this is one of my all-time favorite passages in the entire Bible. when i first moved to colorado 14 years ago i was in a crazy hard season of intentional healing from a lot of shame & these words entered into my heart more deeply and somehow helped set me free from shame. it really was supernatural, and i love that Jesus lead with them when his public ministry started in luke 4, essentially saying “here we go, i’m here to set you free, like really free.”
over 2,000 years later rules and religion still have people in bondage.
and freedom–real and deep freedom, the kind i think God meant for us–seems to remain very elusive for many of us no matter how long we’ve gone to church.
in fact, i’ve come to believe that the longer we’ve gone, the harder it is to be free.
i also believe that real freedom is scary.
i have fleeting moments where i feel it in my bones, in every fiber of my being. where grace and peace and a security in who i am intersect in some wild way in my spirit and i truly feel free.
free of needing to please anyone.
free of systems that tell me what i can and cannot do, believe and cannot believe.
free of insecurity about my worth and value.
then what sometimes happens to me is i read too much on the internet.
or i look up and away from what’s right in front of me and begin to compare myself to others.
or i make a dumb mistake.
i see people who seem more spiritual than me.
more certain than me.
more gracious and humble than me.
more talented than me.
more all kinds of things than me.
and just like that, my freedom slips away and i’m back in egypt.
a slave.
i don’t want to be a slave.
and i don’t want my friends to be slaves, either.
so i keep fighting for my freedom.
and for the freedom of others, too.
toni morrison says, “the function of our freedom is to free someone else.”
years ago when my kids were little and i started making some significant shifts in my spiritual journey and becoming more honest, i remember saying to my friends “my kids are what keep my butt in the chair every week, trying to grow and change. i don’t want them to be stuck or feel the way i feel about myself. i want them to be free.” and now, as they are getting older, this feels clear–they are indeed free-er than me.
and even though my freedom can feel elusive sometimes, something has indeed “tipped” over the past chunk of years and i feel more free, more of the time, than i’ve ever felt before.
free to be me, just me.
free to receive God’s love without having to work for it.
free to lead freely as a woman in my little wild faith community, the refuge, and i know that’s a gift in “the church.”
free to share my sin & shame & pain & struggles without fear of judgment or rejection.
free to be loved by all kinds of beautiful people in all kinds of beautiful ways.
free to offer love to others without trying to change them.
and free to call others to freedom, too, to use my freedom to help free someone else.
to make room for others to lead and find their voice, their creativity, their passion.
to be safe enough to hear another person’s sin & shame & pain & struggle and do what i can to offer unconditional love and acceptance.
to play whatever small part i can in passing on love to those who feel unlovable, to making the invisible visible.
to encourage others to be free to be themselves, too.
none of this is possible on our own. oh, how we need God’s spirit to move in our hearts & lives to reveal to us what deep, real freedom really is! to make sure we don’t mistake freedom for a bigger cage.
then we must accept it. lean into it. practice it. trust it. re-new it, again and again and again.
and use it–however we can, whenever we can–to free someone else, too.
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ps: down we go’s been doing well & i always love hearing the stories on what it stirs up so keep ‘em coming! here are a few things swirling around out there about it:
- today there’s a video about downward mobility on recycle your faith.
- my friend & awesome blogger/artist/pastor david hayward paired down we go with this cool print for a giveaway. i wish i would have won the print!
- i’m really excited to be part of sheloves magazine with a monthly piece on downward mobility in the sheloves God column. here’s the first post: down we go: practicing the wild ways of Jesus.
- and here’s an interview about the book with my friend jeremy myers
Read More
a time to…
this past weekend i facilitated a reflection exercise for my ex-good-christian-women’s group & i thought it’d share it here just in case any of you want to give it a try. it was our semester wrap & i wanted to do something that gave us some room to reflect & consider this season in our journey. the ecclesiastes 3 passage came to mind, so i used it as a template. so many beautiful things emerged!
anyway, i thought i’d share it here in case any of you wanted to use it either personally or with groups you are in.
here’s the template if you want to download & use it.
here was mine:
for everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.
a time for quiet strength to be born, and a time for insecurity & self doubt to die.
a time to plant courage, and a time to harvest peace.
a time to kill self-hatred, and a time to heal from fear of abandonment.
a time to tear down walls that protect me, and a time to build up hearts that love me.
a time to cry about how hard it’s been, and a time to laugh about how hard it’s been.
a time to grieve over the loss-of-my-back-as-i-once-knew-it, and a time to dance because i still can.
a time to scatter people who don’t give a rip about me, and a time to gather people who do.
a time to embrace my voice, and a time to turn away from worrying about what other people think.
a time to search for balance, and a time to quit searching for the finish line.
a time to keep what’s important, and a time to throw away all the rest.
a time to tear apart “right doctrine”, and a time to mend what i deeply believe.
a time to be quiet about what isn’t, and a time to speak about what is.
a time to love slow & steady transformation in myself & others, and a time to hate impatience.
a time for war against resistance, and a time for peace in the chaos.
amen.
also, some of you saw this on my facebook, but i thought i’d share it here, too. this was my favorite song at the u2 concert on saturday night (it was truly an amazing show) & definitely fit into the conversation on “a time to….” enjoy.
Read More
blessed are the pure in heart…
“blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” – matthew 5:8
i am back, longing for the beach as always but glad to be home, too. we had an amazing time on our vacation, just the 7 of us. my back held up pretty well considering, but do i ever miss the days when i never even had to think about it. my body just worked. sometimes, now, it feels like a full time job.
on my trip i read 4 books, 2 novels & 2 memoirs. it was lovely. my favorite read was lit by mary karr. it was the wild & beautiful story of a poet and writer’s journey to sobriety. it was full of wit, pain, and everything in between. i laughed out loud so many times & cried a few times, too. it reminded me, yet again, of the healing power of the central theme of the beatitudes and 12 steps–humility. in all kinds of ways i could identify with mary’s journey & the deep desire to “find a short-cut” instead of having to do the day in and day out heavy lifting of an authentic, humble, connected life.
over and over she resisted community, resisted prayer, resisted needing anyone, resisted change, resisted healing. these things were so much harder than the comfort & escape of a drink. well, lots of drinks; she was most definitely a binger. always, though, we can plug in almost any addiction–work, church, drugs, porn, sex, relationships, approval, food, you name it, and the same thing can be said. all of these ways of escaping are a lot easier in the short run. in the long run, though, they destroy, divide, and hinder freedom. they are not a pathway to peace, but rather a sure road to shame, self-hatred, and in-grown eyeballs.
we have three more beatitudes to wrap up this series. this 6th one fits so well with lit & mary karr’s journey toward change. in this beatitude, Jesus says, “blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
pure in heart. in most of my christian experience prior to working the 12 steps, i was taught that purity meant perfection. when our hearts were “right with God” then somehow we wouldn’t be sinning, struggling, stressing. now i see it completely differently. i see purity of heart as humility. an openness to God. an honesty with ourselves, with God. an authenticity that doesn’t feel the need to hide or pretend or do all kinds of things to cover up what’s really going on inside.
when we are pure in heart, honest & open, we see God. a barrier gets lifted, a veil gets removed & somehow, some way, we intersect with God in a way that we can’t when our pride & games are getting in the way. maybe it’s somehow connected to the scripture in 2 corinthians 3:16-18 that says “but whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. for the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. so all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. and the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.”
in my own journey, i know how to hide from God, others, and even myself. it wasn’t that hard to do. in lots of ways, my church experience helped with it. to hide, all i needed to do was surround myself with a bunch of other people who were going through the motions of faith by going to church, studying the Bible, growing kids “God’s way” and stay as busy as possible. the busier the better because then i didn’t have to reckon with the deep loneliness inside, or the feeling of tension that any moment someone was going to find out about the two-faced-ness of my life–trying hard to look good on the outside while my inner life was wracked with shame & guilt & anger toward myself, God, and a whole lot of other people.
i remember when 17 years ago i was asked to become more “pure in heart” and be more honest about what was going on inside in my relationship with God, myself, others in the confines of a safe women’s group at a church in san diego. i was terrified. literally. in fact, i found all kinds of ways initially to get out of having to share. i whined about the group not using the Bible enough. i complained that there didn’t seem to be a point or an end or a finish line to strive after (the stuff that i am best at). i found ways to give just “enough” information to look like i was contributing while holding back the real stuff. but i kept going & over time, something broke in me and i started to become more honest. the truth be told, though, it was about 3 years into this group–right when jose got out of the military and we moved to colorado–that things really started to kick in on what it might mean to be more honest, more pure in heart. i had barely scratched the surface when i had to move.
however, what had happened there lingered. i saw that the more honest & humble i was toward God, my flaws, my weaknesses, my struggles, the more i did in fact, “see God.” freedom started to flow & i felt some of the fear i originally felt dissipate. i began to feel more connected to others, to God, to myself in the midst of the mess.
now i associate the word “mess” with “pure in heart.” before, i thought pure in heart meant clean, shiny, new, perfect, squared-away, put-together, unbroken. now, i think of pure in heart as messy, honest, real, unhindered, raw, vulnerable, authentic, human.
human beings feel. human beings are messy.
part of my journey toward more purity of heart has been continually embracing my humanity & God’s divinity. i spent a lot of years trying hard to strive to be divine when that was never the idea . i always fell short, i always lacked, i always felt separated from God. all the energy i spent cleaning the outside of my cup didn’t do me a lick of good; it actually just equaled more church volunteer work & more ways to pretend.
when i finally started working on honestly addressing the inside of my cup, the heavens parted & i was able to see more clearly my humanness & God’s divinity. and my desperate need to remember “there’s a God and i’m not him.”
regardless of this awareness, the tug toward wanting a more clean, less messy life always beckons me. i try to figure out ways to “get purer faster” and sometimes juke and jive myself out of confronting the realities of my humanity & all the ways i continue to struggle with freedom & deep, lasting peace. but i know, maybe more than ever, that this beatitude calls me to stay on the path of honesty & is the one i want to keep walking on. it’s the place i’ll see God, myself, others in new ways that need seeing.
so, that’s what this beatitude means to me in this moment. what about you?
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