i wish learning new things were as easy as taking a class, watching a youtube instructional video, or reading the perfect how-to book that provides all of the answers.  for fixing kitchen sinks, it probably works.  for cultivating long lasting intimate friendships with others, not so much.

there’s no clear instructional manual for these kinds of relationships because they are complex.  at the same time, the Bible has solid guidance on how to better love each other.  colossians is one of my favorite books for that.  when my kids were little, we used to have the NIV kids club videos & cassette tapes (yes, my kids are getting old) that were all about “singing the Bible and having fun.”  i can pretty much sing the whole chapter of colossians 3 to you if you ever want a laugh!   when it comes to friendship, though, there are some excellent words in there.  the passage that comes to mind today is “therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience” (v. 3:12).

compassion.  kindness.  humility.  gentleness. patience.

these are important ingredients to sacred friendships. they help cultivate grace, love, and acceptance, which are what so many of us long for in our relationships.

here are some practical ways i think we can nurture these qualities in relationships with others and bravely enter into new friendships–men with men, women with women, men & women together.

be honest about our fears.  the more we can say out loud “um, i don’t know how to do this very well”, the better.  it’s so much better than trying to pretend we’re good at something we’re not quite yet.  in our community, we have so many people learning how to be friends for the first time we talk a lot about it out loud and just call it for what it is.  honesty creates compassion because we can relate, we know the feeling, too.

lower our expectations. even though i love to dream big, i also believe in small baby steps of change rather than always expecting (and often demanding) giant leaps for ourselves & others, too.  if we don’t shift our expectations, we can  become mad all the time because things aren’t going the way we want them to be.  meaningful friendships take a long time to cultivate. they don’t come quick, especially in the midst of our brokenness & busy-ness.  this is why patience is such a necessary ingredient.

take responsibility for our own stuff.  this is humility, a willingness to look at our own log instead of focusing on others’ specks.  it requires soft hearts open to God’s spirit & getting honest about the patterns we might tend to bring into the friendship.  as we acknowledge it to ourselves & God first, we can then be honest about it with our friends–”i am sorry that i….when i get scared, i sometimes act that way.”  this helps us practice becoming safer people.

remember, everyone’s human, just like us.  it’s a magical, beautiful thing that somehow God can bring broken, jacked up people together in love & unity.  it really amazes me.  but at the same time, our messy human-ness is always going to be at play.  we will get hurt.  we will get annoyed.  we will get confused.  we will get uncomfortable.  the beauty is in respecting not only our humanness but others’, too.

don’t always do everything in groups.  groups are great.  community is awesome. but sometimes it’s really important to spend quality time together that doesn’t have all the wackiness of group dynamics.  i think we can hide behind it, too, always going to “men’s groups” or “women’s groups” but never just hanging out in a more intimate setting.  make time for it.  it’s always worth it. eye to eye, heart to heart makes all the difference over the long haul & helps us become more comfortable in our own skin in the relationship.

get some help when we need it.  this is one of the things i love most about our community.  we practice friendship and get help when we need it.  this looks like getting a few more people in the conversation to talk about how to do friendship better, what’s working, what’s not, how we can help honor each other more deeply, where we get stuck, and how to keep moving toward healthier connection.   it’s what the body of Christ is supposed to be about, helping encourage and challenge one another!

check in.  every relationship is different, but i do think that regular check-ins can  be helpful in developing friendships.  how are we doing?  how are you feeling in relationship with each other? what’s working? what’s not?  in developing cross-gender friendships, it’s extra important.

adopt a philosophy of “practice”.  one of my favorite phrases is “we’re just practicing.”  we expect ourselves to have so many things in this world nailed down when the truth is we are just learning & trying & practicing as best we can.  to get better at something requires practice; it also means we will flub things up and blow it and need to get back on track.  this helps with conflict in relationship because we can be honest and say “i’m practicing how to actually engage in a conflict with another person and not have it be devastating!” sometimes, too, we may practice with people who we end up not being able to be in long-term relationship with for all kinds of reasons.  that’s okay.  every time we make ourselves vulnerable and risk in relationship, we are practicing & learning & growing.  that’s what matters.

i am sure there are many others, but these are some off the top off my head. when i read back over these, i can really see compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience embedded in each of these practices.  yeah, without these, meaningful friendship just isn’t possible.

what are some others you would add? 

God, help us become people who cultivate compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience into our friendships. 

- st. thomas aquinas

remember that book, “all i ever needed i learned in kindergarten”? sure, some of what we learned when we were five would be helpful to us as grownups.  but i’m also going to make a supposition that even by age five, weird friendship stuff may have already seeped in.  some boys stop playing so freely with girls. the power dynamics of who rules the playground kick into full swing.  cliques form.  the weak are often already culled out. it looks different for everyone, and there’s no question we are a lot purer when we are five than when we are 35, but the same fact remains–friendship is hard!

cultivating healthy, strengthening, encouraging, equal friendships is an art, not science.  and a very lost art at that.

in fact, i feel quite sure an honest poll would reveal that most people don’t have the kinds of friendships they long for.  that most don’t really know how to do them in a way that works long-term.  that some feel as inadequate now as we did when we were in junior high, even though they fake it better.  that many don’t even know what healthy friendship is supposed to look or feel like.  and that it seems there’s never enough time to develop them.  i am also going to take a leap and say that in the christian world, it’s even worse.  there are countless other weird dynamics at play in christian friendships that even further complicate what’s already complicated.

i know the feeling. i used to stink at real friendship.  i’ve always had a lot of friends.  i am a loyal person and have always hung on to friends–both male & female–through thick and thin.  but it wasn’t until i was in my late 20′s that i started to become comfortable enough in my own skin to actually be the kind of friend i wanted.  the kind that receives instead of just giving.  the kind that is honest & raw instead of holding back all the time.  the kind that makes a really concerted effort to nurture the relationship instead of expecting it to drop out of the sky.

18 years later, I’m still learning. it’s not the easiest thing for me to do.  at heart, i like independence, not interdependence.

and real friendship requires interdependence.

a give-and-take.  grace.  intention.  vulnerability.  risk.

in church, we are taught a lot about believing, knowing, and worshiping certain things and acting certain ways.  even now, with a lot of focus on missional living emerging in many churches, which i think is a good thing, a crucial ingredient is usually often missing– how to just be a friend.

an honest friend.

an equal friend.

a vulnerable friend.

a long-haul friend.

there are a lot of forces working deeply against friendship (not just cross-gender friendship but all forms–men with men, women with women, and across ages & differences, too.)

power.  we know how to be under people or above people but rarely do we know how to live beside them. it’s a natural force of our Genesis 3 human-ness.  often without thinking, we look for someone to control us or someone to control.  if we feel “less than” or “more than” others it messes with real freedom.  this is so unconscious for us that we don’t even know we’re doing it.

shame.  sometimes we are scared to be fully known because if people really knew us we’re quite sure they wouldn’t want to be friends anymore.  we give part of us but not all of us because full honesty is too risky. but honest sharing with a friend who can honor it brings one of the greatest rewards of friendship–the experience of grace. also, some people feel embarrassed that they never learned how to develop healthy friendships and it feels weird & awkward to be trying now. (it’s never too late, i know that for sure!)

independence.  many have learned through damaging past experiences that “the only person we can really trust is ourselves.”  and even if we don’t trust ourselves, we at least know what to expect.   a “trust God and God alone (by yourself)” mentality is especially pervasive in christian circles.

fear.  we don’t naturally like to make ourselves vulnerable . we don’t like to get hurt.  and somehow we know we will if we get too close to another person.   our natural tendency to avoid pain is always at play.   i’ve lost a few friends along the way, and it hurts. a lot. but it was still worth it in the end because of what i learned through them. in cross-gender friendships, fear is even higher because for the most part people say it isn’t possible without sexual weirdness.

yikes, those are some strong forces working against us!  when i look at this list, though, i have hope. i have seen it up-close-and-personal in my life & many others–healthy friendship is so possible!  but much deeper than only my experience, these four things–power, shame, independence, and fear–are what Jesus calls us to break down so we can get to the better thing–love.

humility, grace, trust, and peace are all part of love and antidotes to power, shame, independence, and fear.

that’s really what friendship is–loving another human being more freely, more purely, more honestly, more fully.  and being loved by another more freely, more purely, more honestly, more fully.   it’s about loving and being loved.

and that, my friends, is scary stuff!

we’d much rather talk about almost anything else.    and do most anything else.

and it’s probably why we need to focus on it the most. 

i think a task for the body of Christ is to begin actively showing people how to be friends in all kinds of shapes & sizes.  men with women, men with men, women with women. to break down systems of power and honor what it means to be equals, created in the image of God. to find ways to really heal from shame instead of just talk like we have and become more free & healthy human beings.  to learn what it means to be interdependent instead of independent or codependent.  to have courage to push through our inadequacies & fears and stumble & bumble into new ways of living together as friends.  friends with God, with others, with ourselves. they are all mixed up together. 

oh there are so many beautiful things to learn alongside each other!

what are you learning about friendship these days?

* * * * *

ps:  next post is part two and is a little more practical, but i wanted to get this out while it was swirling around in my head.

pss:  my friend dan brennan is an advocate and teacher for sacred friendships.  he continues to call people to break down the walls that divide us and bravely engage in deep, intimate friendship with one another.  in april the first sacred friendship gathering centered on cross-gender friendships is happening in chicago; i feel privileged to be sharing there and would love for you to come be part of this important conversation!  if you can’t attend but would like to help someone else have a chance to go, scholarships are greatly needed so that as many people as possible can be challenged to consider the practice of deeper friendship.  also, they are pulling this off as a labor of love on a shoestring budget, so let dan know if you can help!

* * * * *

Even before I became a Christian I had the crazy idea embedded inside of me that life was supposed to be pretty clear and easy if you did certain things.  Maybe it was growing up with a single mom who struggled and scraped and believing that “if I got a college education, it wouldn’t be like that” or “If you don’t rock the boat, you can keep everyone happy.” The message of “Do this that and you can get this or that” was engrained in me from early on, and this was long before I became a Christ-follower.  I sort of think it’s human nature.

Once I made the leap toward Jesus in my early adult years, the message was actually more strongly reinforced, only with a little twist of adding “God” to it:   “If you do these things, believe these things, memorize these things, God will _________.”

Really, this kind of thinking makes an assumption that life is supposed to look like this:

It’s ladder-like living where we keep moving forward and don’t look back.  One rung after another after another, somehow expected to forget what’s behind us and keep pressing forward to what’s ahead. With enough faith, forgiveness, prayer, and fortitude, we’ll keep rising higher and higher and getting better and better.   It’s formulaic and if you just do the right things, the right things will come together.

Yeah, it didn’t work so well for me.  As much as I secretly long for “linear” my life was anything but.  In fact, my life has always felt a lot more like this:

Look familiar?

About 16 years ago I heard a very wise woman named Jan Frank speak at a women’s retreat.  I have no idea what she’s doing these days, but I will always remember this imagery.  She shared that even though we long for life to be linear, and to be healed quickly from things in the past or negative messages about ourselves, it just doesn’t work that way.  Rather, over the course of our lives we will continually hit our “stuff” over and over again, but each time at a new place. 

The model she shared looked like this:

The spiral is bringing me hope right now.  Sometimes longing and hoping and wishing and begging for life to be linear can be so frustrating.   I don’t want to still be saddled with the same messages I have struggled with for years. The ones that all-roads-lead-to for me are “I’m not enough” and “I’m really on my own.”  As much healing work as God has done with them, as much as I know they are not true, as much as I can put them in their proper place, they still show up in my heart and my head and relationships.  Meanwhile, I keep consciously and unconsciously expecting them to be done, in the past, and happily moving up the next rung of the ladder.

But I am reminded, yet again, as this new year begins that life is so not linear.  It never was and it never will be.  I am going to hit my woundedness again, and again, and again over the course of my life, but each time at a little different place.  Instead of expecting the messes to be gone and being angry at myself and God for not taking care of it as quickly as I’d like, I am learning to lean into God’s ongoing transformation in my life.   I will continually bump into these core messages, especially during times of trial and challenge, and each time God will work to heal and restore yet another layer that needs tending to.

Linear expectations of ourselves, of God, of other people tend to lead to shame, self-hatred, and anger.   I think a lot of our church experiences have subtly and directly taught us that linear living was possible.  In this model, we always fall short and end up feeling bad about ourselves.  It eventually leads to hopelessness.

Thinking that life is just a chaotic, crazy roller coaster ride with no rhyme or reason to it isn’t very hopeful, either.

Accepting the spiral-ness of life leads to freedom, hope, and peace.  It lets God off the hook and helps us notice “Yep, there it is again, rearing its ugly little head, trying to teach me something” instead of being royally ticked that we’re still struggling.   This infuses me with hope.

Hope that I’m not a total screw-up.
Hope that there’s a bigger story unfolding.
Hope that God is always at work, transforming, rebuilding, renewing, restoring.
No matter how many times I hit the same stuff.

Hope is remembering that every time I bump up against my weaknesses and painful parts of my story, it is at a new place, there to teach me something really good about what it means to be human in need of God’s help and hope in a messy, broken world.

Yeah, life is not linear.  Never was and never will be.

* * * * *

more hope here:

• The Trouble With Hope: John Ptacek
• Hope = Possibility x Imagination: Wayne Rumsby
• Little Reminders: Mike Victorino
• Where Is My Hope: Jonathan Brink
• Hope for Hypocrites: Jeremy Myers
• Now These Three Remain: Sonny Lemmons
• Perplexed, But Still Hopeful: Carol Kuniholm
• A Hope that Lives: Amy Mitchell
• Generations Come and Generations Go: Adam Gonnerman
• Demystifying Hope: Glenn Hager
• God in the Dark: On Hope: Renee Ronika Klug
• Keeping Hope Alive: Maurice Broaddus
• Are We Afraid to Hope?: Christine Sine
• On Wobbly Wheels, Split Churches and Fear: Laura Droege
• Adopting Hope: Travis Klassen
• Hope is Held Between Us: Ellen Haroutunian
• Hope: In the Hands of the Creatively Maladjusted: Mihee Kim-Kort
• Paradox, Hope and Revival: City Safari
• Good Theology Saves: Reverend Robyn
• Linear: Never Was, Never Will Be: Kathy Escobar
• Better Than Hope: Liz Dyer
• Caroline for Congress: Hope for the Future: Wendy McCaig
• Fumbling the Ball on Hope: KW Leslie
• Content to Hope: Alise Wright
• Hope: Oh, the Humanity!: Deanna Ogle

it is so appropriate in more ways than one, and now i see it first thing every morning when i get creamer for my coffee.

i need the reminder.

as a parent, as a leader, as a friend, as someone healing from woundedness, one of the greatest gifts we can learn is the art of “letting go”.  letting go doesn’t mean giving up.  it doesn’t mean not caring.  it doesn’t mean not being engaged or connected.  but it does mean taking our grip off of things so tightly.

it means learning how to be less codependent.

it means trusting God is at work in ways we can’t see.

it means respecting our limitations.

it means practicing becoming better human beings.

it means being very aware of how much power we give to things in the past or the present that we have absolutely no control of.

when i think of church woundedness, “let go or be dragged” comes to mind.  when i was hanging on so tightly to the past, i was the one suffering. i was the one pissed off. i was the one in misery.  the people & systems who hurt me were perfectly fine. they had moved on but i couldn’t seem to. i was being dragged around by them even though they weren’t even doing the dragging!

when i think of parenting teens, it is also oh-so-appropriate.  i personally think parenting is one of the trickiest spiritual & personal formation opportunities in our lives. it is butt-kicking sometimes, just how easy it is to get hooked in to unhealthy, nutty dynamics as a parent.  there are times when i am trying so hard not to get sucked in and next thing i know, boom, i’m being dragged all kinds of places i never intended to go.

when i think of leadership, in whatever shape or form some of us might find ourselves in, this thought is a helpful guide.  the struggle with people-pleasing is real for many of us, even if we don’t want to admit it.  we care when people criticize.  we take things more personally than we should.  we can’t stand it when people disapprove or disagree.  one of the biggest learnings of 2011 for me was practicing the art of letting go as a leader.  of realizing that there are so many things beyond my control and i have to trust God & people & the bigger story instead of operating out of a place of desperation or fear.

when i think of journeying with people in the midst of hard stuff, this is also critical.  learning what’s our responsibility and what’s another person’s is really difficult when a lot of pain & struggle is involved.  gaining greater understanding of our responsibilities & also limitations is a skill that requires God’s tangible help and active-spirit-at-work-showing-us-the-way.

so this year i am going to keep practicing what it means to let go.  to take my white-knuckled-grip off-of-all-kinds-of-things-that-i-can’t-really-control-anyway-even-though-i-think-i-can.  to stay engaged & present & “in” without getting yanked and dragged into all kinds of places i don’t need to go.

what about you? what do you need to let go of this year?

• one word – i decided to participate in this for 2012.  in the past i’ve had five and end up never remembering any of them!  here’s a post i wrote for the refuge blog that has some ideas if you haven’t already thought of one yet.  my 2012 word is:  focus.  oh yeah, that’s the right word.

• honoring doubt – my monthly contribution to sheloves magazine is on one of my favorite topics from down we go: honoring doubt. i hope we can keep creating safe spaces to honor doubt.

• when Jesus met mary: a sacred friendship gathering – i am very excited to be part of this gathering–when Jesus met mary: a conference exploring friendship between men & women–in april in chicago centered on sacred cross-gender friendships hosted by my friend dan brennan. all of the details are on the website.  let me know if you can come be part of this brave & much-needed conversation.

• unladylike – my friend pam hogeweide’s book unladylike: resisting the injustice of inequality in the church is being released at the end of the is month by civitas press.  you can preorder a copy now if you want.  it rocks!

• and the resignation of eve – my other northwest friend jim henderson is always stirring up some great stuff for us to consider.  his new book the resignation of eve: what if adam’s rib is no longer willing to be the church’s backbone is coming out soon, too. i’m very glad this critical topic is getting some traction.

• convergence – i couldn’t go last year because of a family trip but am planning on being there this year, march 2-4 in portland. this year’s theme is:  staying power–presence & possibility as leaders.  if you haven’t been before, it’s a really wonderful gathering of strong & passionate women.

• synchroblog – we are starting off 2012 with a new teammate  & a survey to help gather ideas for the upcoming year.  if you are a blogger and want to be challenged to write on a variety of topics at the same time as other bloggers, all are welcome.

• with communities - my awesome friend john martinez created a log-in-so-there’s-greater-safety-and-connection site for incarnational community cultivators who could use some support, input, encouragement, and connection with other people who believe that prepositions matter and are trying crazy stuff, too. check it out here.

• walking wounded: hope for those hurt by the church – my friend phyllis mathis & i are hosting a 4 week online group for those of you out there who are painfully disillusioned by a faith or church experience.  our october 2011 gathering in denver was great for those who could pull it off, but this is a chance for others to participate, too.  because of some schedule conflicts, the date got moved to february 6th 2012.  go to live it to the full to register & for all the details.  if you or someone you know could use some healing, hope, laughter, and intention on getting unstuck, we’d love to have you join us.  this little video is sort of serious (i promise we’ll laugh and have fun, too) but gives an idea of what we are doing.  thanks for passing it on to friends who want to save some money on therapy and get some traction on healing in this new year.
  

i hope your year is getting off to a good start. i am looking forward to what’s ahead! peace, kathy

and at any moment something i say here can bug pretty much any of them for one reason or another.

this is a really familiar feeling for me.  all through  middle & high school & college & pretty much all of my adult life i have always been friends with a bunch of different people that rarely all come together in the same place.  i love it because i know such beautiful, diverse, amazing people.  but it can also feel unsettling & uncomfortable.  i miss some of what you get when you are deeply embedded in a particular tribe.    i think one of the things that i appreciated about being on a mega-church staff for those couple of years is that it’s so big that you don’t really need anyone else.  it’s its own island and a really clear tribe with no room, or apparent need, really, for much else.  now, out here floating around on a lifeboat for the past five years clinging for dear life i have had to learn something that i knew i needed to learn–how to be comfortable in my own skin.

my skin.

not someone else’s.

not what this group is doing or that group is doing.  not what this church is doing or that church is doing.  not what this ministry is doing or that ministry is doing.  not what this person is doing or that person is doing.

i’m learning to become more comfortable with what i believe.

not what this group believes or that group believes.  not what this friend believes or that friend believes.  not what this blogger believes or that blogger believes.

yikes, it’s hard to do!  the systems of the world are built upon people conforming to each other somehow. my friend & awesome refuge teammate karl always says that we mistake uniformity for unity.  true unity is diversity, bound together with a common thread.  to me, when it comes to issues around “church”,  that thread is God.  but we’ve built systems that call for uniformity, that we need to be like “them”, whatever the them is, in order to belong.

i do not think that any of the things i believe are really very heretical!  they’re just one expression of faith that i feel dearly and passionately about, and stem from how i view the gospels & the Bible & what God has stirred up in me through the years. my point in my last post, yep, i guess i’m a heretic, is that by believing & practicing these, somehow i’m “out” of certain circles because of their interpretation of theological truth.  that’s so bizarre to me.  and sad.

but alas, my responsibility is not to change that system or anyone’s minds.

my responsibility is to learn to be comfortable in my own skin. 

my skin, not someone else’s.

but the skin God made that’s me.

this is maturity.  this is healing.  this is transformation.

and this doesn’t have to have to be perceived as something that only has to do with faith or church or anything “spiritual”.  it has to do with becoming better human beings, stronger, more secure, more free men & women, who discover who we each are in deep places of our hearts & practices.

one of the things i love about the christmas story and this time of year is the reminder of Jesus’ humanness.  he had to learn to be in his skin just like us.  and obviously, many, many people didn’t really like his skin.  he had to have his feet on the ground & his head in the clouds in order to walk out the journey he was on here on earth. he had a huge advantage, being God and all, but i take great solace in knowing that Jesus understands humanness.

in all its mess & all its glory.  in all its struggle & all its joy.  in all its reality & all its beauty.

the wise & prophetic father richard rohr says that other “a” words for advent are:  alert, awake, alive, attentive, aware.  i’m not big on alliteration but i love these words!   this season i am trying to be awake, aware, attentive to my story, God’s story-in-me.

and i think it’s a story of growing up somehow, of learning to be comfortable in my own skin. learning to be be less codependent & independent and more interdependent. to be more free.  to be less afraid. to be more clear, even if its only about a few important things.  to be more brave.  to be more weak in some areas & stronger in others.  to care less about what people think & more about what God might think.

God knows our struggle to be comfortable in our own skin.  God is E/Immanuel, with us.  here, now.  down here in the muck and mire of our real lives, our real struggles with life & faith & relationships & all that it means to be human, created in the image of God, living in this broken weird wild world.

enthusiastically wanting to teach us to be comfortable in our own skin.

i’m trying to listen.

* * * * *

ps:  i stumbled upon this original advent song this weekend by matt staniz. i loved it & thought i’d pass it on to you today as we reflect on our skin, God’s skin.

my post up at rachel held evans’ blog last week–insecure christians–got some great comments, both positive ones & negative ones.  the negative ones tended to come from the perspective that by me saying there is something good in us (because we are originally created in the image of God) that it somehow devalues the work of Christ in our lives.  i’m personally so confused by this fear, that if we have even a little bit of good in us, it somehow untangles the whole rest of the story.  to me, it enhances the Story and the work of God in this beautiful, messed up world.  it doesn’t dismiss the power of sin and the reality of its presence in each of us from the moment we step into this Genesis 3 world.  but it isn’t our starting place.

and i guess sometimes these i-honestly-don’t-think-they’re-all-that-crazy-when-you-read-the-gospels ideas make me a heretic.

i’m called one now and then.

and for the most part i always take it as a compliment.

it’s part of the cost of being a dreamer, lover, and status-quo rocker.

honestly, if believing that there’s some shred of good in every human being because we were created in God’s image makes me a heretic, then yep, I guess i am.

if thinking that even though we are full of brokenness, we are also beautiful no matter what we believe makes me a heretic, then yep, I guess I am.

if holding that women should be fully equal with men and free to lead fully and completely in whatever way God is calling them to lead makes me a heretic, then yep, I guess I am.

if refusing to build entire oppressive & mean systems of belief about homosexuality based on a few passages in the Bible and loving my gay friends freely & fully makes me a heretic, then yep, I guess I am.

if valuing practicing the ways of Jesus over nitpicking about doctrine makes me a heretic, then yep,  i guess i am.

if being convinced that it’s possible that men and women can be true brothers & sisters & soul friends without all kinds of sexual weirdness and fear makes me a heretic, then yep, i guess i am.

if passionately believing that a lot of the modern church has been built on power, put-togetherness & serving itself instead of extending the tangible love of Jesus & restoring dignity to hurting people makes me a heretic, then yep, i guess i am.

if loving & valuing the Bible without making it more important than the wild-and-mysterious-Holy-Spirit-at-work-in-people’s-lives makes me a heretic, then yep, i guess i am.

i have a feeling a lot of you are heretics, too!

it can feel scary & lonely to be a heretic.  i experienced the weirdest feeling when i was reading some of those comments over at rachel’s blog–a feeling of being an outsider. of being someone who no longer is part of a system that many still ascribe to and i used to fully embrace.  it was mildly painful on a weird level but a huge relief on another.  i respect the beliefs of some of the commenters and our differences; the world needs all different shapes & sizes of christianity.  but it made it even more apparent how “out” of those particular traditional evangelical circles i really am.

i live in a different more grace & hope-filled world than ever before and i love it.

i have tasted “goodness in the land of the living” (psalm 27:13, i love that psalm) and there’s no turning back.

i do not want to raise my kids in the former system i was in & i don’t want them to believe that being a miserable wretch is their primary starting place.  they, like most human beings, will probably have the same basic reflex toward shame and somehow feeling like they are falling short despite all their efforts.  what i would like for them, for me, and for all-those-i-know-who-struggle-with-believing-they-are-worthy-of-anything-good to know is we are loved fully and completely by God just as we are–in all our mess & all our glory, in all our goodness & all our badness, in all our strength & all our weakness, all our beauty & all our ugliness–no matter what small or big faith we might have.

yep, i guess i’m a heretic.

* * * * *

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.

- henri nouwen

* * * * *

one year ago today i had back surgery to repair a gnarly ruptured disc.  it was one of the scariest things i have ever done.  as someone who had never had a serious injury and rarely takes any medicine, and is always on the go, it was really traumatic.   the pain leading up to it was excruciating, like none i had ever been remotely close to experiencing before, and i didn’t drive a car for 2 1/2 months and would have to either stand or lay down wherever i went.  i wrestled with the reality of being desperate & the bad theology that sometimes oozed on me.  it wasn’t just painful physically; emotionally it took its toll, too.  after my surgery, some of the pain dissipated and i started to resume some parts of my old life, but i am forever changed.  i have to think of my back every day, all day.  once in a while i go an hour or two where i don’t think about it at all, but that is very rare.

i’m so much better than i was a year ago.  and for that i’m grateful. 

however, before my surgery i could work all day and then all night and be just fine.  i could go, go, and go some more.  now, all of that has changed.  a year later, i have slowly eased back into my normal pace, which is a fast and intense one.  and i have discovered, unfortunately the hard way, that it’s just not possible.  my normal pace is no longer an option.  the stress i used to be able to carry is now just too much sometimes.  this past month has been a rough one for me, lots of ugly situations that have taken their toll on my soul. i have felt my back start to break again, pain i hadn’t experienced in a long time seep back in again, and at first i did what i usually do.

got mad at myself for working too hard.

got really scared.

got frustrated at God for somehow messing with my old life.

but, fortunately, i didn’t stay there for long.  that’s my reflex, no doubt, but i am learning a new way of living that isn’t so harsh & mean, not only to myself but to God, either.  i continue to practice letting God off the hook.  and then, instead of beating the crap out of myself for working too hard, take a step back and recognize that i am just still learning how to live this new way.

i am now a person who has chronic weakness that i must be aware of.

i am more vulnerable.

I now must tend to the care of my body & soul in an intentional way.

it’s terribly hard for me to embrace this reality.  but it’s just the truth.  and it’s been better for me in all kinds of ways, too.   it also opens the door for such a better theology.  that God is not the one who causes this pain and if i do this or that spiritually, it will all magically disappear.   i do not believe that.  i am a human being and i live in a broken, weird world where there is a gap between what i want and what i need.  strength in the world’s eyes tends to be utter and complete healing, kicking ass & taking names, conquering the battle.  i wish i could on this one, oh i wish i could.   that’s what i was hoping for, too.

but a year later i think there’s a better lesson here that i’m learning to embrace.  my back is an indicator now to listen.  a voice that talks to me and tells me that i’ve pushed it too far.  or i’ve been pushed too far.   that i need to slow down.  that i need to let go.  that i can’t carry the burdens in the same way i used to carry them.  it points me toward soul care & taking better care of myself.  it reminds me of my desperate need for Jesus’ love & comfort & mercy & peace.  it helps me mourn and feel and be a human being.  it calls me to strengthen my pericardium in some important areas.   it reminds me of the often forgotten line in the serenity prayer that calls us to “take this sinful world as it is, not as i would have it.”

so there’s my little ramble for my one year anniversary.  i am thankful for all the ways i am moving again, living again, feeling again, for the ways i am indeed healing.  i love what i’m learning in a lot of ways & hate it in others.  but i do know that gratitude heals and that pain can teach us important truths about God, ourselves & this crazy little life we get to live.

in this upcoming year i am hoping to experiment with a few new venues for healing.  we all know that online connection can be more meaningful than it might seem, and even though i wish everyone could be in the same room at the same time, sometimes that is just not possible.  online, in a safe container with other people in the same boat, can be the next-best-thing in the right kinds of contexts.  for the past 2 months i have been facilitating a let’s-try-it-and-see-how-it-goes-because-i-have-some-hurting-friends-who-need-extra-love-and-hope online divorce group for women to gain some strength, support, and healing in the grieving process;  i have found that even though i miss the face-to-face, the reality is that none of us would be meeting without it being online because everyone lives all over the US.  plus, it’s really amazing what’s possible with people in similar situations, desiring change and open to work for a season.

with that, i am excited to partner in early 2012 with my wonderful and wise friend phyllis mathis on a 4 week online workshop for men & women based on our walking wounded: hope for those hurt by church gathering that we hosted in denver last month.  you can check out all of the details here.  it is one of the first times i have actually ever charged for something i am doing! and honestly, it is time for me to be willing to do that in the right contexts.  don’t worry, i won’t be bombarding you with marketing stuff and this is not my new job but rather an extension of what you all know i am really passionate about–transformation, connection, and healing.  i am glad to be able to also partner with live it to the full, which is a great platform for online classes and workshops that will make it easy for me & for participants.  in the first part of 2012 i am hoping to open up the divorce group to others beyond just my little experiment and also offer a down we go: living into the wild ways of Jesus workshop for those wanting to explore the material a little more deeply & practically.  i’ll keep you posted on both of these (and a few other ideas brewing) as details come together.

meanwhile, the date for this first one is set for january 9th 2012 after the holidays and registration is now open  if you or someone you know is in this spot of being stuck, disillusioned, burned-out, or just plain hurt and would like to be a part, we’d love to have you.  feel free to email me if you have any questions.

here are the basics:

* * * *

Hope for Those Hurt by Church

For most of us, our faith journey is the most essential thing about us, the closest thing to the core of who we are. So whenever some major shift in perspective rocks our faith, or we’re involved in a conflict involving our faith community, it goes deep, affecting our soul in some surprising ways.

If you are feeling lost, disillusioned or hurt as a result of a shift in your faith or by a negative church (or other faith community) experience, this just might be the class for you.

Join us January 9 through February 3, 2012 for Walking Wounded: Hope for Those Hurt by Church. Class price is $49 and includes daily posts (Monday through Friday) and weekly exercises in journaling, storytelling, and wellness practices.

Course Description

Thousands of honest, sincere people are finding themselves on the outside of a faith system they once held dear. The sadness, anger, disillusionment and fear can be debilitating. And confusing.

Have You:

• Been asked to leave a church or told you’re not a “good fit”?
• Felt forced to conform or remain consistently overlooked?
• Been told that you are loved but not your sin?
• Questioned leadership or theology and found yourself on the outside?
• Felt sad, angry, afraid, lost, or disoriented after painful church experiences?
• Experienced a significant shift in your theology or faith perspective and find yourself feeling disoriented and unsure?

You are not lost, and you are not alone.

Walking Wounded: Hope for Those Hurt By Church is designed to help you move through the painful and confusing aftermath of a negative faith-based experience.

In this 4 week class you will:

• Connect with others who have similar experiences
• Identify your losses and reclaim your dreams
• Tell your story and receive support
• Work through your unfinished business
• Learn effective practices to restore a sense of sanity

Through interviews, conversation, journaling and storytelling, Kathy Escobar and Phyllis Mathis will guide you through the confusion and into a place of purpose and peace.