spiritual formation

be yourself, everyone else is taken.

Posted on May 18, 2012 in identity, just because i thought it was fun, spiritual formation | 11 comments

be yourself, everyone else is taken.

* some of you have already read this post; it was a guest post for lisa colon delay’s blog series on spiritual guidance for bloggers in april.  i wanted to post it here in its entirety for my archives. i know a lot of you might not blog, but i think we can easily replace “blogging” with “anything-we-are-trying-to-do-that-is-hard-for-us-to-feel-free-in”.   that could be our faith or a vocation or a new passion or a relationship or a whole host of other things.  the same principles apply.   i am more convinced than ever that learning to be comfortable in our own skin is the work of our lives.  have a great weekend! 

* * * * *

“Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken” – Oscar Wilde

I first discovered what a “blog” was in 2006, when we planted The Refuge, the wild little faith community I am part of.  Honestly, I had never heard the word before; I had been immersed in a hectic ministry role that was very insulated from the wider church conversation and I just wasn’t online.  This transition from mega-church to small-church-plant was a messy one for me.  I was in a lot of pain from my experience, so I reached out online after stumbling across some blogs while searching for church website ideas.  I felt an instant and immediate sense of relief when I discovered I wasn’t crazy, and I wasn’t alone in some of my feelings.  I found others with similar stories & similar church dreams.

The men and women I read were honest, bold, raw, and pure.

They weren’t selling anything, trying to push their agenda, or attempting to make-people-come-over-to-their-way-of-thinking.

Rather, they just told their stories.  Shared their experiences. Responded to other people’s comments with simple kindness and respect. And above all, they remained honest about what they were wrestling with and learning along the way.

Reading their blogs gave me hope.

They inspired me.

They pointed me toward God (even when they were wrestling with God).

They challenged me to think.

January 1, 2008, I started my own blog and dedicated myself to two simple commitments:

1. Write as honestly and purely as I could without editing or trying to worry about what other people might think.

2. Write once a week for one year.

It’s been a wild ride, and I have learned so much through the process over the past 4 years.

Out of everything, I think blogging has helped me learn to become more comfortable in my own skin, with my own voice, with who I am.

I think that is a very holy and sacred experience on our spiritual journey–learning to find safety and security in who we really are.  

Not who someone else is.

Not who we think we should be.

But in who we are.

I am someone who has always struggled with the message that I wasn’t enough somehow–not spiritual enough, not quiet enough, not domestic enough, not skinny enough, not organized enough, not-whatever-enough.

Blogging definitely intersected with this message, initially making it even worse.

In the first few years of my blog, I had so much internal anxiety about not being good enough, funny enough, theological enough, wise enough, or concise enough.   Whatever “enough” it was, I wasn’t.

But something began to shift in the past several years as I continued to find my voice and become more comfortable in my own skin out here.

I began to realize that the world doesn’t need another _________ or __________ or __________ (Insert name of any bloggers you are jealous of, and my guess is they are wrestling with similar feelings and go a little psycho about the same insecurities).

What’s missing is me.

Not because without me the world would stop spinning or the blogosphere would come to a screeching halt.

But because everyone else is taken.  

I think God wants us to learn how to become comfortable in our own skin, to be who-we-are, and not try to become someone else.

Blogging is a great place to practice this.

Making peace with who-we-are requires the ongoing-work-of-the-Holy-Spirit.  I doubt and question it all of the time.  I obsess before I hit “publish” and freak out about not being more like ______ or _______ (insert name of other blogger also obsessing about the same thing).

I need God’s help to remind me:  “Um, Kathy, just so you know, in the big scheme of things, it’s just a blog post.  And one other thing:  it’s a great place to practice just being you–with all your strengths & all your weaknesses.  Just you.”

And then I hit “publish” and take a deep breath and am reminded yet again, this is what transformation looks and feels like.

This is how we get more comfortable in our own skin.    This is how we learn to offer ourselves grace.  This is how we become “us” and not someone else.

Yikes, it’s hard to learn!   But blogging is a great spiritual practice that can help integrate this important truth into deep places in our hearts.

Yeah, my spiritual guidance for all us bloggers is this:  Be ourselves.  Everyone else is taken.

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love’s the thread & it’s stronger than we think

Posted on May 14, 2012 in equality, incarnational, injustice, spiritual formation, the refuge | 26 comments

love’s the thread & it’s stronger than we think

i love the book of colossians; i’ve shared here before that when my kids were little we had the NIV kids club cassette tapes (yes, we’re old) and i can pretty much sing all of chapter 3.  each of these verses is a separate song:

“13 – therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselveswith compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 14 – bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. forgive as the Lord forgave you.  15 - and over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”

in the wild and crazy conversation last week about equality, the verse 15 song came to mind–“over all these virtues put on love, which binds them together in perfect unity.”

my friend & copastor at the refuge, karl wheeler (who just started a new blog–check it out because it’s going to rock, details below), often says that we mistake unity for uniformity.  this is so true!  we think that when we are all on the same page, we have unity. but that not true unity; instead, it’s homogeneity that was never the idea. the kingdom of God is about holding our differences in love.

real unity is honoring our differences and being bound together by love.  

it’s the virtue that binds us all together.

one of the things i most deeply respect about life in our little wild refuge community is that we do not agree on everything.  we don’t have a statement of faith that automatically discerns who believes what (you can read what we do have written down; it’s one of my most favorite things we’ve ever written) and weeds people out.  we don’t espouse a “here’s what we are sure God says about this or that” or a membership class that people need to sign in on before they can be part.   when it comes to some of these tough issues of our faith, we are all over the map, with far left & far right and everything in between all tangled up together.

it’s honestly one of the prettiest things i’ve ever seen.

rich & poor alongside, even though life is so different from each other.  educated & uneducated alongside, because people are people no matter how much schoolin’ we’ve had.  liberal & conservative alongside, because love supersedes political viewpoints.  gay & straight alongside, even with different views theologically.   married & single alongside, because we need each other desperately.  men & women alongside, because friendship is a way to practice & learn the ways of love.

we don’t see each other through any of those labels.  we see each other as human beings, created in God’s image, all with the most important thing in common–a desire to love & be loved.   

when it comes to last week’s conversation, i want to highlight an important point about our life together.  our gay friends aren’t here making sure everyone agrees with them & our straight friends with a more scriptural conservative bent aren’t trying to prove anything. the same is true about any of our other differences.  the reason this works is because love is the thread that binds us all together.  as a leader in this community, that’s what we work our asses off to try to cultivate: a culture of safety (not of comfort but of real safety in a loving, challenging christian community).

and in a true culture of safety, we can disagree.

in fact, disagreeing is good.  when we don’t allow room for seeing things differently then we are in danger of creating more pockets of conformity and not living humbly in the tension of being uncomfortable.  our discomfort & differences force us to rely on God’s spirit to help us let go & trust & learn & wait and love more freely.

the world doesn’t need more pockets of conformity.  there are plenty of those to go around.

what we need are more brave expressions of little pockets of love & freedom, where Christ’s restoration of human dignity and value is at the center despite our differences. where humility is practiced in a very active way. where submission, one to another and not just one-way-that-works-for-those-with-the-most-power, is embedded into the fabric of life together.

but even though i think the refuge is awfully pretty (it’s ugly to the un-Jesus-trained eye, though, i promise), it is also a very tricky space to hold.

some have left over time, frustrated that we hold the tension between differing views on the Bible & theology.  they want us to draw lines in the sand and make things clearer.  some get annoyed at having to make friends with people who aren’t like them.  others really want better music & teaching & comfier chairs & something a little more predictable.

we refuse.

because we think there’s much more to learn about the ways of Love through our differences and discomfort than through our we-all-think-and-believe-the-same-thing and church-is-about-being-comfortable default.

my hope for the movement in the body of Christ and community cultivation is not that we sway everyone over to a new side on any of these issues and then all camp out together.   that would be way too easy (and is what i fear these hot topics will tempt people to do).  my hope is that we find a way to be together in our differences.  to create a culture of true safety that bravely lets go of telling-others-what-to-believe-with-utter-certainty-on-one-biblical-interpretation and instead wrestling with these hard realities of life together.  to see God’s image in each other and have that be enough to keep us united even when we might see the scriptures or life or a whole host of things different from each other.

love’s the thread that binds us all together in perfect unity.

it’s stronger than we think.

* * * * *

ps: karl’s blog is called church dreamer.  check out the about page & his first blog post, Jesus hates flatscreens.  oh yeah, it’s going to be fun.

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rebuilding is possible: a little hope for deconstruction

Posted on May 4, 2012 in healing, spiritual formation | 4 comments

rebuilding is possible: a little hope for deconstruction

when i originally had this idea for a rebuilding after deconstructing series, i didn’t know exactly what it would be like.  i just knew i wanted to write what was on my heart and see what happened.  i have so appreciated all of the comments & honesty & the lovely new people i have met during this past few weeks and connecting with so many of you who have been here for a long time, too.  thanks for being part of the carnival.  it’s a privilege to intersect with such brave, wise, and honest people–in real life & online, too.

as we wrap up, i wanted to put all of the links for the series in one place, so here they are:

plus:

also, i would love some feedback on areas you’d like to continue to explore related to this topic. there are a couple i already know of in the works: what about the kids? what happens when spouses are in different places completely?  how can we find safe community in new ways?  

what else would you like to process here?  let me know in the comments section.

another question is “now what” for some of you who would like to keep processing through the journey with others who understand in a safe place.  there are all kinds of great things online related to faith shifts & if you have any sites you want to recommend, please do.  related specifically to this conversation, jim fisher started a closed facebook group called “faith under construction” that will be exploring some of these ideas & more online. if you have some pretty big church wounds and think some extra processing might be helpful, maybe you can consider joining our next online walking wounded: hope for those hurt by the church group, hosted at live it to the full (we don’t have an exact date right now but you can email me and i’ll let you know when we get it set).  another great site for those healing from church woundedness is www.churchburned.com, hosted by my friend travis klaussen.

lastly, i thought i’d post a few links to old posts that many of you may not have read before that are centered on this topic.  remember my disclaimer:  i am a work in progress and please don’t hold me to everything i’ve said here over the years.  i haven’t re-read all of these in detail,  but i hope that somehow, someway, anything shared here can bring a little bit of hope on this wild & crazy path of rebuilding after deconstruction.

these are the ones that jumped out at me as i looked back (just some light reading, ha ha):  

have a great weekend! peace and courage, kathy

on monday (yeah, i haven’t had a rant in a while):  reframing crazy when it comes to church

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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i used to….but now i….

Posted on May 3, 2012 in healing, incarnational, spiritual formation | 24 comments

i used to….but now i….

i loved all those responses to yesterday’s soul care & spiritual practices during deconstruction!  so many healing practices; thank you for sharing and feel free to still add yours.

the other day when i was driving in my car thinking about this series, an old post that i wrote 3 years ago came to mind.  it’s called “i-used-to-but-now-i”. i thought it actually might be a helpful exercise as part of our conversation on rebuilding after deconstructing because it’s centered on respecting where we were and where we are now.

it’s about recognizing & giving language to some of the new.  it’s honoring shifts and helps us say “here’s what’s changed.”

it’s funny, my list from 2009 is so long, but as i looked through it many things still resonated, although maybe not as important to me today as they were then.  as part of this practice, i decided to make a new list, some are from 3 years ago and there are definitely some new ones, too.  i thought maybe some of you might want to give it a try, too.

my 2012 i used to…but now i’s…:

i used to have a fear-centered faith.  now i have a love-centered one.

i used to think the christian life was one of ascent & i kept feeling like a loser because i couldn’t get there. now i think it looks more like descent & it takes away the pressure.

i used to think church was about getting what i wanted–inspiration & wow.   now i think it’s about getting what i actually need–a place to practice loving & being loved.  

i used to feel the need for things to be black and white and make perfect sense. now i really appreciate the gray & the mystery of the “i don’t knows.”

i used to think people could pull themselves up by their bootstraps & change their lives with enough prayer and hard work. now i see how truly complicated poverty, mental illness, and a host of other problems really are.

i used to think that if i talked about God enough & my kids could regurgitate enough scripture verses i’d be a good parent. now i see our actions are far more important than words.

i used to be two people, one on the outside & one on the inside.  now there’s just one of me, with all my strengths & all my weaknesses.   

i used to read the Bible for knowledge.  now i read it for beauty & challenge.  

i used to never even notice the lack of women and underrepresented groups in church leadership. now i can see and smell it from a mile away.

i used to hold on to everything and so tightly.  now i’m trying to practice a looser grip. 

i used to think the kingdom of God was really really narrow. now i think it’s bigger than i ever imagined.

i used to spend a lot of energy shaking my fists. now i am most interested in planting new trees.  

what are some of your “i used to…but now i’s…?”

i’d love to hear!

 

 

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soul care & spiritual practices for deconstruction

Posted on May 2, 2012 in healing, spiritual formation | 48 comments

soul care & spiritual practices for deconstruction

in the last post we made a few lists related to what helped & what didn’t from others during deconstruction. such good stuff, such hard stuff.  thank you for sharing so honestly.  i am going to try to pull something together from it so feel free to add yours if you haven’t already.

as the last few post-series posts, i also wanted to take a little time to center on an oft-overlooked topic in the deconstruction conversation–how do we tend to our souls & our spiritual lives when we’re in the midst of so much upheaval?

sure, many of us might be allergic to some old spiritual practices, but are there new ones that we can try that might help us feel less lonely and disconnected to God in the process? in the same vein, and because they are all tied up together, making sure we are tending to the care of our souls in the process is critically important.

life in the spiritual desert of deconstruction requires water, rest and food, or we will die.

for me, as i made some shifts away from the utter & total absorption in the mega-church i was part of, i found that some of the things that brought me comfort before no longer did.  the Bible felt flat.  worship songs made me go a little nutty.  journaling just felt forced.  i longed for connection with God in the-old-ways-that-used-to-work.  but it just wasn’t working.

then something shifted a bit and i began to let go of feeling like i had to grind down to find something i just couldn’t find.  instead, i tried to let go of the old (and not feel guilty about it) and began to notice God in other places.  i tried to do things that i liked to do, that were good for my soul, that helped me feel rest & peace & connection to God, my soul.

here were some of these soul care & spiritual practices on this bumpy road:

i watched a lot of movies.  for me, almost the best soul care there is.

i took one entire day off from meeting or talking with people in any way, shape or form, period.

my family came up with some weekly rhythms of eating & fun that we all began to honor.  it’s been awesome.

i hiked.

i turned off the radio whenever i drove and put my cell phone in the back seat (i need to start this one back up!)

late night conversations with dear friends around fires & kitchen tables & coffee shops.

i tried to practice the daily examen before i went to sleep or when i was driving alone in the car–where i noticed God in some way, shape or form during each day.

i spent as much time as i could on the lake, which is my second-to-the-beach-favorite-place.

i used the message translation of the Bible & tried not to compare it to the passages i was used to.

i started blogging, a really interesting spiritual practice that i think is helpful in getting comfortable in our own skin.

i read the red letters in the gospels.  

in the last year and a half i started walking every-day-come-rain-or-shine for my back, but now it’s one of my best spiritual practices ever.

what about you?  what are some soul care or spiritual practices that sustained you (or are sustaining you) during deconstruction?  if you’d take time to share in the comments, it really does help others with some ideas.

* * * * *

ps:  i have a post up this week for the monthly column at sheloves magazine centered around down we go: living into the wild ways of Jesus.  it’s called cultivating creativity (check out the video in the comments section, too, it’s awesome and related to this series).  i think that cultivating creativity during the rebuilding process can be so healing & freeing.

tomorrow:  one last little exercise from a post a few years ago that might be helpful in remembering where we were & where we are now.  

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last post for rebuilding after deconstructing: 8. trusting the path

Posted on Apr 27, 2012 in healing, spiritual formation | 44 comments

last post for rebuilding after deconstructing: 8. trusting the path

well thank you, my friends, for taking this crazy journey for the past 2 weeks.  i am looking forward to getting back to the normal rhythm around here next week, 1 maybe 2 posts a week.  whoa, i can’t imagine blogging this much every week!

but my hope for this series was always that we could get all of the posts out there in one big swoop and then over time, people would be able to access them as they needed over time.  i have been blown away by the responses & emails & ways that people have shared what this has stirred up.  there are so many of us out here finding our way.

it reminds me of part of a cheryl lawrie piece i love that’s on the refuge website (she’s a prison chaplain in australia & all of her stuff rocks):

ezekial 37, again

you do not give up on the broken and the lost

you do not give up on the fractured or the shattered or the dying or the dead

you do not give up on the fearful or the hateful or the impossible

you do not give up when there is no heartbeat left or no heart at all

you do not give up you do not leave us for dead

thank god.

yeah, we are not left for dead.

some people might give up on us.

but God doesn’t.

there is so much hope for us.

a huge sign of life is that we are actually still in, trying to talk about this hard stuff..  people may criticize us and call us lost or angry or a host of other adjectives, but the beautiful thing is that we’re still in, trying to find our way toward God.  that, in itself, is a miracle (especially considering what some of you have gone through).  i also know some of you haven’t had painful church experiences but just “grew up.” i would say the same thing to you–it’s glorious that you are wrestling with cultivating a more free faith despite the costs.

as we wrap up, here’s a quick recap of the major movements of the rebuilding process:

rebuilding after deconstructing - there are many ways we find ourselves on this scary, weird, unexpected path, but our stories probably have many of the same threads–doubt, emptiness, loneliness, sadness, fear, anger, and confusion.

honoring the process - growth and change in our faith journey is often labeled as rebellion, divisiveness, and heresy, when really it is just maturity trying to emerge.  as we honor the stages of our faith, we find strength.

acknowledging losses - there’s a helluva lot of grief in this process, and it is so helpful to acknowledge what we’ve lost and allow ourselves to feel the real feelings of grief.

discovering what remains - when we are deconstructing and can’t hold to some of our old beliefs anymore we need to work to discover what is left when it comes to our faith, what’s still there that brings hope.

finding what works - finding what works is about experimenting with different practices and ways of being that create life, passion, and connection with God.

celebrating what was - celebrating the good parts of our past helps us honor what was and actively move toward what is and what could be.

igniting passion - as we keep moving, we begin to find purpose, meaning, and ways to channel our hearts & energy & time in directions that bring life & hope.

exploring possibilities -  even though it’s often scary to re-engage, there are ways to find new forms of safe community & connection with other people of hope.

what’s next?  it’s trusting the path, remembering we’re not lost.

in fact, we’re on a path toward a free-er relationship with God, others, ourselves.

i was reminded of these passages this morning:

“can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death?…and I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.  (romans 8:35, 38, NLT).

even though people around us might worry about our souls, i hope we can trust that our souls are not in danger by engaging in a deconstruction process.  i’m pretty sure God is plenty big enough to hack this and love us through it.    

and that’s my overall hope for all of us in these shifts that we’re making–that somehow, some way, we’d experience and trust God’s love for us more deeply, clearly, fully and become more secure in it.   i think that’s always been the idea.  the world doesn’t need more, fear-filled insecure christians, it needs more peace-filled, secure ones.

deconstructing can make us insecure, less sure of so many things. and even though it’s true that we might be less certain about a lot of peripheral things, my experience has been that if we stay with the process we emerge much more secure in God’s love for us, our neighbors, the world.  

we actually become more secure in the end. 

we can discover that less is more. 

that in our weakness we are strong.

that we don’t have to “know it all” or prove it all. 

that a simple faith can be a stronger faith. 

that we are loved, really loved, just as we are.

yeah, i have seen over and over again how this path leads to life, not death, if we keep walking.  the road is scary & bumpy & freaky and many people may tell us we’ll be eaten by wild animals or sucked into quicksand on the way.  the more i walk it & see others walk it, too,  the more clear i feel that it’s a good road.  a secure road.  a road-worth-traveling-so-we-can-keep-growing-loving-learning-and-becoming-more-free-in-the-good-and-wild-ways-of-Jesus.

let’s keep being brave.

we are not alone.

we are not crazy.

God is with us.  he’ll never leave us for dead.

we’re in the midst of resurrection.

* * * * *

ps:  even if you don’t normally comment, it would be so great if you’d be willing to share in this thread what this series has stirred up in you, the good, the bad & the ugly.  it is so helpful to all of us in different ways, to hear a wide range of experiences.

coming next week:  things people said & did that helped you in this process (and those that were oh-so-not-helpful) + practices that sustained you during deconstruction.  i hope you can contribute.  we need to make some good lists!

thanks for reading.  your stories bring me more hope than you’ll ever know. peace, kathy


 

 

 

 

 

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