no-man's land

So, I've wanted to share this for a while, but haven't exactly known how to put it.  Fortunately Dear Friend Daniel called the other day, and I talked with him about it, and he didn't seem particularly horrified (he never does, when will I learn this?), so I'm feeling a little braver.  Here goes.

So I've already shared that I had a hard time in my Spiritual Autobiography class.  Not because of the people in it, really.  Most were kind and open to hearing others' experiences.  And there were a lot of different experiences, different views.  It went remarkably well, for the most part.

What was hard for me was being in a sort of in-between place.  I wasn't like the two or three Christians in the room who were avidly involved in Campus Christian Fellowship, who prayed and sang songs to acoustic guitar out in Red Square.  But neither was I like my friend Jenn.

Jenn and I have had classes together our last couple of quarters, and I really like her.  She's funny and a little brash, and that usually goes a long way with me.  So much of our experience has been the same.  Deep involvement in the church.  On a worship team for years.  An intense internship with a charismatic church leader.  Broken relationships, an eventual stepping away from the culture, and a lot of questions as a result.  In fact, when we started discussing the details, I realized our paths had crossed twice before we knew each other: once when her group came up to Poulsbo, and once when our group visited her ministry down in Sacramento.  (I had always thought she looked familiar).

We talked about going and grabbing coffee at some point, talking about our experiences, in that loose way where coffee never actually will happen, but it's fun to think about.  Things hit a bump when a woman in our workshop group asked us about our experiences in the church.  She's Buddhist, but has a twenty-year-old son also attending Western.  He's a Christian whose very involved in campus ministry, so naturally she was curious.

During the course of the conversation that followed, I saw a difference between me and Jenn: she's as fervently anti-Christian as she once was fervently Christian.  She launched into why she's not a Christian, why she wants absolutely nothing to do with Christianity, naming off several criticisms of the Christian viewpoint -- criticisms I really couldn't argue with, because they're views that much of the mainstream evangelical movement embraces (i.e. anyone who hasn't said the sinner's prayer before he dies goes to hell, gay people are a threat, etc).

It was a tough conversation.  Whenever I would object, saying, "Not all Christians think that.  I don't," she would respond with, "Well, most do," and she was right.  She was harsh, though I know her well enough to know she didn't mean to be, and I can understand her reasons why.  She could tell I was feeling raw, and apologized after class.  I told her not to worry about it -- the truth was, it really had very little to do with her at all.

I cried most of the way home.

It just sucks living an in-between existence.  I've lamented more than once to Justin that we're too Christian for most, and not-Christian-enough for the rest.  I've had the same disappointing "We-don't-fit-here" experience with churchy couples' small groups that I had on this particular afternoon with Jenn.

I find it impossible to reject Jesus.  I also find it impossible to swallow the idea that if I'm a Christian, I do this thing, I don't do that thing, I vote for this party, I exclude these people, and march contentedly in rank and file.  I don't like the idea that as soon as I walk in the door, I have to surrender my ability to think, to question, to respond as an individual to what I read in the words of Jesus.

This puts me in a tough spot.

It puts us in a tough spot, I should say.  Justin and I have tried a few times to go to church, because I've said, "We should try to go," but each time, it's done more damage than if we'd just stayed home, and it's always me that says, "Let's not do this again."  Let me say: they're good people.  And there are probably plenty of good things I could give and receive as part of that community.  I just can't get past the weird culture, the group-think, the things that remind me of when I was so fervent, so sure of myself, and yet so completely in the wrong.  It's kind of like when we first moved up here and I joined the worship team, and shortly found myself sitting at a piano bench singing songs with words that I would never actually use in everyday conversation, watching everyone raise their hands and close their eyes at the same time.  It's a constant "twilight zone" kind of experience.  Yuck.

At first, we did what was easiest.  We buried the issue as much as possible and just focused on being newly-marrieds.  Enter the Spiritual Autobiography class.  Oops.  Lots of things coming to the surface.

Near the end of the quarter, we sat down and talked about it for a few hours.  We realized we could probably bury this for a good ten years under the distractions of a happy marriage (and it has been one), but that we wouldn't be living in good faith.  So it came down to it: do we believe in Jesus and his message?  (This was an actual point of discussion, by the way).  Yes?  Or on most days, yes?  Okay.  Well, what the hell do we do about it then?  For some reason we pulled out Thomas Merton and came to this passage:

There is no neutrality between gratitude and ingratitude.  Those who are not grateful soon begin to complain of everything.  Those who do not love, hate.  In the spiritual life there is no such thing as an indifference to love or hate.  That is why tepidity (which seems to be indifferent) is so detestable.  It is hate disguised as love.

Tepidity, in which the soul is neither "hot nor cold" -- neither frankyl loves nor frankly hates -- is a state in which one rejects God and rejects the will of God while maintaining an exterior pretense of loving Him in order to keep out of trouble and save one's supposed self-respect.  It is the condition that is soon arrived at by those who are habitually ungrateful for the graces of God.  A man who truly responds to the goodness of God, and acknowledges all that he has received, cannot possibly be a half-hearted Christian.  True gratitude and hypocrisy cannot exist together.  They are totally incompatible.  Gratitude of itself makes us sincere -- or it if does not, then it is not true gratitude.

Gratitude, though, is more than a mental exercise, more than a formula of words.  We cannot be satisfied to make a mental note of things which God has done for us and then perfunctorily thank Him for favors received.

To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us-- and He has given us everything.  Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him.  Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God.  For the grateful man knows that God is good, not by hearsay, but by experience.  And that is what makes all the difference.

(Yeah, any of you longtime blog buddies will recognize that last little bit, a favorite quote of mine).

We realized that our distaste for mainstream Christian culture is not an excuse for burying our pursuit of faith beneath a pile of frustrations.  It won't strengthen our marriage, won't strengthen our character, won't make us more like Jesus in how we treat other people.  I hate the idea that I had let my relationship with church get confused with my relationship with God.  I hate that I let it cloud the grace I once saw so clearly.  I hate that I wasn't grateful for each day as I once was.  It was an uncomfortable realization to come to, but it was a needed one.

We're hopeful that at some point we'll find a capital-C church with like-minded folks where we can worship in good conscience.  For now, we have time set aside each Sunday for what we call our Guppy Time.  (In jest, I named our weekly time our Gratitude Unification Procedure, and it stuck).  We read the Bible, and are working through Soren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling, and we talk about it.  It's been good.  I haven't felt in-between in a while now.  There are lots of things I'm still uncertain on, but I don't wonder if we're chasing faith authentically or not.  I'm learning to be grateful again.

I was telling Dan about all of this, and his only admonition was something I've already been thinking about: we need to be willing to be home for others, too.  I'm hoping at some point that we'll have people join us in our living room.  I like the thought that other people who feel they don't fit can find a place where they do.  We'll see.

Anyway, thanks for letting me share where we're at.  For those of you who've been reading over the long haul and have chimed in with lots of "me-too's" over the course of this messy journey, thanks also for being a home of sorts when face-to-face conversations with like-minded folks were rare.