Finding a church

Jack and I started looking for a regular church right after we got married.  We had a tentative list of qualities we wanted: thoughtful and scholarly sermons, a small Bible study group we could join, diversity in age and background, as well as other young married couples.

Conspicuously absent from my list was “women.”  I didn’t realize how I craved mentors.  Whenever I joined a new church, I would immediately sniff out an older, educated and often, well, unusual Christian woman and attach myself to her.

My first mentor was a missionary that I found in Russia.  She was over six feet tall, single, and fluent in Russian despite having begun studying at age 40.  I lived with her for a few months during my first year of being a Christian, and we spent many evenings at her kitchen table as she listened patiently to my stories and questions.

When I came back to the states, I began tagging along with a half Native American woman with long silver hair.  She had finished her PhD in her early 40’s, then she and her husband had two kids.  They had a sign outside their front door that said “Welcome to the home of Dr. and Mr. Bentley.”  She home-schooled her boys, teaching them Greek, Latin, and how electrical circuits work.  They practiced “attachment parenting,” which meant all four of them slept in one bed.  Even though I found that a little creepy, I loved her brazenness.  Some part of me thought, “all this, and you’re a Christian?  Then maybe I can break the mold too.”

When I got married two years later, I thought that I had lost my chance of breaking any mold.  I worried that I had married because I feared independence.  My life story was looking too similar to others: I had been a good Christian college student, then I had a good Christian wedding where we sang “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” and it would only be a matter of time before I learned to cook and had babies.  And even though I loved the song “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” and wanted to learn how to cook, I was terrified of becoming invisible amidst all the other Christian wives who cooked and sang and went to church.

So, with all this insecurity about being newly married, Jack and I tagged along with two old Intervarsity friends to their church.  During the “meet and greet” time, I turned away from Jack to the person next to me, who smiled and introduced herself.  She was in her 40’s and wore hiking boots and no makeup.  She had been going to this church for nearly a decade.  I was stunned… a functional member of a church who didn’t have to fight to stand out?  In fact, it didn’t seem to occur to her that she wasn’t “typical.”  She was just herself, friendly and smiley and wearing hiking boots to church.  I asked what she did, and she told me she was a professor.  I nearly proposed.

Instead, I blurted out, “I really want to go back to school!  But I have to pick something to study first, and I don’t know how to do that.”  She empathized.  She used to be an engineer, after all, before getting her master’s in Communications.

After church we met the associate pastor, another single woman in her 40’s, who, I later learned, will listen and not judge even if you bitch and moan about her church for an hour.  Jack immediately liked Andrea too, but I was fascinated.  I could not comprehend how these women learned to be so comfortable in their own skin, without measuring themselves against others.

When Jack and I got home that day we talked about how much we liked the church.  The pastor referenced two outside sources in his sermon!  And did you see all the young married couples!  And we already have friends there!  I didn’t say, “I met women I actually admire!”, but I think that was why I went back, and back, and back.  As someone who is swayed by the tide of others’ expectations, I’m startled by women who live without apology.

I’m speaking at my church’s women’s retreat in a couple weeks.  My talk, ironically, is about being comfortable in your own skin and not living in the tide of others’ expectations.  I feel simultaneously very qualified and not at all qualified on this topic.  Let me know if you want to come.  You have to be a woman, but it doesn’t matter if you’re a typical one or not.

Why I haven’t invited you to church yet

One horribly awkward Thursday evening in college, I was heading out of my dorm to Intervarsity Christian Fellowship’s worship service, which we called “Large Group.”  About five of us were walking there together, including one of the Bible study leaders.  Really nice guy.  Biggest heart of almost anyone I’ve met.  This might be the only less-than-stellar memory I have of him.

As we crossed the first street, he said, “Hey, let’s invite everyone we meet on the way to Large Group!”  We all responded with varying levels of fake enthusiasm.  No one would dare admit to not liking evangelism.  Partly because we didn’t know how to express emotions (“I feel embarassed and afraid!”), and partly because we already knew the response:

“you should really pray about that.”

So we headed onto campus and our fearless leader greeted everyone with, “Hey!  Do you want to go to the most awesome worship service on campus?”  After the second response of, “Uh, no thanks,” I think even he wished we could just walk the rest of the way in silence.  But instead we all pretended we were having a great time, we just conveniently forgot to make eye contact with anyone.

We had an unspoken taboo against honesty.  I hope that’s changed.

I genuinely did (and do) like having conversations about God… but inviting people to church has always been about as enjoyable as throwing up.  Mostly because it is very, very hard for me to be honest and authentic.  I start by asking someone if they’d like to come to church with me and suddenly I find myself quoting C.S. Lewis, then I force a laugh for no reason, then I tell them to just let me know if they want to come via email.  Or text message.  Or restraining order, if that’s more convenient.

But this week I had been talking with my sister-in-law about Christmas.  She said that she hoped to teach her little boy that Christmas is about more than Santa and presents… she wanted him to value the sense of community and generosity, the idea of peace and love and helping others.  And I had the strangest realization… she might actually want to come to my church’s Christmas eve service.

Normally I think, “if I invite Carine to church, we’ll probably sing ‘Grace like Rain’ for 17 minutes, then she’ll hate Jesus.”  But this time I thought…what if I invited her and didn’t feel responsible for what happens there?  What if I gave both of us the freedom to enjoy or not enjoy the service, without trying to fix or explain anything?

Joris, my not-quite-two nephew, came too.  I’ve always secretly wanted to bring him to church, because he’s so darn cute and I like bragging that I’m related to him.  He didn’t disappoint.  At the end of every song, he clapped and yelled, “YAAAYYY!”, which often overlapped with the Scripture readings:

[song ends.] “YAAAAYYY!”

“For unto us a child is b–”

“YAAAYYY!”

Halfway through the service he found his blue fishy sunglasses in the diaper bag.  He put them on and head-banged for the rest of the carols with his stuffed tiger, Coco.

The service ended with the song “Silent Night,” and a reading from the book of John:

“In the beginning was the word, and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us.”

What mystery, I thought.

And then.

A young pastor stood up and said, “You may have asked yourself, ‘where is God?’, and that’s a good question.  Well, God has answered that question!”

I glanced over at Jack, who gave me this look:

Oh shit, I thought, the pastor is doing that Christmas-and-Easter thing.  His church is packed and he’s going to try to convert as many people as possible.  My sister-in-law is going to hate me.  She’s going to hate Jesus.  She’s going to think I manipulated her.

It was the ultimate test in emotional boundaries.  Mine are very poor.  I wish I could listen to that sermon and think, “I’m not sure that I like this homily, and it’s okay for me to disagree.”  Instead I thought, “Oh no!  How will I please both my sister and this pastor that I’ve never met?  Have I disappointed her by inviting her here?  Am I failing my church by being angry?  Will I be kicked out for sighing audibly?”

I felt like I was again walking with my Bible study leader from Intervarsity, watching him bravely invite strangers to an awesome worship service.  I didn’t know then how to speak honestly without abandoning him.  And I still don’t know how to sit in church without the fight-or-flight instinct.

Carine, of course, didn’t hate me for the pastor’s sermon.  She’d had a great time singing and was more than willing to wait out the 10 minute homily.  Besides, she was too busy keeping a toddler quiet to really pay attention.  Thank God.

Why I pay $95 a week

All of my counseling sessions start pretty much the same way.  My therapist asks, “So… where to today?”  And I say that I hate that question.  I spend every Thursday morning worrying about how to answer it, and after our hour is done, I worry that I didn’t answer it right.  I tell her that she’s the expert, why can’t she start us out?  She should be telling me what to talk about.

Then she says something like, “it sounds like you want to conform yourself to my agenda.  What if I don’t have an agenda?”

And I say that of course I know there’s no agenda, no right and wrong.  But I don’t know how to operate as the leader, the expert of anything, even my own thoughts and feelings.  The she asks about my history of conforming myself to others, and my stories spill out.  In that office, I have this strange feeling of terror and freedom.  I am who I am, and there are no unspoken expectations.

Then my hour is up, and I leave, thinking, “Did I do that right?”

For the Prospective Mars Hill Graduate School Student

Dear person who browsed here from the MHGS Blog Hub,

Last week we had an assignment that was nicknamed The Tragedy Paper.  We were to write the story of a “defining personal tragedy,” and reflect on how it affected our Faith, our Hope, and our Love.

I have not led a tragic life by most standards.  The story I ended up writing had never been called a “Tragedy” by anyone, including me.  When I first told this story to my Practicum Facilitator in September, I spoke of my adolescent self in third person.  I had very little love for her.  She had embarrassed herself.  Surely she deserved what she got.

My PF looked horrified.  “Do you hear the contempt in your words?” she asked.

I tried telling the story again, through a different lens.  I started to listen to that teenage girl.  She was scared, and trying so hard to do the right thing.  She asked for an advocate, because her world silenced and dismissed her.  I spoke for her, not with contempt, but with compassion.  In defending her, I grew more and more angry.

If all that sounds weird, but also intriguing and maybe a little bit wonderful, consider applying to Mars Hill.

I made the mistake of going to the coffee shop where I used to work to write my paper.  First I typed out the part that I remembered best: the horrible words that were spoken to me, the ones that have echoed in my head for years.  Then I went to the bathroom to weep.

For three hours I sat at Peet’s Coffee, reflecting on my tragedy as well as my Faith, Hope, and Love.  The customers I used to serve came over and asked if I was okay.  And I really didn’t know the answer.  No, I’m not okay, this hurts.  But then again, Yes, I’m wonderful!  Writing this paper feels right and good, and the dead part of me is beginning to stir.  And did I mention that I’m furious?  Yes, I’m very angry, and I think that’s part of the new alive-ness.  Thank you for asking, how are you?

I turned in that paper along with my 90 classmates.  We were exhausted.  All week we had wept, raged, and posted not-so-clever facebook status updates (“Christine is working on her tragedy paper…. FUCK EVERYTHING”).  Some had shared their tragedy papers with new friends.  None of us are the same since handing it in.

In the end, I was proud, so proud, of that paper.  I’ve rarely heard my own voice freed from the demand to please others.  It was unapologetic, furious, explosive.  It blew open a space in my soul for God’s words: I grieved that too.

I like this school.  Maybe you would too.  Drop me a comment or email if you want to talk.

Comparing Notes

Every once in a while my brother Jacob will call me just to say, “Your pizza really smells bad,” and hang up.

Don’t you love inside sibling jokes?  That one refers to my first prank phone call, which Jacob lovingly guided me through when I was 4 and he was 8.  He didn’t do too many things lovingly back then, so that memory is particularly sweet.

I get revenge sometimes by calling him and singing the entire “Inspector Gadget” theme song on his answering machine.

This past week Jacob and I somehow managed to behave like grownups over the phone for five minutes.  I found myself saying, “Jacob, we need to compare notes.”

What I meant was: Jacob, who the hell are we?  There must be some overlap (and also a great divide) in our perceptions of the world.  What did we think was normal as kids?  How did the world surprise us when we left our parents’ home?  What are the aching questions that we live with?

I’m visiting my older sister in January, and I have a similar list of questions for her.  What were you proud of growing up?  When did you feel shame?  What did it mean to be feminine?  When was anger okay, and when was it not?

If there isn’t already a book of questions for brothers and sisters, I might need to publish one.  I would call it:

If Mom could hear this she would shit herself: 50 questions for your siblings.

or

Two-buck Chuck and a shit-load of kleenex: 50 questions for your siblings.

Either way, the word “shit” would definitely be a part of it.  Hi, Mom and Dad!

What questions would you add to my book?

Why I’m having trouble blogging

… it’s because of the therapy.

Therapy is doing what it’s supposed to do… that is, it’s helping me express my feelings with increasingly dramatic adjectives.

Here’s a game:  One column contains words and phrases I used pre-therapy.  The other column has new words that I’m finding more suitable.  See if you can guess which column is pre-therapy and which is post-therapy:

Sad  …………………………………………………………………………………. Heavy with grief

Kinda vulnerable ……………………………………………………………… Completely exposed

A little down …………………………………………………………………….. Burdened

Angry…………………………………………………………………………………. Enraged

Anxious……………………………………………………………………………… Terrified

Fine, thanks, how are you? …………………………………………….. Oh God.  I… I just don’t know.

Why yes, it’s 2:15 ……………………………………………………………. [Breaks down crying]

And as I laugh at my own jokes (someone has to), I’m so aware of hiding behind them, too.  They give a satisfying non-answer to the question, “How’s therapy going?”

I can hear my counselor gently reminding me, “pearls before swine, Christine.”  The Internet is a pig, and my counseling stories are far too precious for its hairy snout.

But in my lighter moments, I’ll make the best counseling jokes I possibly can.

I wish all my assignments were like this one.

I have a short reflection paper due on Monday.  The assignment is to “spend an hour in prayer and in the presence of the Spirit contemplating what is good/beautiful/glorious in your character, and what aspects of your sin/depravity/blindness create the most relational challenge for you.”

If you haven’t ever sat down and asked God, “Please show me what is glorious in my soul,” you’re missing out. I don’t know why that isn’t a commandment in Leviticus.

Here’s my paper:

Last week a friend gave me one of the greatest compliments I could imagine.  She said I was the only person whose bathroom she wouldn’t be embarrassed to stink up.  We both giggled for a while, but I didn’t let on how very touched I was.  I do want to free people from shame and anxiety.  I want to offer such grace that even the biggest social stigmas become trifles.  This desire is one of the most beautiful parts of my character.

But this desire runs so deep because I still carry a fair amount of shame and anxiety myself.  And while one part of me refused that shame and invited my friend to a sense of freedom, I have also dragged others into my own depravity.  One of my very best friends once said that she found me too judgmental about her dating relationship.  She was right, and that judgment came out of my own shame, anxiety, and my flawed sense of right and wrong.

In my contemplative prayer, the idea of judgment came up frequently when I thought about my depravity.  As much as I want to be grace-filled, my heart is convinced it knows the full extent of right and wrong.  I don’t quite know where these ardent rules came from, but I sure have given them a lot of power in my relationships.

It seems clear that my ability to give love and grace to others is limited by how much I allow for myself.  I believe that for my time at Mars Hill, God is calling me to practice my gifts of acceptance, love, and grace on myself more than I have previously allowed.

Therapy

Mars Hill requires their counseling students to receive 40 hours of counseling outside the school with a Licensed Mental Health Therapist.  Licensed Therapists in Seattle charge at least $100 per hour.

$100 X 40 hours = ____

Yup.

Counseling students are going crazy with all this therapy.  We’re surrounded by therapists.  We pay $100 to talk about our parents.  We sit with our Practicum Facilitators (who are also therapists) twice a month and discuss why we were so anxious in Practicum last time, and why we panicked and said that one thing, and why we felt such shame for a whole week after we said it.  And then we talk for an hour about that shame, and our therapists teach us how to listen to it, be curious about it, wonder what other words connect to the word “shame.”  And then we find ourselves telling older stories, stories of really embarrassing times… times when we got it wrong, so wrong, again!  Can’t I do anything right?!?  Didn’t God promise me his Spirit of Love, so I could love others?  Then why do I just hurt people, over and over, why didn’t God change me like he promised?

Then you realize you’re talking about something different… not shame, but disappointment.  Disappointment with God.  How long have you felt that disappointment?  Oh I don’t know, since day 3?  What do you do with that disappointment?  Mostly I just ignore it and worship God with only part of me, a very small part, which really is no worship at all.  Then your therapist recommends that you journal about “What would a faithful God look like?”  And you think, that would be admitting in writing that I don’t think God is faithful.  And she says yes, that’s okay.  He likes that.  He likes to wrestle.  And through her kindness you see just the briefest glimpse of God, a terrifying and beautiful God that wants you to call him unfaithful so the wrestling match can begin.

But your 50 minutes are up!

So you head downstairs, to the student lounge.  Your mind is spinning and you feel that dammit, you’re losing it.  You’re losing that glimpse of God that was in the room during your therapy session.  By the time you hit the first floor you’ve already transitioned back to regular life.  Can I get to Taco del Mar before class? Then someone who knew you were in your 1-on-1 session sees you and asks, “How’d it go?”  And you say:

“Amazing.  We talked about shame.  And shame-cycles, and I realized that I just need to SIT in my shame, you know?  Just SIT in it!  And befriend it!  And love myself!  And we talked about how I hate God and need to wrestle.”

Which of course makes no sense.

Here’s what I’ve decided: describing therapy sessions is like describing dreams.  You just won’t be able to do it justice, ever. You can talk about the man who, in your dream, was your husband…but he wasn’t your real-life husband, and he made you go back to work at the coffee shop because he was mean and didn’t like how powerful you would become in graduate school, so you went back to the coffee shop and everyone made fun of you.  You can tell all that to your groggy husband when he wakes up but it won’t convey the horror and shame, the fury and dread that still linger even after the alarm went off.

Because only half of therapy is what you talk about in the session, the “aha!” and “oh, shit” moments of realization.  The other half is, as Buber would say, the I-Thou connection, the in-between, and the glimpses of the Eternal Thou.  Which Buber can describe only because he’s a late-romantic German philosopher, and most thankfully you are not.

So, many apologies to anyone who, in the next three years, will have to hear me describe my therapy (maybe even regularly).  I know how much it sucks.  And thank you.

Maybe this will convince Jack to let me get a kitty.

One of my MHGS cohorts is putting her dog down this weekend.  I’ve been thinking about her, wondering how their last remaining hours together feel.  The last days I had with Nosey were heavy and sad.  After we found out she was dying, death colored everything.

My Dad had the sad job of taking Nosey in for her euthanization eight years ago.  We assumed he was the only one who could “handle it.”  I will probably never ask him what that lonely morning was like, because even nearly a decade later I don’t think I could handle it.  I imagine he drove home from the airport after dropping Mom and me off, made some coffee, and did the crossword puzzle.  After the sun came up he would have had to coax Nosey out from under the bed, wrestle her into her carrier, listen to her last sad little yowls in the car, and finally, hold her still under the needle until she went limp.  I hope she somehow felt the years of our family’s gratitude in his touch.

Mom and I left for a trip early that day.  My last memory is of Nosey chasing down a moth.  I wondered if she knew she was sick.  If, given a few more weeks, she would have meowed to be let out, and gone away to die, thinking to spare us the grief.

One time, after Jacob and I ignored her pleas to go outside for an hour because we were too busy playing Mario Brothers, she peed all over our jackets.  It was the first and last time I’d ever heard of a female cat spraying.

Another time, after Jacob had moved away to college and I was the only kid left at home, she fell asleep in the crook of my arm, with her head resting on my palm.

On the fourth of July she hid in the basement during the fireworks, and when I came looking for her she trotted right past me up the stairs, as if saying, I wasn’t scared, I was just resting.

She often sat on my lap while I cried.  She would bounce up and down with my sobs, clinging to me with claws she didn’t have, and purr.  Not having any dates broke my fragile adolescent heart.  On the rare times I stopped pretending otherwise, Nosey was there.

Today I cried over my lunch.  I felt like my kitty had died yesterday and not eight years ago.  If only I could have one more day with her.  I would open a hundred cans of tuna, then put on a movie for us.  She was so good to me, and I didn’t thank her nearly enough.

Something my Grandma said…

in response to my last post…  Well, okay, not in response to the post.  I’m pretty sure my grandma will finish her life on this earth without reading a single word on the Internet.  But we were having the telephone- conversation version of my last post about my nephew, whom she will see next week.

“Christine, I tell you… the older you get, the more you long to see the world through just one more pair of young eyes.”