In Debt to Doubt

Today's post is the last in a series of stories and reflections from my time spent studying abroad in Central America. These are excerpts from my memoir in progress; stories that have shaped me, shattered my pretenses and preset beliefs, and sculpted the way I live and love and encounter God today. I hope in some small way, you can relate and be challenged to reflect more deeply on the experiences that have influenced you and your faith.

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In Debt to Doubt

“Most early ‘God talk’—without self-knowledge and inner journey—is largely a sincere pretense, even to the person who consciously believes the language. The miracle of grace and true prayer is that they invade the unconscious heart and mind (where our real truth lies)—and thus really change us!” ~Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality

When I came back from study abroad, I didn’t know how to be me anymore. I didn’t know how to be anything real, except real angry.

At first I told everyone I knew about the things I had learned: the poverty and desperation, the culpability of the United States and the ambivalence of the church, the overwhelming consumerist culture and apathy of Americans. Since I hadn’t been eased into these new ideas in my study abroad program, I didn’t know how to lace my discoveries with grace. The time I used to spend confessing and listening to others, turned into a time of full-fledged assaults on anyone who would listen. I discovered that no one wanted to hear about garbage dumps and international trade agreements. They wanted to hear that I had learned a lot Spanish, visited a lot of places, and, most importantly, had a lot of fun. At first I was angry that no one cared. Small talk conversations with people from church and school left my cheeks flushed and burning, and my heart empty.

I eventually stopped talking. Stopped sharing. Stopped trying.

I meticulously planned my insurrection. I would go to chapel and Bible study, so no one would catch on that I didn’t give a shit. I would share just enough to allow my friends to believe that they were getting the whole story. I lied. I lived selfishly. I imploded.

I used to view this time as a rebellion. As a conscious choice to screw the world and do whatever the hell I wanted. Since then, I’ve been heartbroken for the pain I caused and relationships I fractured with my biting words and calculated lies.

But despite the heartache, I still find myself grateful for this time. Recently a friend called my reaction to my study abroad program as not so much a rebellion, but a rational rejection of two faulty ideologies: that either God only cares about me living up to a certain set of rules so that he can bless me or God only cares about the poor and hates me if I don’t sell everything I have and live in poverty, too. Ideologically, I’ve found a middle ground, which has allowed me to keep more friends and lose less sleep. But the real value of my “rebellion,” of this rejection of all I had known and known myself to be, was that in this darkness, in this absence of pretense and preset rules, I experienced God.

The Living, All-Powerful God.

My semester abroad abolished all pretenses for me in relationship with God, in my faith, in my identity and my role in the world. My rejection of the known started me on a journey of self-knowledge and brought me to grace and true prayer. I am grateful for the questions I was encouraged to ask. For the anger that sparked honesty. For the breakdown that allowed Love to build me back up.

I’m still shaky on my exact theology and Bible interpretations. But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Love is something I’ve experienced. I have a hard time celebrating Jesus’ work on the cross. I don’t really get why we glorify something so gruesome, so awful. I don’t really understand the atonement or who’s supposed to be going to heaven or hell.

But I can celebrate Jesus’ work in my own life. I can celebrate the grace I’ve been given. The freedom I’ve found.

And for this experience of Love, I owe a debt to doubt and to the One who taught me He can more than handle my questions. 

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Have you ever gone through a period of extreme doubt or rebellion in your life? How did you handle it? What did you learn from it? Do you feel comfortable with your doubts now?

I am with you

I am with you.

You don’t have to jump through hoops or mine your deepest thoughts.

I am with you.

You don’t have to journal or write or set aside time for me.

I am with you.

You don’t have to pray or talk to me.

I am with you.

You don’t have to serve me.

I am with you.

You don't have to figure it all out.

I am with you.

You don't have to wait till my voice rings loud and true. 

I am with you in the silence.

I am with you in the secret.

I am with you in the stillness. 

I am with you always. I love you endlessly.

Sometimes I forget that God is with me even when I don’t do all my daily rituals that make me feel closer to Him. The reading and writing and examining and praying are part of the relationship, for sure, but He’s with me even when I don’t hold up my end of the bargain. He’s with me no matter what. And that’s pretty cool. 

For the Love of Mom

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there!

My beautiful mother. 

In honor of my own sweet, empathetic, creative, intelligent, inquisitive, and grace-filled mother, Susan Lewis, I'm reposting a piece about the power of my mother's words and love to transcend depression and bring life to the full.

Thank you, mom, for believing in me. Thank you for living out your beliefs in such real and tangible ways. Thank you for not giving up on me. Thank you for teaching me to ask the question, What if I am worth loving?

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I circled the small space in my on-campus apartment bedroom, talking to my mom on the phone. Again my mom was asking if I had gone to church. Again the answer was no.

It was a conversation like hundreds of others we had entertained that year when I spiraled in post-study-abroad-the-world-is-an-unjust-and-awful-place-depression. The conversation consisted of mostly silence, deep breaths, and occasional grunts on my part.

I thought my mom would launch into another tirade about going to church, seeking help, doing anything to get out of the pit I was in.

Instead she told me something that I've never forgotten.

She said, “I want you to feel better about yourself, not just because you should, but because it’s a reality.”

For the first time in probably my whole life, I entertained that thought for real, like really for real. What if I really am lovable? What if that is the reality? What if the guilt and shame and anger I'd placed on myself for not measuring up to whatever impossible standards I'd created was just that, something I myself had created and entrapped myself in?

What if love was the reality?

Within the next few months my depression and self-hatred hit an all-time high and I hit an all-time low, and I realized that I either needed to live like I mattered and life mattered or life would be unbearable. And my mom’s words echoed in my mind.

"You are worth loving."

With the idea that love and acceptance could maybe come from something bigger than and outside of myself, I decided to live what my mom had believed about me all along. Suspending my doubts, I launched my own Love Aly campaign in which I radically rejected any thoughts of self-hatred and did my best to "fake it till you make it," choosing to live like I loved myself even if I didn't feel it.

And it was this experience of unconditional love for myself that brought me back to church, to faith in God, to life.

Thank you seems like the understatement of a lifetime, but I'll say it anyway. Thank you, mom. I love you.

Happy Mother's Day!

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Readers, I'd love to hear about your mom--What have your learned from your mom? What qualities do you most admire in her? How are celebrating Mother's Day?

T.S. Tuesday: On Wanting Things

“Sometimes things become possible if we want them bad enough.” 

― T.S. Eliot

I'm reminded of a story, a parable of a persistent friend who does not give up on what he wants. 

"Jesus said to them, 'Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

   

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened." Luke 11:5-10

Wait a minute? Ask anything? Want anything? Even if it's my fault I'm ill-prepared to take in a friend at midnight, I can still ask for bread repeatedly, obnoxiously? And Jesus goes so far as to make this the example for prayer. 

I have a problem with wanting things. Well, not a problem with wanting things, but a problem with feeling guilty for wanting things. I don't believe I'm allowed to want something unless it's world peace or the end of poverty or the well being of someone else. I'm not allowed to want something just for me.

I also get wrapped up in thinking that it's somehow my fault that I don't have it in the first place--like the man who wasn't ready to care for his traveling friend without a neighbor's assistance. I can't ask for it because I should have handled it on my own. I believe I'm left to handle it on my own. 

And when good things happen--things I wanted--I question how much was God and how much was my "bad enough?"

The fulfillment of a selfish desire. I still feel guilty.

How is that freedom? How is that basking? Wasn't it God who made my heart and its desires? Isn't it God who wants to see me thriving and fulfilled? Who wants to give me joy? 

Why do I have such a hard time believing He wants good things for me? Why do I have such a hard time accepting the good things? Or an even worse time asking for good things?

God, I know you know the desires of my heart. You placed them there. You knit them into the fabric of my being. I ask for wisdom in distinguishing your prompting from my selfishness. And I ask for grace when I confuse them. 

I ask for humility to use the gifts you've given--the things I've wanted--to serve and bless others, to bring your Kingdom.  

I ask for the courage to want something bad enough that it just might become possible. And I ask for the humility to give thanks both for the desiring and the fulfilling. 

Amen. 

The Eye of the Storm

I've been talking about hurricanes a lot.

Describing God's faithfulness in the eye of the storm. Telling harrowing tales of floods and evacuations.

Today God had something to tell me about hurricanes.

At the end of the service at my church, there's always the invitation to come up and receive prayer. You can receive prayer specifically pertaining to the message--today it was about knowing and experiencing God—and you can receive prayer on absolutely anything that needs prayer in your life. That's one of the (many, many) things I love about my church.

Today I went up for prayer.

I asked the woman who prayed for me to pray for vision regarding a decision I've been wrestling with for the past several months. I was asking for vision, but I was wanting answers, wanting God-given permission to do what I already know I want to do.

The woman had a vision for me:

"I'm getting a picture of a tornado or some kind of storm or cyclone. I don't know why but I feel like God is saying that he is with you in the eye of the storm."

Sheesh. Talk about apropos.*

I don't think any metaphor could have spoken more strongly to me today.

This woman knows me, prays for me every day and I serve with her at church. But she didn't know I had just gone to North Carolina. She didn't know I was just in a hurricane. She didn't know I had just experienced God's loving presence in the eye of the storm.

That was the glory and the voice of God. Reminding me that he's here. In the midst of the storms and the decisions.

I must admit my gut reaction is to yell, "Then get me out of the freakin hurricane!"

But his answer is different, although not something that I don't know. In fact, I've been writing about and thinking about and working this metaphor out in my mind with great fervor this past week. My last blog post talked specifically about God's grace in the storm. I said, "in the eye of the hurricane, I experienced peace, rest, and the richness of time spent with family."

What I'd like to add now is....and God. I experienced God in the eye of the storm. Literally this last week, and he wants me to experience him now. Before the storm has passed, before the decisions are made, before all my duckies are in a row.

As I seek answers, he seeks relationship.

I think that about sums it up. This is a lesson I'm going to have to learn and relearn and learn again. And, hey, I think it's pretty incredible that God's using his church body to speak into my life. To remind me that he's here with me in the eye of the storm.

And all I can say is thank you.

*Cameron, apropos means this was a very timely and opportune response. I will be initiating Big Word Wednesday this week, too.

I am my own worst legalist

I am my own worst legalist.

The other day my pastor at Coast Vineyard described legalists as "anyone who will steal grace from you."

I've always thought of legalists as people who impose rules and regulations, add stress and judgment to your life. I never thought of what they take away: grace.

A couple months ago a friend of mine attended an event in North Carolina called the Wild Goose Festival. The Wild Goose is a celtic metaphor for the the Holy Spirit. The organizers of the festival described themselves as "followers of Jesus creating a festival of justice, spirituality, music and the arts. The festival is rooted in the Christian tradition and therefore open to all regardless of belief, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, denomination or religious affiliation."

That all sounded good to me. My own life has been transformed by the creative and re-creative power of the Holy Spirit, so the whole premise resonated with me. In reading about the festival I was especially moved by their acknowledgment that "the creative and open nature of our faith is perhaps our greatest asset for re-building and strengthening our relationships with each other, with our enemies, with our stories, our texts, and the earth."

Still sounded good to me.

My friend, Colin, who attended the festival, agreed that "the vibe of many people enjoying simply being with each other and sharing their joys, sorrows, and struggles was undeniable." (Check out more of his thoughts here)

To me, that sounds a lot like grace.

Which is why I was appalled a few weeks later when I Googled the festival and the top hits came back as articles denouncing this gathering of "neo-Gnostic fools who've unbuckled themselves from the Word of God and have embarked upon their Wild Goose Chase of subjective experience." (Southern Baptist blogger Ken Silva of Apprising Ministries quoted in an article in The Christian Century).

Now, I'm no expert on theology and I shy away at political debates, and I definitely don't want to get into a discussion about the Emergent church or anything like that, but the outcry of negativity sounded like legalism to me. A grace heist.

As my blood boiled, I was reminded of what my pastor said about legalists, "Expect opposition." That was just the fuel I needed to villanize those awful, closed-minded Christians.

And just as I was about to condemn these condemners under the rouse of tolerance and acceptance and standing up for my creative, grace-seeking brothers and sisters, it dawned on me that I had become my own worst grace-stealing legalist.

The Bible calls us not to division but to unity. My home group Bible study just finished going through the book of Ephesians and the theme of unity came up so many times that by the end we were parroting "unity" as the catchall answer like young VBSers shouting out "Jesus!" in response to any question.

Paul's exhortation to "live a life worthy of the calling you have received," applies just as much to me as the Wild Goose critics. I, too, am called to "Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." (Ephesians 4:1-6)

It seems we all need a good dose of the Wild Goose.