Clawing out of the hole...

Has anyone else ever written a really great post and then navigated away from the page before saving it?  Ok, let's try not to do that again.

I suppose that it's just as well, I was probably a little too raw, maybe a little too honest in what I wrote last night.  The point was two-fold: first to explain a little more what's going on with me, second to thank the people who have written comments of support.  I posted my thanks last night and I echo them again now.  It really touches me that so many people understand the experience of loss after loss.

But here's the explanation, at least a partial one.  I find myself in the process of rebuilding my life after leaving a job at a large evangelical church.  That job was a dream for me, an opportunity to support people doing great work to expand the kingdom.  But that dream turned out to be more of a hallucination.  It turns out that the church was dedicated to growth, more people in the cause, more buildings in which to meet, more money to make it all work.  In my mind that's not necessarily the kingdom that Jesus preached about.

I have no doubt that the leaders of that church sincerely believe that they are doing God's work and, to a very great extent, they are accomplishing wonderful things.  But they are also leaving a lot of bloody and broken bodies in their wake.  I'm one of those bodies.

What really hurts me is that I've made this mistake before.  This isn't the first dynamic, growing church that I've committed to only to find that I really didn't fit the mold.  It's one thing to make a mistake about which leaders to follow and which movement to join.  It's another thing to make the same mistake twice.  It tends to make one doubt one's judgment.  It comes at a time when other losses in my world have taken their toll and left me weary beyond description.

I've started a new job that will engage my mind but will not break my heart.  I'm leaving a beautiful home where I planted trees in hopes of a few summers in their shade.  I'm leaving behind a ministry that I'd hoped would have been better prepared for my departure.  All losses.  Not nearly the whole list.

This afternoon I told a dear friend that I feel as if I've clawed my way out of a dark pit and I need to take whatever steps I can to keep from falling back into it.  For now I think that means exploring what it life as a disciple of Jesus without being a Christian in the contemporary, western sense of the word.  It means that I intend to be a monk in a hermitage, not in a desert, but in one of the largest cities on the continent.  It means that I need to learn a new language for my faith.

I can see a little daylight now.

Comments

[Kimberly]

Dear Ron,
I do not know you and yet your life experience echoes my own. I do not have any answers, I have realized I just have to keep following God's leading wherever that may go even if that leads me on the same path where I yet again have to learn the same harsh lessons again. Institutions, including churches and schools, are created for a purpose and their business is to keep themselves in business. People are sinful, falible, easily swayed to follow leadership that truly believes it is doing the best to serve the Kingdom. Above all is God, who I used to believe was supposed to keep me safe, protected, comfortable, that if He really loved me and I was serving Him faithfully that He should agree with my plans or at the very least reveal His plans for me. I spent a year and a half after a school shooting, wishing my student had just killed me. I walked out of the building with my life, all else was destroyed. Three years after the shooting, my church who could not accept who I was after the shooting, that I could not just serve the way I was being asked to, just be part of the team, not ask questions kicked me to the curb 11 days after an abdominal surgery. I could not heal and be who they expected me to be so I was told to shut my mouth and be exactly who they wanted me to be or leave. I left. I have been silent for 5 years, I gave up fighting, gave up talking, kept a gag order for a school district that does not care how I am and kept forgiving my student sometimes with each breathe I took as I fell into the pit. I have finally truly forgiven him, I finally understand what grace really is. I finally feel strong enough to talk and face criticism, I need to teach people how to forgive and that my student had value, worth and deserved to be grieved and loved. Is this what I want my life to look like, focusing on a cause people do not want to hear - no. But it is where God has led me and I need to keep trusting and following Him and have my needs met by Him even when it does not make sense. I have no idea why I just told you all this, but I am going to trust God knows. Please go to my blog and read the Franciscan benediction I posted last week under "Challenged to Shine." May He bring you many fellow travellers on your journey to support you. Kimberly

[wilsonian]

Stopped in to stand with you for a while.
Keep clawing.

Peace...