Musings of a Progressive-Christian-Feminist

These are musings, I do not have it all figured out. I will not bring every entry to a nice conclusion. I will be real and I am open to have a conversation.

[progressivechristianfeminist]

How is it with your soul?

As I said in my last post I have been wrestling with some pretty heavy stuff. Not only wrestling but also feeling very abandoned and alone in my struggle.

In Wesleyan small group gatherings it is traditional to ask one another, “How is it with your soul?” It is a way to check in with one another in a deeper way than simply asking, “How’s it going?” or, “What’s up?” When we ask each other how it is with our souls we want to know what is going on deeper than just your day-to-day life. When I ask this question I want to know what your soul is rejoicing with, or what you feel burdened with, or how your soul is connecting to God.

Too often I feel that as Christians we ask, “How are you?” and we listen for about 2 seconds because we are so ready to hear, “Good, you?” But how do we start to answer honestly how it is with our souls? How do we get real? How do we listen when someone is willing to answer honestly?

Last Thursday a small group of young adults met at a local bar for Pub Theology, something that we have done every Thursday for about a year now. This last week was a smaller group of seven, and it was the perfect size for me to pose the question, “How is it with your soul?” It may have been a bit unfair, but I was asking it as a loaded question, because I was fully prepared to hear what responses came next. As we went around the table I heard five people say, “I’m good,” and then go on to explain why they were good. The sixth person finally broke the trend. She was brutally honest about how it was with her soul, and it wasn’t good. I wanted that honesty! Finally someone answered with how they were really feeling. I went last, because I wasn’t quite prepared for anyone to be honest, but I continued the honesty. I explained my struggles; I opened up about my prayer life not being great, about my soul being burdened, and about my feelings of abandonment.

Then I posed the question, “Why don’t we get real with each other?” The answers that followed were painful to listen to. Someone stated that perhaps our hesitancy to be honest is a fear that we are being annoying, or we are complaining. Since when did sharing your burdens with your fellow Christians become complaining?

Jesus in Matthew 11:28-29 (NIV) said, “Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest… for I am gentle and humble in heart.”  I want to share your delights AND your sufferings! As your sister I care about you deeply and I do not want you to be weary and burdened, I want to give you rest.

I am sure at some point or another whether you are a Christian or not someone has offered to pray for you. This offer can sometimes seem patronizing or forced. I thought it was always the fake Christian way of saying, “Well I don’t really know what to do so, ‘I’ll pray for you.’” Yes, I as a Christian hated when people would offer to pray for me. Until one time someone offered to pray for me and I called her out on it and she explained what they meant by “pray for you.”

She explained it this way: If you are overwhelmed, hurting, or weak in your life I will pray in your place. My prayers will be offered up with you in mind. I will be your advocate and I will pray for you.

I wonder what it would look like if when we ask to bare someone’s burdens we offered to carry them like that. You are depressed? Then let me be joyful for you. You are exhausted? Let me give you rest. You are fighting? Here let me get in your corner and fight for you. Isn’t that what Christ offers when he says, “Come to me and I will give you rest.”

My soul has been heavy, tired, sad, and overwhelmed with guilt the past month or so. Let me explain why.

When I was 19 I found out that I was pregnant and I was not ready to be a mother. My little brother had died only a week before I found out I was pregnant and I was not ready to deal with all of the emotions I had. I needed to focus on getting through my first year of college; I did not have time, the resources or the situation to be a mother. I made the decision that I felt was best at the time, and I decided to get an abortion. After I went through with terminating my pregnancy I completely blocked it out of my mind. The few people who knew I was pregnant I lied to and said I had a miscarriage.

Now four years later out of the blue the fact that I had an abortion crept into my mind. At first it was a simple fact: I had an abortion. Then as I became more open with friends about this seemingly simple fact I started to realize that I had never dealt with my emotions surrounding this life changing decision.  The floodgates decided to bust open at 2:40 am one morning. I had a chilling nightmare about when I got the abortion and I woke up weeping.

Over the past couple of weeks I have struggled with myriad emotions that I have kept buried for four years; all of this was on top of a prayer life that was struggling. When asked, “How is it with your soul?” I want to cry; my soul is sad, tired, and alone. Honestly I have felt a million miles away from God, and I have felt alone. I felt this way until I was able to confide in my loving sisters and brother in Christ at a bar last Thursday.

One of my favorite books is J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, which inspired a trilogy of movies about ten years ago. In the final movie Return of the King the hero Frodo has to carry his burden up the side of a mountain and his companion, Sam, offers to help carry the load. Frodo turns Sam down. Then Sam says, “Well Mr. Frodo, if I can’t carry the ring (his burden) then I will carry you.” And he picks up his weary friend and carries him up the mountain!

We could all take a lesson from Sam and learn to carry our brothers and sisters when they can’t carry themselves. 

So it was at that bar last Thursday - we all shared burdens, some of us shared baggage that we have carried for years; some had yokes they have carried for a few months. As loving sisters and brothers in Christ we shared our hearts and we were there to support each other.  At the end of our sharing I told the group grieving is a process that takes years. Burdens don’t just disappear because you have talked about them. It is okay to share a burden that you have carried for four years, for ten years, or for your whole life. It is okay to not be over something; we all have problems that weigh us down for a while.

I want to share the load; I want to carry your burden. I want you to tell me how your soul is.

[progressivechristianfeminist]

Fill Me

“We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.”

― Ray Bradbury

The past few weeks of my life have felt extremely heavy. I have felt guilt for decisions I made four years ago, and I have felt far apart from God. 

  My favorite way to nurture my relationship with my Creator is to pray. I am not saying I sit in my room kneeling at my bed eyes closed, praying, shaking, and weeping like you see in the movies. Prayer for me is constant. I will whisper prayers to God while walking to class, driving to get groceries, or while I am watching TV. I connect with God the best in conversation.

  My prayers are not one sided, when I pray I also listen, I open myself up to be filled. I take in all of my experiences, my readings, and my own feelings as God talking back to me. There is a feeling of connection, of our relationship growing and transforming. 

  I first started to love praying when I was in Middle School. We were reading Matthew 27:51,

  "At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split" (NIV). 

  My youth pastor explained to us that in the temple there was a curtain, and not just a thin little thing, these curtains were heavy and huge! This curtain would separate the people from "the Holy of Holy" place where only the clean priests and rabbis were allowed to enter. They would go there and offer up your prayers and confessions to God. Before Jesus we were separated from God by a thick curtain, both literally and physically. My youth pastor went on to explain the beauty of our relationship with God after Christ, now we have a direct line to our Creator! 

My view of communication with God was transformed. I felt amazingly blessed that I could talk to God, and not only that but that God would want to hear from me! God sent his only child to rip down the viel that separates the Creator from his creation. 

  Fast forward six years or so to me sitting on top of my Ford Taurus on top of Casper Mountain outside of Casper Wyoming. I am staring at the stars on a brisk February night. The wind is blowing so strong that when I speak the words are barely audible. I cry out to the God that for nineteen years I have loved with my whole heart, and trusted in through many trials. I scream to be heard over the great Wyoming wind,

  "God! This is bullshit! I have done nothing but love you! I have done nothing but be a good person, I have done EVERYTHING right! Why, why would you let my little brother die? If you can keep billions of stars in the sky, if you can keep the planets exactly where they need to be so we don't all die, why couldn't you have kept my brother alive? You know God, I am calling bullshit on you. I don't think you love me. I don't think you exist. I am over you, we are done."

  Yes, I "broke up with" God! I was hurt, I felt empty and alone. My little brother had passed away a few weeks before and I felt abandoned. For the first time in my life I believed that God wasn't real, and that everything I had dedicated my life to for all my life was fake. I was heart-broken and so I told the God that I had loved for so long that we were done.

  Fast forward two years. I am sitting on top of my Jeep Grand Cherokee in the Yakima Canyon outside of Ellensburg Washington. I look up at the billions of stars, and while listening to the calming waters of the Yakima river flow past me I whisper,

  "God? I am sorry. Are we cool?" 

  (I will talk more about my journey back to God in other writings.)

  This simple prayer got me back into the best relationship I've ever been in. I could once again converse with the my loving and gracious Creator. 

  The Jeep prayer was about two years ago now, and I am stilly crazy in love with God. We talk every day, and we are growing one of the best relationships I will ever be in. 

  But this month I have felt distant. I have been struggling through doubt, guilt, and re-opened wounds. I feel like the author of Psalm 13,

  How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?     How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts     and day after day have sorrow in my heart?     How long will my enemy triumph over me? (NIV)

  I feel like a needy girlfriend to God, and it has made me unsure. I feel shaken and I feel very alone. 

  The Ray Bradbury quote I shared at the beginning talks about us being cups. I love the cup analogy, which is:

  Everyone is a cup and you are filled by different things. For me connection and communication fill my cup. When you have a full cup you can then "tip over and let the beautiful stuff out." You can fill the cups of those around you, but only if you have been filled. I feel like an empty cup this month, and it is a struggle to tip myself over when I feel like I need to soak up what little I do have in my cup. 

  The end of Psalm 13 reads,

  But I trust in your unfailing love;     my heart rejoices in your salvation. 6 I will sing the Lord’s praise,     for he has been good to me. (NIV)

  "The Lord has been good to me." has been the words of comfort for me in the past few days. Like any relationship, the one between God and I will have ups and downs, there will be the great times of overwhelming love and the periods of emptiness. I have found it very important to find moments of respite, and I have found my cup being filled by my friends, by long hikes in the spring weather, and by late night conversations. My heart needs rest, just like my body does and it is in these moments of respite I have found my cup being filled in new ways. 

  My writings on this page will not always end tied up nice with a bow. I can't resolve everything because I'm still learning and growing. This is where i am now, and that is what future musings will look like. I don't have it all figured out. I am not a theologian, I am just a person who has a childlike love of God. Please feel free to submit comments, or ask questions. I love a good discussion!