My husband and I relate to everything you have said here. Thank you for showing us there are other people honoring their visceral boundaries, grieving, and making peace with hope married to doubt.
I am deeply, deeply grateful for your words here, Ryan. They helped me name a spiritual tension I’ve been carrying for a long time — impacting me personally and professionally and how I share my creative work with the world. I’ve become vague and generally unhelpful when it comes to communicating the spiritual side of my creative work because the language around it… The old words, phrases, cliches attached to a faith that no longer fit… I’m not even sure these words of mine trying to explain it make much sense. All I know is that you’re helping me name a thing, and I am very grateful for that.
Thanks Ryan! Great way to articulate what so many of us have experienced. It has been a wild ride since my own experience with church abuse. It has deeply impacted my life forever, my wife, and now my kids lives. What you are writing about has generational and wide ranging impacts. I am still not sure how my family will engage the church as my kids grow up. We are looking for quiet, humble, simple, churches and there seems to be very very few. I wish we didn't need the church but with a family we desire to raise our kids in a faith community. It is an odd place to be in life.
Your written words help bring hope in the midst of loss/lament.
I remember---not long after our experience of church loss---attending an outside summertime local community concert. An armed forces band was playing. One of the band members did a trumpet solo that was absolutely incredible. The band played more music and then the same band member stepped forward to do another special. I figured it would be another trumpet piece. But no, the band started playing a Louis Armstrong piece and the band member began singing the words of " What a Wonderful World" in the same gravelly and powerful voice as the song's composer. It was a sacred, hopeful, holy couple of minutes of living in the ordinary and in the brokenness.
I can identify with a lot of what said. I would miss the group worship (mostly the singing) but not the peer pressure and the hypocrisy of false facades.
You have again put words to my feelings. My dad was an abusive Baptist pastor, my mother (still living) thinks church attendance equals Godliness. I have guilt because I can't tolerate any church, though I feel I "should go." I love God more now than I ever have. I've visited a few churches since moving here nearly 3 years ago. There must be some deficit within me, something unholy, because it feels gross. Once I left in the middle of a service. Through the years, particularly after my divorce, I was a church hopper. If I missed a service, I was judged harshly and looked down on. I just can't pretend anymore and won't. I just wonder how much of myself I sacrificed on the altar of religion. I think probably way too much.
This is beautiful. I feel so much of it. Yes especially to finding authentic embodied life and spirituality whatever that looks like. Thank you for sharing your journey.
Thanks for a really interesting post. I was with you almost to the end, until you quoted the “Mystery of Faith”, where I experienced the kind of somatic shiver you described. For me, unless you are talking about something like Richard Rohr’s concept of the Universal Christ, these words can be very dangerous, and even then I’m not sure.
In “Life After Doom”, Brian McLaren points out the twin dangers of unreasoned hope and despair, that both lead to complacency. For me, the “Mystery of Faith”, especially the expectation of Jesus’ return, is exactly that dangerous unreasoned hope.
People need hope to avoid the complacency of despair, but a hope in participation in present transformation, not in a mythical future rescue. This idea of rescue comes, it seems, from the New Testament writings that suggest both Peter and Paul were expecting Jesus’ imminent return during their lifetimes, but history shows they had misunderstood Jesus in this at least, perhaps projecting their own hopes and desires onto his words.
Thanks for these thoughts Clint! I love the work of both Rohr & McLaren, & they definitely inform my own theological reflection. I certainly wouldn’t assume the ‘mystery of faith’ summary would land or resonate at all with many folks. As I mentioned, depending on the day it doesn’t land well with me either. :) But in the context of an episcopal liturgy those are words I can still receive sometimes. Something about the repetition & rote-ness of a liturgy I find disarming sometimes (I used to call it ‘dead’).
My husband and I relate to everything you have said here. Thank you for showing us there are other people honoring their visceral boundaries, grieving, and making peace with hope married to doubt.
I am deeply, deeply grateful for your words here, Ryan. They helped me name a spiritual tension I’ve been carrying for a long time — impacting me personally and professionally and how I share my creative work with the world. I’ve become vague and generally unhelpful when it comes to communicating the spiritual side of my creative work because the language around it… The old words, phrases, cliches attached to a faith that no longer fit… I’m not even sure these words of mine trying to explain it make much sense. All I know is that you’re helping me name a thing, and I am very grateful for that.
Thanks so much Kristin. You absolutely make sense & I am grateful this resonated.
Thanks Ryan! Great way to articulate what so many of us have experienced. It has been a wild ride since my own experience with church abuse. It has deeply impacted my life forever, my wife, and now my kids lives. What you are writing about has generational and wide ranging impacts. I am still not sure how my family will engage the church as my kids grow up. We are looking for quiet, humble, simple, churches and there seems to be very very few. I wish we didn't need the church but with a family we desire to raise our kids in a faith community. It is an odd place to be in life.
With you, Ryan.
I wish (my) Ryan and I could share a physical table with you and KJ. Someday.
We would so love that.
Your written words help bring hope in the midst of loss/lament.
I remember---not long after our experience of church loss---attending an outside summertime local community concert. An armed forces band was playing. One of the band members did a trumpet solo that was absolutely incredible. The band played more music and then the same band member stepped forward to do another special. I figured it would be another trumpet piece. But no, the band started playing a Louis Armstrong piece and the band member began singing the words of " What a Wonderful World" in the same gravelly and powerful voice as the song's composer. It was a sacred, hopeful, holy couple of minutes of living in the ordinary and in the brokenness.
Thank you for today's post.
What a beautiful moment Helen. Thank you for sharing about it (& reading this post)!
I can identify with a lot of what said. I would miss the group worship (mostly the singing) but not the peer pressure and the hypocrisy of false facades.
You have again put words to my feelings. My dad was an abusive Baptist pastor, my mother (still living) thinks church attendance equals Godliness. I have guilt because I can't tolerate any church, though I feel I "should go." I love God more now than I ever have. I've visited a few churches since moving here nearly 3 years ago. There must be some deficit within me, something unholy, because it feels gross. Once I left in the middle of a service. Through the years, particularly after my divorce, I was a church hopper. If I missed a service, I was judged harshly and looked down on. I just can't pretend anymore and won't. I just wonder how much of myself I sacrificed on the altar of religion. I think probably way too much.
Ryan, this is so good. Right there with you.
This is beautiful. I feel so much of it. Yes especially to finding authentic embodied life and spirituality whatever that looks like. Thank you for sharing your journey.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Ryan. You have named my discomfort and expressed it beautifully. It makes me feel less alone.
Shaken faith.
Thanks for a really interesting post. I was with you almost to the end, until you quoted the “Mystery of Faith”, where I experienced the kind of somatic shiver you described. For me, unless you are talking about something like Richard Rohr’s concept of the Universal Christ, these words can be very dangerous, and even then I’m not sure.
In “Life After Doom”, Brian McLaren points out the twin dangers of unreasoned hope and despair, that both lead to complacency. For me, the “Mystery of Faith”, especially the expectation of Jesus’ return, is exactly that dangerous unreasoned hope.
People need hope to avoid the complacency of despair, but a hope in participation in present transformation, not in a mythical future rescue. This idea of rescue comes, it seems, from the New Testament writings that suggest both Peter and Paul were expecting Jesus’ imminent return during their lifetimes, but history shows they had misunderstood Jesus in this at least, perhaps projecting their own hopes and desires onto his words.
As Tom Wright writes, eschatology matters.
Thanks for these thoughts Clint! I love the work of both Rohr & McLaren, & they definitely inform my own theological reflection. I certainly wouldn’t assume the ‘mystery of faith’ summary would land or resonate at all with many folks. As I mentioned, depending on the day it doesn’t land well with me either. :) But in the context of an episcopal liturgy those are words I can still receive sometimes. Something about the repetition & rote-ness of a liturgy I find disarming sometimes (I used to call it ‘dead’).