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Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the person in charge of the banquet.” So they took it. When the person in charge tasted the water that had become wine and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), that person called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.”
John 2:7-11 NRSVUE It was a great wedding in the city of Cana, and everyone who was anyone was there. Jesus, the disciples, Jesus’ mom. And whether by poor planning or because everyone was having a little too much fun (if there is such a thing), the wine runs out right in the middle of the festivities. This is a catastrophe at any party, from ancient times until now; and we all know the hero—the friend who is perpetually late but shows up with more booze or the God who turns water into wine. Jesus had not yet performed His first miracle when His mom, Mary, comes to him with what can only be described as a mother’s request—“They have no wine.” It’s a mother’s request because it’s not posed as an actual request or question. It’s a simple problem statement with a clear underlying message—“You’re my son and I know what you’re capable of. Now would be a good time to use that power.” Then, turning that mom-power on the servants, she tells them to “Do whatever He tells you.” So, when Jesus makes the most ludicrous request for them to fill six enormous stone jars with water, they comply. We have the benefit of hindsight, so it makes sense to us why Jesus wants them to fill the water jars. We know that the water is going to turn into wine. However, the servants did not know this. Mary did not know this. The disciples did not know this. I imagine, then, that when Jesus tells the servants to do the insanely laborious task of trudging back and forth to the water well, which was probably not that close to the wedding venue, to fill six 20-30 gallon stone jars, everyone had some questions. When has God asked you to do something utterly ridiculous and illogical? Maybe it was taking a new job or changing your career path. Maybe it was showing up somewhere you needed to be but didn’t know it at the time. I don’t know about you, but every time my life is about to pivot, God asks me to do something utterly insane—like leave my very stable job to lead The Hearth with zero training and go back to school for four years. But everyone I’ve met in seminary has a call story that makes no sense. Many are international students who left everything they know in their home country and are on tenuous student visas, hoping they renew each year so they can finish their program. Many students are in the middle of starting families, attempting to read dry theological discourses on 2-3 hours of sleep because their newborn still isn’t sleeping through the night. However, when God asks you to do something illogical, usually it’s more like a mother Mary request. You don’t say no. Besides, like my sister likes to say, “Asking people to do things that don’t make sense is kind of God’s MO.” It may not make sense at the time of the request, and it may not make sense during the days, months, or even years that you’re responding to the request. However, just like the servants at the wedding, God usually reveals God’s purpose after we faithfully follow through. There are no promises that answering God’s call and following the purpose God places on our lives will be easy. There is no promise that it will make sense. In fact, many of the Biblical stories feature people doing really hard things that don’t make sense to them at the time; but through their faith and trust in God, they live into the purpose to which God has called them and are rewarded by being a part of a Divine miracle.
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 I am in the Twin Cities this week for the start of my Spring semester at Luther Seminary. As part of this trip, I visited the memorials of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, the two victims of ICE that made international news in January. Being in the places where these two individuals lost their lives was incredibly powerful because in these memorials I glimpsed the Kingdom of God. It was built of flowers, teddy bears, candles, friendship bracelets, and notes left in memory of Alex and Renee.
Whenever a community comes together after a tragedy, the Kingdom of God comes near. We saw it across America in the aftermath of 9/11. We continue to see it in Orlando after the Pulse Massacre. The Kingdom of God is simply the manifestation of God’s healing of Creation back to Shalom—back to the peace and wholeness we were created to be. And we are invited to be a part of this healing in the way we respond to sin and brokenness—to senseless violence, war, pollution, hate, and destruction. One of my assignments this week was to write a “mini-sermon” or a brief poem on a theological concept. Because the Kingdom was on my mind, I wrote the following piece. My hope is that it invites you into a new way of envisioning the Kingdom. Cheers and peace, Kaylee The Kingdom of God The Kingdom of God Is not a place But a movement. Its streets Not of Gold But cobbled in kindness Pathways of love From me to you. The Kingdom has gates But they are rusted open. You see They have never been closed. They embrace every resident Because all are welcome. The Kingdom Is decorated With flowers from memorials Of Emmett Till Renee Good MLK And Pulse’s Angels Because the Kingdom is built Brick on shining brick By the ways humanity works for peace In response to its own brokenness. The Kingdom is fulfillment. The final triumph of love From Creator Through Incarnate In the Spirit One divine in union with Their creation Shalom, at last And forever. “In the beginning, when God created the universe, the earth was formless and desolate. The raging ocean that covered everything was engulfed in total darkness, and the Spirit (וְרוּחַ) of God was moving (מְרַחֶפֶת) over the water.”
~Genesis 1:1-2, GNT, with Hebrew This morning, Milton (my dog) and I took our usual walk around the pond in our neighborhood. I always feel calmest during this part of my day, watching the wind brush over the surface of the water and feeling it caress my face. For me, the ripples on the lake and the brush on my skin are reminders of God’s presence. I think I’m drawn to water because of the Holy Spirit’s inexplicable connection to it—Her presence paired with the deep in the very first stanza of the creation poem. The word for Spirit in Hebrew is וְרוּח (Ruah), an ancient word that may be translated as wind, breath, mind, spirit, or desire. This word can be translated in a way that describes a playful God—like a Sprite or a Nymph or a Fairy; or it can be translated in a way that attributes maternal traits to God—like a Mother, an Advocate, or a Hen; or it can be translated to depict a wise God—Sophia, The Spirit, or Sage. These three aspects of Spirit are akin to the ancient archetypes —Maiden, Mother, and Crone—the full life cycle of a woman and her unique gifts, embodied by the Holy Spirit as she moves through Scripture. At the Spirit’s first appearance in the Bible, she could be any one of these archetypes depending on how we translate the verb in verse 2 that describes Ruah’s action over the waters. מְרַחֶפֶת (Rahap) can be translated to move, shake, or flutter; to hover or brood over with tender love; and to grow soft or relax. Move, shake, and flutter I attribute to the Spirit as maiden. She describes herself in Proverbs, “I was daily God’s delight, playing before God always, playing in God’s inhabited world and delighting in the human race (Proverbs 8:30-31, NRSVUE). She is the mischievous wind that wreaks havoc on our clothes and hair. She lifts skirts flirtatiously and inspires (or seduces) the direction of a tumbleweed. She could not get enough of the world God created, and she flitted over the waters of the deep, somersaulting and cartwheeling through the air. She is the inspiration of young lovers and the youthful life force that breathes vitality anew. Hover and brood over with tender love I attribute to the Spirit as mother. She is always near, the mother hen gathering us all underwing (Matthew 23:37; Luke 13:34). She is the seat of creation—the maternal aspect in each of us that yearns to create art, a garden, an invention, a home, a city, a meal, or a child. This Mother Spirit brooded over the surface of the deep, protecting and nurturing the creation she had breathed into existence. And this Mother is an Advocate for us still (John 14:16). Finally the Spirit as crone may be found in the translations to grow soft or relax. This is the feminine Spirit whose menses have ceased and her focus has shifted from creation to watchful wisdom. She is the Matriarch, brimming with life experience, relaxed in her own identity and imparting her wisdom on others (Proverbs 8). Her flight over the waters is soft and relaxed. She is in no hurry. She sagely reminds us that each phase of life has purpose. As I finished my loop around the lake, I felt complete in my meditation on this full expression of God. As She often does, the Spirit met me on the water, where She first met Creation at its genesis. I continue to marvel at how She shows up in the world and to me—this playful, maternal, wise God. ‘Tis the season of packed gyms, picked over produce, and record lows in bar sales. But don’t worry, it’ll just be for a couple weeks until the majority of resolution-makers give up on that gym membership, healthy diet, or dry January. Everything will go back to normal soon.
I know some of you are reading this and thinking, “Wow, aren’t you supposed to be encouraging as a pastor?” Yes, and the encouraging news is actually that there is nothing wrong with you if you don’t meet your resolution exactly as planned. You did not fail. You are not a weak person. You are a human being on the path to changing an ingrained habit that needs more than grit and resolve to see a new habit stick. When I worked as a counselor with those struggling with substance abuse, we taught people that relapse is not a failure of recovery but a normal part of it. Relapse is inevitable. You’ll miss a day (or a week) at the gym. You’ll splurge on those Christmas cookies that are sitting on the kitchen counter. You’ll have a glass of wine after a long day. However, it’s really not about that slip at all. It is about what you do after. Relapse ruins recovery when it starts a shame spiral. If you mess up and you feel like such a failure that you give up on the goal altogether, it begins to feel impossible to get back on track. But if you acknowledge the slip as a normal part of forming new habits, you can avoid a lot of heartache and a quicker pivot back to your goals. A wise man once said, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23, NRSVUE). After the dark of night, whether literal or illustrative of a relapse or mistake, morning always breaks. The faithfulness of our God is that God will never leave us in darkness but always has mercy and grace anew in the light of morning. Trust the process. Don’t give up. Lean on God’s strength and God’s mercy. Habits are formed in the little decisions we make every day to be a better version of ourselves than the day before—and in the ways we give ourselves grace for the times we plateau or backslide. Love yourself as God loves you—steadfastly, mercifully, and faithfully. Several years ago when I was a practicing mental health counselor, a colleague gifted me a book called People of the Lie. This groundbreaking work was written by a renowned psychiatrist, Dr. M. Scott Peck, who was deeply disturbed by dark human behaviors that did not quite fit neatly into psychiatric diagnoses. He would go on to argue in his book, through a series of case studies and analyses, that true evil does exist and that it can manifest in observable ways in human behavior. Despite its odd-nature, I have come across a surprising number of people who have read and been deeply impacted by this book—professionals in both mental health and religion, but also others who picked up the book out of their own curiosity.
Sometime between when I read that book and now, I began to reconsider who or what I thought of the enigmatic Biblical figure of Satan or Lucifer. Although I believe in evil, I wasn’t quite sure I believed in an embodiment of evil in the form of a fallen angel who rules over an afterlife for the damned. The more I got into Biblical studies, the more I considered that perhaps what we think of as demons are just the manifestations of evil in the world. Isn’t evil just our own choice in turning away from God, not necessarily towards anything—like minions of the Devil running around wreaking havoc in our lives, Screwtape Letter style. Then, a couple weeks ago, I was in deep theological conversation with one of our bartenders (yes, you read that right), and he asked me if I had read another one of Dr. M. Scott Peck’s books entitled Glimpses of the Devil: A Psychiatrist’s Personal Accounts of Possession, Exorcism, and Redemption. I had not. Reading this book, which he let me borrow, reopened the door to my musings about evil and Satan that I thought had been sealed shut long ago. I began to wonder, if a true embodiment of evil does exist, how would this fit into my current understanding of God’s relationship to humanity and the nature of sin? In Jungian psychology, a person is thought to have an inherent knowing and embodiment of archetypes common to all of humanity. These archetypes shape our personalities, behaviors, and relationships with one another. In therapy, we use these archetypes to help individuals create some distance between themselves and aspects of themselves that have become problematic in their functioning. So, instead of someone identifying as evil, she may identify what Jungians call The Shadow, that represents the aspects within herself that are dark, selfish, or broken. Creating this distance between oneself and one’s own problematic thoughts and behaviors helps to create an alliance between the therapist and client against this Shadow and reduces the shame that comes with over-identifying with only one part of oneself, especially when that part is villainous. The Shadow archetype in Jungian psychology is often compared to the religious archetype of the Devil in identity and function, which causes me to wonder, is it helpful to understand evil as something living outside of us that has the power to engage and influence us? The alternative being the belief that some people in and of themselves are evil. To me, there is much more grace and hope in the idea that people are inherently good and that there are externalizable aspects of our brokenness that we can ally with God against. Perhaps we call that brokenness Satan or Lucifer or the Devil. Perhaps there are different manifestations of brokenness that we call demons—the demon of confusion, the demon of greed, the demon of hubris. Who is to say that these are any more or less powerful, destructive, or influential if they are embodied spiritual forces or simply firings of neurotransmitters in our brain that result in behaviors that are counter to God and love? Through my reflections the past few weeks, I can honestly say that the idea of evil forces that deeply want God to fail makes a lot of sense. Forces that rejoice when sin entered the world and when Jesus was crucified. Forces whose battles are won when they have influenced an individual to follow evil (or the Devil) instead of God. Because in believing this, we can also believe that God is deeply compassionate towards one who has come to be overtaken by evil, one whose life situation has edged him into the dark and despair from which his own poor choices emerge. It does not remove the individual’s responsibility for these choices, but it makes room for mercy. Our God is against evil (Satan), not against people. Our God does not cast aside people but will do anything to reclaim a lost soul from evil (Satan), even to the point of His own death. There is something about this time of year that tells us to slow down. The days are shorter and night falls earlier. There’s a chill in the air that encourages more indoor activities. Our circadian rhythm literally shifts towards longer sleep times. These changes are deeply embedded in creation and as such, they are deeply ingrained in us. There is something ancient and powerful about the way our bodies respond to the coming of winter.
Before electricity elongated our days and heaters warmed every corner of our homes, our ancestors spent winters huddled together by the light and warmth of a family hearth. These gatherings birthed storytelling rituals that reminded the people of who they were and where they came from. Lonely winter nights were staved off by rituals of togetherness and days cooped up inside were spent in cooperation required for survival. Women sewed clothing that would be worn year-round and men sharpened the tools they would use on their hunts in the Spring. Bonds were forged and reconciliations made. All because the people embraced and lived into this season of stillness. Our God created the rhythm of the seasons so that we may have natural cycles of rest imprinted onto our very bodies. A wise man once said, “For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). It is okay, and I would argue encouraged, to accept this gift of a Sabbath Season. Say no to that extra Christmas party. Bake one less batch of cookies. Snuggle a loved one longer. Turn on the Christmas music and just stare at your Christmas tree (what I was doing before sitting down to write this blog). Just be. Unfortunately, there are a lot of forces that act against our natural inclination to allow ourselves to rest this time of year. If anything, our culture tells us to speed up. The hustle and bustle of Christmas can easily take over if we let it. But what would happen if you allowed yourself to slow down this season? What would happen if you gave in to your innate and instinctual desire to take that afternoon nap, go to bed a bit earlier, and stay inside more evenings? I think you will find that leaning into the seasons God created for us will add a beautiful balance to your life you may have been missing. If you need it, this is your permission to be still. For Jesus calls to us, “Come with me to a quiet place by yourselves and rest a while” (Mark 6:31). This week I had a thought-provoking conversation with a member of our congregation, Lance, who gave me permission to share this with you. We were talking about finding purpose and making goals towards that purpose, and how so often we think we know where we are going until God shows us otherwise. Lance loves sailing, and he likens the journey of life to the course of a sailboat. We set our eyes on the horizon, and then we set our sails to shorter distances as we mind the wind and the sand bars, the currents and the eddies. There are aspects of the journey we can control, like the rudder, and there are aspects of the journey we cannot control, like the direction of the wind. Sometimes, we sail away from the horizon because that is the way the wind pushes us, but that does not mean we have changed course entirely. Often moving with the wind, even when it feels like it’s blowing us backwards, is a better choice than fighting against it.
I know that God has a unique plan for each and every one of us. As God said through Jeremiah: “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11, NIV). I also know that our purpose is not always clear. Some know their purpose when they are very young. These are the people who tell us they’re going to be astronauts when they’re five-years-old and that is exactly what they grow up to be. Most of us, however, take some time to develop our purpose. Our answer to “What do you want to be when you grow up?” changes throughout our lives and may still be changing into our 30s, 40s, and even 80s! I know this because I have a classmate in seminary who answered his call to ministry as an octogenarian; and you know what, God formed him in his first 80s years to do something remarkable that he could not have done prior to that. It is okay to still be seeking your purpose. I promise you—and more importantly, God promises you—that it does not mean you don’t have one. It just means that God has not yet revealed it to you. When we board our sailboat, we start to move, whether we’re ready to or not. When we have not yet determined our horizon, we go with the wind as it blows—the Spirit filling our sails and moving us onward. We have our hand on the tiller to change course as we encounter obstacles. We sometimes have a fleeting idea of the horizon we’re aiming for and direct our sailboat accordingly…until we determine another horizon is our aim. Your sailing is not purposeless if you don’t know your horizon. Every new water you traverse and fellow sailor you encounter is all part of the plan. So enjoy the journey. Continue taking that next right movement. Listen to the wind. Attend to the water when it creates obstacles in eddies or streamlines your journey with a fortuitous current. Mind the storms. These are all part of the journey and are overseen by a Sovereign God who reminds us through Isaiah, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you” (Isaiah 43:2, ESV). Likewise, do not get overconfident if you are one of those who have set their eyes on their horizon immediately. Yes, continue the path that God has laid out for you, but be open to the change in the Divine Wind. God may set you on a path towards a horizon, and as you near it, God may set your course anew. It does not mean you went the wrong way. It means that you have “fought the good fight, finished the race, and kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7), and now you have another race to sail. Whether you know your purpose or are still finding it, whether your purpose changes or stays steady throughout the course of your life, the best horizon to set your eyes upon is Jesus. The author of Hebrews tells us, “Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1-2). In this we can never go wrong. May you find comfort in knowing that wherever you are sailing, you are exactly where you are meant to be. God’s got you right here and through your horizon. On Tuesday evening I had the immense pleasure of attending my very first Sukkot, which is the Jewish holiday of the Feast of Tabernacles. This 7-day holiday celebrates the harvest season as well as God’s protection of the Israelites during their 40 day sojourn in the wilderness after leaving Egypt. Part of Sukkot is building a temporary outdoor shelter called a sukkah, which reminds participants of the fragile dwellings used by their ancestors as they traveled.
Under the shelter of the sukkah erected at the Congregation of Reformed Judaism, our gracious host, Rabbi Rachael Jackson, explained to us that the sukkah can be built from any material as long as you can see the stars from within. And sure enough, when we looked above through the palm frond roof of the sukkah, I was mindful of our ancestors who once navigated the wilderness by the stars, seeking the promised land. Rabbi Jackson taught us that during Sukkot, families will eat, pray, and sometimes sleep in their sukkah. One of the prayers of Sukkot involves the waving of the lulav and etrog (palm, Myrtle, willow, and citron), which symbolizes unity among all people and connection to the earth. This mitzvah, or blessing, is practiced each day of Sukkot, and we were honored to take part in this blessing on Tuesday. Rabbi Jackson explained that a large part of Sukkot is the practice of hospitality. When Jews build their sukkah it is with the intention of hosting others within its shelter. So, in the spirit of hospitality and unity, she gathered a small group of interfaith leaders in Central Florida to share dinner, blessings, and fellowship with one another, and it was an absolutely beautiful night. Often in our world today we are so focused on our differences that we miss the blessing of unity and sharing. Learning about the holidays and festivals that are important to our Jewish siblings helps us better understand and honor our history as Christians. These holidays and traditions are ones that Jesus’ family would have practiced; and being a carpenter family, I’m sure Jesus’ sukkah was pretty amazing. There is much to learn from Sukkot, and although we do not have a similar holiday in the Christian faith, we are called to be radically hospitable and strive to be peacemakers on the path to unity. May we continue to accept invitations into spaces we have not journeyed and invite into our spaces those with whom we have not journeyed. It is only in these shared experiences that we will find the unity that lays the foundation for shalom--the peace and wholeness God promises. During my time at school in St. Paul this past week, I attended a Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History traveling exhibit hosted by Luther Seminary. It was an exhibit on human evolution called Exploring Human Origins: What does it mean to be human? The theory of evolution has been a thorn in the side of science and religion relations for over a century, beginning with Charles Darwin’s paramount work, On the Origin of Species, and continuing with the infamous Scopes Trial of 1925. And who could forget the spectacle that was the 2014 Evolution vs. Creation debate between Bill Nye the Science Guy and Ken Ham, founder of the Creation Museum and The Ark Encounter? Like every polarizing issue, there are individuals pitted against each other on both sides, finding it next to impossible to reach middle ground.
Personally, I find the issue fascinating. I have long been a believer in the theory of evolution and have not found it to discredit or threaten my faith in God as the Creator of all things. If anything, I am filled with wonder at God’s intelligent design of evolution that has resulted in an insurmountably vast array of living organisms that somehow share an absurd amount of genetic material. Did you know humans share about 60% of their DNA with chickens and 50% of their DNA with bananas? For comparison, we share about 98.8% with our closest non-human relatives, the chimpanzee, and 99.9% with other Homo sapiens, or modern humans. This means that we are all truly connected at a molecular level, yet we are so very different. I personally find a God that can make this happen far more interesting and awe-inspiring than a God speaking everything into existence in the matter of a few days. However, this was not really the point of the Smithsonian Exhibit. The docents were not necessarily interested in debating evolution vs. creation because, to them, this debate is already settled. Many of the scholars who presented at this exhibit have devoted their entire lives to the discovery and study of paleontological evidence (including fossilized bones of over 6,000 hominin individuals) of an evolutionary family tree spanning over 6 million years. What they were more interested in was what distinguished our human ancestors from their non-human primate ancestors. In other words, what does it mean to be human? Before I continue, I want to break down a few of the “vocabulary” words because it gets confusing. I took an entire course on biological anthropology (i.e. human evolution) in college and spent a day at this Smithsonian exhibit and still had to do my research to make sure I was using the right terminology in this newsletter! In the field of biological anthropology, human is considered any of the 15 to 20 extinct and extant species of bipedal primates that evolved over 6 million years after breaking off from its non-human primate ancestors. These humans include familiar ancestors like the Neanderthals and Homo Erectus, along with some not-so-familiar ancestors, as well as Homo sapiens, which refers to our species—modern humans. Human will be used interchangeably with hominin in this blog to refer to the multiple species in this lineage that branched off over 6 million years ago from the ancestor whose lineage resulted in modern apes. Ok, back to the newsletter. What does it mean to be human? Two of my favorite audience answers to this question were, “Humans are made in the image of God” and “Humans are storytellers.” To me, these two answers go hand in hand. We were made in the image of God, the great storyteller, whose Word breathed all things into existence; and when God invited us to name all things (Genesis 2:19), God invited us to be co-creators of the story. This is what it means to be human. The scientists’ answers to what it means to be human were a little more, well, scientific; but still they held traces of Divine image-bearing and storytelling. Dr. Rick Potts, the paleoanthropologist in charge of the exhibit told us that what it means to be human falls into three categories—sharing and caring; brain, babies, and parenting; and innovation and social networking. Unlike other animals and even other primates, early hominins began sharing resources across distances to other tribal groups around 2.8 million years ago. Even more striking is evidence that early hominin species took care of their ailing and injured as early as 1.85 million years ago. Our God is not an individualistic God, but exists in the social network of the Trinity—Creator, Savior, and Holy Spirit. Like the God whose image we bear, we were created to be in community with one another, sharing and caring for mutual survival. As evolution advanced, brain size in hominis increased. There are clear benefits to bigger brains, but also disadvantages. It takes a long time for a larger brain to develop, extending the length of a human’s childhood and adolescence, time when they would need to be cared for by a parent in order to survive. This resulted in family units that formed to care for their young into adulthood. It is around this time in the evolutionary process that hearths first appear—790,000 years ago. The hearth became the epicenter of family life. It was a place to gather for warmth, to cook, and to tell stories—engaging the developing brains of the young and old alike. Through stories, the reality of our ancestors came to life, and they began to co-create alongside the Divine Storyteller, God. Then, 320,000 years ago, early hominins developed the first pigments, allowing them to record their stories in paintings and carvings. This innovation arose after the innovation of practical tools—blunt rocks to arrowheads and harpoons. The emergence of art into the world brought with it an aspect of being human that is incredibly unique—the ability to use symbolic language through words, pictures, dance, and music. Art allows us to both communicate what is and to imagine something that does not yet exist—to form something meaningful from a formless void (Genesis 1:2). Art captures the complexity of who we are as humans, our emotions and varying ways we see and experience God, ourselves, others, and all of creation. So, what does it mean to be human? It means we are divine image-bearers of a complex, social, loving, creative, and innovative God, who tell stories as co-creators with the Divine in order to care and connect with one another and bring meaning to our lives. Whether we were formed this way from dust or formed this way from dust and a long evolutionary process, what it means to be human is not a question of how, but rather a question of who and whose. I believe it is less important to our faith to dwell on the question of how we came to be, and more important to our faith to remember who created us and whose image we bear. The Hearth is a place for “religious refugees”—those folks who carry religious, spiritual, or church abuse and trauma. I have often been told by congregants that it is the last church they’re going to try before they give up on church altogether, which is why I take my job so seriously in terms of creating a trauma-informed worship experience and cultivating a healing community. As I was discerning my call to ministry, I originally thought I was called to be a Deacon so that I could use my therapy background to work with people who have religious trauma through their healing, deconstruction, and reconstruction. However, as my calling clarified, I realized that God could provide much more healing through me if I shepherded a church that did not cause the trauma in the first place and encouraged a community that provided a different kind of healing than anything I could provide one-on-one in a therapy office.
I’ve been leading The Hearth now for almost three years; and although I maintain my original call, I have grown into the wisdom that while we can do our best, we will still make mistakes and people will sometimes still get hurt. More importantly, though, I have learned that not all mistakes have to lead to religious trauma because profound healing can come from mistakes that are handled with humility, accountability, and grace. I also believe that hurt may be mitigated when we hold our expectations of what church is “supposed” to be in an open hand. I think many people approach church as a representation of God on earth when in actuality it is a community of messy people who love God and are doing their best to love each other. This distinction is important because when messy people at church mess up and hurt us, it will cut deeper if we expect them to be acting on behalf of a perfect God. You see, the simplest definition of trauma is when something happens to us that differs drastically from our expectation about how the world is supposed to work, how people are supposed to behave, and who God is supposed to be. When something like this happens, the memory of the experience does not have a place to land inside our brains because it is such an outlier, so it bounces around in our minds and disturbs us in unexpected ways until we are able to sort through it and find a filing cabinet in our brains to store it. This is why if you have church trauma and a particular song comes on, you may have a primal trauma response because that experience is at the forefront of your brain and will be triggered into active memory much more easily than if it was healthily stored away. So, the first step in healing from trauma and preventing trauma is to shift our perspective about church. For many people with church trauma, they have been told that the leader of the church is somehow closer to God or that what that leader says and does is infallible because of their Divine call. This is fundamentally untrue. Leaders of churches are just as human as the rest of the community. They are fully capable of making mistakes and should be held accountable for their words and actions. Yes, church leaders have a call to be teachers and healers, and their leadership should be respected as we respect any leader in our lives, but that does not mean that they are any closer to God or that they represent God in some fundamentally different way than the rest of us. It does mean that they have a responsibility to ensure they are healthy so that they reduce the chances of harm. Likewise, just because people call themselves Christ followers and belong to a church does not mean that they are any better than people who do not. I have known some lovely atheists who would blow some Christians out of the water in terms of general moral goodness if it was a competition (which it is not). The reality is, though, the person who is going to be most hurt by this expectation is you. If in your mind someone needs to live up to an expectation that you or they have, they have much farther to fall and the hurt will be much deeper. I get the frustration of hypocrisy—of watching someone act like they are holier than thou and then royally mess up. However, grace for messiness heals us as much as it heals them. Taking a posture of forgiveness can go a long way in maintaining your own peace. The next step in healing is a bit more difficult. For those of us who have done our fair share of church shopping, we have learned to run at the first sign of unpleasantness, conflict, messiness, or theology/politics that may be different from our own. Church is like any relationship, though. No person and no church is going to perfectly align with every one of your desires. The best relationship advice I ever heard was to choose your partner not based on all the things you want, but rather on all the things you don’t want but can live with. Every person is going to have faults, so imagining you’re going to end up with someone who doesn’t is silly. Figure out what faults are ones you are okay with, and choose a partner based on that. Church is the same way. Determine what faults in a church are ones for which you can have grace, and choose your church based on that—with eyes wide open that no church is perfect and we have a responsibility for our own experiences. And then stick it out. Trauma is about unresolved conflict. Remember when I said trauma happens when our expectations are challenged and experiences rattle around in our heads? We have a responsibility for doing the work to sort those things into filing cabinets. Healing is not a passive process. Often, healing means facing the issue and seeking reconciliation through accountability and grace. You cannot heal if you run before the reconciliation can happen. Obviously, there are situations where this is not applicable. For example, this is not applicable to severe and repeated abuse with no accountability. This is applicable to those faults that you have already predetermined are ones you are okay living with—and severe and repeated abuse is not one in which any of us should be okay living. That being said, if you identify with this, please come and talk with me so I can help you find the resources you need for healing and removing yourself from whatever situation has made this feel normal for you. No one deserves to live in fear including you. We have all heard and experienced the epidemic of loneliness in our world today. There are so many things that contribute to this state of being, but one that I think stands out is our intolerance for working through hard things. It is no longer true that most people live within 5 miles of their neighborhood church, and that this church has been their home church for generations because it was unheard of to seek out a church farther away if things went south. Now, we can jump ship and drive across town if we want. But a pattern of church shopping and severed relationships contribute to loneliness. I say this not to shame anyone who has needed to find a new church because I can deeply relate to this and have done my fair share of church hopping before I found The Hearth. I say this to encourage you to engage differently with community now. When someone says something or does something you don’t like, resist the urge to immediately wash your hands of the community and choose instead to do the difficult work of dealing with it head-on. Have that hard conversation, work through the conflict, admit when you’ve been hurt or when you’ve hurt someone. It is uncomfortable in the moment, but it builds deep and lasting relationships. This is the antidote to loneliness. This is how we heal. There is no perfect community that will be comfortable to be a part of all the time. There are just messy communities of messy people that get by with a LOT of grace and a LOT of love and a LOT of humility, who are willing to have some hard conversations, grow and stretch, and lean on the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. I no longer believe I can create a community free of hurt, but I do believe that when we all are willing to work at it, we can create a community of healing. |
Kaylee Vance LMFT, LMHC
Worship Leader |
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