Home

There is no other word to describe what is happening to me.  It's like a granola-crunchy sort of person who has lived in NY City all their life and suddenly moves to Oregon and discovers all their people there waiting for them.  Life suddenly makes sense.  Not because who you were changed.  It's just your environment agrees with who you are, and the people around you just GET you.

It is strange, but I have realized that in many ways I have been more Catholic than Protestant for a long time.  There are things that have been really important to Cris and I that have just kind-of been seen as cool extras when other people have heard us talk about them.  Things like our belief in the importance of names and their meanings.  We were really intentional about the names that we chose for our girls.  In Jewish culture, your name is who you are, and we prayed and talked about those names a lot.  We wanted to gift them with something beautiful from the very beginning.  In the same way, a huge part of my personal growth has been "growing into" my name.  Anna means grace, and the processes of grace has been the defining journey of my life thus far.  I see this value in the Church itself when they give you the chance to pick a new name if you wish to at your confirmation.

Another HUGE aspect of Cris and my life, both as individuals and as a couple, is our devotion to the concept of mentorship.  When we got married, we each already had a mentor and chose a mentor as a couple as well.  In turn, we have also had the pleasure of mentoring others.  It's so exciting to see this relationship valued in the church as seen in the concept of the sponsor as you move through the Confirmation process.

The similarities continue, but you get the idea.  I am daily amazed as I see who I am find rest and home in the shelter of this community.  Another big moment has come through the deep connection of my present and past.  Books I have read, musical artists I have liked, things that are precious to me and have been for a long time, that actually have deep roots in Catholicism.  Rich Mullins is a great example.  I grew-up in Wichita, a city who will always claim him.  I met him several times and went to a ton of concerts growing up.  We had every CD he ever made, and he was a weekly part of our home music routine.  Over the past week, I have been drawn back to his music over and over again.  The themes he talks about mirror things I am learning in RCIA and elsewhere, and are continually helping me solidify concepts in my mind and heart.  I thought that I remembered some sort of Catholic connection with Rich, so I started to do a little research.  He was days away from being Confirmed when he died, and had a kind-of love affair with the Catholic Church for years prior to that.  That love is reflected throughout his life and his music.  It has been beautiful and there is something deep and true about the connection I feel with his journey.

At the beginning of this week I was straining and grasping to understand what exactly I need to change about my life to be Catholic.  But I am discovering something truly wild.  My experience of our interaction with Truth in the church, prior to the Catholic Church, has been like a straight line that you are required to stick to.  It is assumed you will fall off, but that is a clear failure.  It has been significant to me that the Catholic Church approaches Truth very differently.  Imagine if you will a solid circle with the word TRUTH printed in the middle.  Now imagine a slightly bigger circle that encompasses the first one.  Within the boundary between the two, the word "mystery" is written.  Now imagine a much bigger circle that is encompassing everything.  Along the edge,  a boundary is set with the words "pale of orthodoxy".  Within the big circle, you can approach the central Truth from a lot of angles.  But in pointing the same direction, hemmed in by the same boundary, we find unity as we pursue the mystery of the Truth of God.  Within this reality, I have found the freedom to simply come into this community as I am, delve deeply, and not worry about changing anything in my life until I actually feel convicted to do so.  Until I actually feel drawn to be closer to Jesus by throwing off whatever I see is keeping me away.  It's an amazing feeling.  Not one I am unexperienced with.  But one I have not had experience with inside the church.

I am also finding the space to ask questions I have never asked before.  Questions centered in love.  What about the Muslims or Mormons or whoever,  who clearly and desperately want God and are radically committed to their concept of Him?  Can God find a way to extend mercy to them?  How do I love people in lifestyles that aren't what I would choose?  And by love them I mean, welcome them in my home and make them feel comfortable around me?  I don't know all the answers.  But I love that this atmosphere is bringing those questions up naturally.  That my desires feel every day drawn closer to the heart of love that God has for people.  A love that I can't even begin to imagine.

Songs continue to be vitally important in this process for me.  I was listening to a Rich Mullins song this morning and then talking about it with my Catholic friend who has spent countless hours discussing this new life with me.  She had asked me if we planned to baptize the girls and I was saying that we thought so, but we wanted to study a little more.  I am a very verbal processor and as we talked, I was amazed yet again to find things slipping into place.  The song I had been listening to is speaking to a small child, and says, "Me and your mom, and all the love we have, we can only take you so far.  As far as we can.  But you'll need something more to guide your heart as you grow into a man.  Let mercy lead, let love be the strength in your legs."  I don't think I completely grasp it yet, but that is the essence of what baptizing the girls means to me.  It's taking them as far as we can.  It's carrying them to the feet of Jesus, like the parents that brought their children to be blessed.  We can truly only take them so far.  And there will come a day when mercy and love have to lead them on.  It is incredible how often the Catholic Church draws everyone back to the mercy and grace of God.  It is the central message of every single thing we do there.  Everything.  It is an atmosphere completely overrun with mercy and grace.  And in baptizing them, we are carrying them through the door, into that atmosphere of mercy and grace.  We are doing what we can.  And we will do it with constant prayers that mercy and love will lead them on from there.  It was actually an overwhelmingly beautiful thought.

Phil Phillips song, "Home" and Isaiah 43:1-21, but especially verse 1, have come together to perfectly explain this experience.  The Isaiah verse tells me that the God I have always known is the One who is holding me now.  He has me.  And I'm growing less afraid.  Home is where I am finding myself.  Listen to these lines from the song "Home":

Hold on, to me as we go
As we roll down this unfamiliar road
And although this wave is stringing us along
Just know you're not alone
Cause I'm gonna make this place your home

Settle down, it'll all be clear
Don't pay no mind to the demons
They fill you with fear
The trouble it might drag you down
If you get lost, you can always be found

Just know you're not alone
Cause I'm gonna make this place your home

Isn't that amazing?!  Anyway, that's pretty much it for now:)  I'll keep you posted!

My Turn Key Day

Today is a big day.  It's really really hard to describe all that has happened.  It has been a lot and it has happened extremely quickly.  Here goes my best attempt, and to make it a little more straight forward, I am going to go through the Who, What, Where, Why, and How questions that were most important in the decision I have come to:

*  Who I Am Doing This For?:  Last night we went to our first RCIA class, and it was great.  I had questions that were unanswered for sure.  But it was great.  And I met some awesome people.  Coming away from it, it was extremely obvious that Cris was ready to move forward.  However, I just wasn't there.  I told him last night that I was totally ok if he went on ahead of me.  We talked about it for a while, and though he was nervous about it, he reluctantly, kind-of agreed.  I really meant what I said, and I'm extremely glad I said it.  It was important and established something very clearly to both of us.  We are both on parallel, but very different, paths.  The issues that Cris has in his spiritual life are not my issues, and mine are not his.  We have needed to let go of each other a little bit in this process, allowing the other just to be where they are, and continuing to be where we are, supporting each other all the way.  God is in the God-spot of our lives, and that reality has been really clear through this process.  I don't think it could continue in a healthy way if that wasn't the case.  There would be too much pressure.  Way too much pressure.  What I was able to make very clear, to myself and Cris, is that I am not doing this for him.  I am going through this process because I want to.  Because it is important for MY relationship with God.  It has been suggested to me that since Cris is all in, it would be good to just decide to be with him, and let everything else just follow.  Cris and I have a very equal marriage and that is simply not how we do things.  However, I even considered doing it just this once, and in the midst of that had a very clear view into my heart and soul.  I know that if I were to do this because he wanted to and said we should, my heart would break.  For me personally, that would be putting Cris in my God spot, and something very precious, in my life and in our marriage would be lost.  Possibly forever.

*  Why A Denomination Over Non-Denominational?:  The research framework I talked about yesterday is a huge deal for me.  It establishes the need for denominations.  In my life, I have always lived outside of the denominational structure.  As a result, I have become very careful about what I allow into my spiritual life.  Everything that comes, comes from a variety of theological frameworks and must be vetted against what I know the Bible says.  It is a process that requires a very high degree of guardedness if you are going to be successful.  I believe it is a perfectly valid way to live the Christian life, and I have found a very intense kind-of intimacy with God within it.  I have grown in my ability to discern, acquired a lot of knowledge and understanding about a lot of different theological frames of reference, and have matured a lot in my connection with God and others.  But it also does a couple other things, 1.  It requires a lot of your spiritual energy and time,  2.  It tends to spread you out, theologically speaking, across a very wide variety of spiritual viewpoints, 3.  It forces others to vet you very extensively before allowing you to influence their environment in the Church because without a label, they simply don't have context for where you fit theologically and so must take the time and energy to ascertain that themselves.

* What Am I Afraid Of?: One of the secret fears I have had throughout this processes is that I would have to trade the relationship I have worked so hard for with God in for another one.  That the God I have known and loved so dearly would be lost to me.  I have never felt that this was God's voice telling me that, but it was a scary voice that kept asserting itself.  Another fear involves my freedom in the midst of this process.  My experience in the church has been about a lot of absolutes.  It was as though each new church didn't even realize there were other views within the pale of orthodoxy.  There was so much pressure to conform to what they believed in order to be seen as a mature Christian.  I have not encountered anything like that in the Catholic Church.  Not one Catholic, not one priest.  But it has been so drilled into my brain to protect against that, it feels unsafe to open up and trust that I actually do have a choice.  That no one is trying to force me to do anything.  

*  Where Do I Want To Be?- Why Catholic and not something else?  This question is actually really easy to answer.  Because I have a pretty broad experience of different types of Protestant churches, I already know what kinds of results they yield.  What their message ends up being and the outcomes they produce.  They are just not results that I am drawn to.  The end point, the resulting view of life in Jesus that is seen in the Catholic Church is what I was drawn to in the first place.  The only other church of interest was the Anglican Church, and the question of why Catholic and not Anglican was a valid one. After all, Anglican is a lot more accessible in many ways because it does not require nearly so much of you in terms of doctrinal belief.  However, there is so much flux in the Anglican Church at the moment.  There is a great deal of diversity among churches and you never really know, according to the generally available report, what you will get from one church to another.  For Cris and I, this really misses the mark in terms of what we are looking for.  Therefore, Catholicism becomes the logical denominational end point if that is what I decide I want.

*  How did it happen?  So how did I move so quickly to embrace something so different, and so hard to imagine embracing less than a week ago?  Being in the Protestant church built a good house with a strong foundation of faith for Cris.  But his house was really empty.  He wasn't experiencing any relationship with God.  Since he began to study Catholicism, I have seen that change, and suddenly, his spiritual house is full of life.  It's a really beautiful thing to see.  My house was different because my spiritual house has always been full of life.  I have never known anything else.  I was relaying that illustration to a good friend and she made a comment about some drapes that she had purchased that she absolutely loved.  She is now designing her whole house around them.  I told her about my fear of having to replace all the furnishings in my spiritual house with a new God and new beliefs.  And she made a comment.  She said that all her favorite things in the house already matched the drapes when she brought them in, and that it was really more about the future than the past.  And suddenly, I knew that the most precious things about my relationship with Jesus are the things that have drawn me to the Catholic Church.  Far from being the things that I would discard; they are instead, the things that draw me in and tie me to something new and beautiful.  As she said this and this realization flashed on me, I was also caught by another realization at the same time.  God has been speaking a lot to me about narrowing my focus, in many areas of my life.  If you have a light, and you let it shine in a general way, it is bright, but not nearly as bright as if you narrow the focus.  Becoming Catholic gives me an opportunity to narrow my focus.  To accept a "research framework" and allow it to give me a safe place to focus on the spiritual life God is growing in me.  It allows me to stop wasting energy on begin so guarded, and open up to the new things God wants to do in my life.  Both of those realizations came at the same moment and I actually had to hurry off the phone with my friend as they did.  I was overcome with the feeling of peace that descended on my heart, as though a key had turned in a lock and I knew that I was ready to commit, fully and freely.  I was sitting outside a Catholic church, St. Josephs, as I had already planned to spend some time in prayer.  As soon as I was off the phone, I went into the church.  I didn't even really have anything to say.  I just sat there with Jesus.  And I reflected on what had just happened.  I waited to see if, looking my new church right in the face as I knelt there, would the peace stay or would it leave?  And it stayed.  I am still a little nervous, and this new discovery feels precious and new, like something I want to guard and keep close to my heart for a while.  But it's there.  And it's a beautiful thing.  A really beautiful thing.

Lol, I have serious questions about why I am trying to do this in a public forum.  What's happening is so personal, and has so much absolutely essential context needed for understanding, I'm not even positive anyone else can follow along.  However, I think I am continuing because there is an off-chance that there actually is someone else out there who somehow, in some small way, just might be able to relate.  And who feels lonely and not understood.  And might feel just a tiny bit better as they read along.  It's a long shot, I admit.  But it seems worth it, just in case.

I'll keep you posted!

Better Days

I started to read my last post over and I was bumming myself out so I stopped!  I am sure that is really going to bode well for my blog readership in the future.  Honestly though, some things are just raw and unpleasant.  And that is the reality of where I think we all start when we go on a journey like this.

Life got a lot better the last two days.  I was driving into school with, feeling hung over, with huge black circles under my eyes, when the good started.  As a side note, in the future, if I foresee that I am going to cry that much, I am definitely going to start drinking as well.  If you have the hangover it just makes good sense to get to have the alcohol too!  Anyway, that song from Kelly Clarkson, "Mr. Know It All", came on.  It actually is kind-of angry and militant if you listen to it.   But last year it came to be a reminder of a "coming home" that started last year about this time.  Last year was the year of ME.  I was able to actually accept who God made me to be, what I am and what I'm not.  And even if other people disagree with that, I feel confident about knowing myself for the first time in my life.  It's nice:)

It's wild how songs can remind us of things, or "sound like a memory" (Springsteen), if you will.  Once the happy started rolling back in, songs like "The Show" by Lenka and "Home" by Phil Phillips started putting music to the angst inside, and I didn't feel quite so unknown.  I mentally settled into the uncertainty I feel called to, and things seemed like they just might be ok.

Since then, I have been picking up little things from here and there that are also contributing to some inner peace.  For one things, some dear Catholic friends told me something that I still can't quite wrap my mind around.  In the Protestant churches I have been to, they teach what they believe the Bible says and then they turn things over to you.  You are expected to believe and practice it from there on out, period.  However, my friends report that the Catholic Church takes a different approach.  If you come and say, "Hey, I don't believe this and I don't feel guilty about it", instead of being something they expect you to confess and change, they see it as a lack of education on their part.  In fact, you should not confess things you don't feel convicted about.  It was wild.  I seriously don't even know how to wrap my mind around that.

Another thought occurred to me while I was reading a research article for school.  All researchers begin with a research framework that is generally agreed upon.  It may be flawed in places, in fact almost certainly is, but it is something that the scientific community has agreed will be the framework after a lot of study and input from many well-studied people.  It allows us to judge the research that comes out, compare and contrast it, and actually gain something from the work that is being done.  I wonder if the organizational structure of the church is meant to do the same thing?  Cris, (my husband), and I were talking about how, no matter what authority we put ourselves under, in the church or elsewhere, there will be errors within that authority structure.  In other areas there is the light at the end of the tunnel that tells me that I don't have to be under those constraints forever.  For example, Cris is in the military now, and so they dictate where we go and what we do.  But someday, he will be out and we won't have to live under their rules in the same way.  With church, it seems kind-of demoralizing because it doesn't have an endpoint like that.  However, Cris pointed out that Heaven is our end point.  The place were all will be put right.

Tonight we are going to go to our first Catholic education class.  I am nervous and excited, but overall, just feeling open and ready to learn.  Inside, I still feel the discomfort rise in my chest when I think about some of this stuff.  But it's ok.

I'll keep you posted:)

Here I Am

"I woke up, with an aching in my head, lay motionless in bed and wish that I was dead".  Some song starts that way.  It's a good song.  I feel that way today.  The next line talks about being emotionless, and that is where the similarities end, because unlike that lucky song person, I cried for 8 hours today, on and off.  It was ever bit as fun as that sounds.  An old wound got opened back up today.  And it actually hurt a lot more than I thought it would.  

I went to my first mass today.  Is mass supposed to be capitalized?  I don't know.  Sorry, everyone who does.  What I'm feeling isn't the Catholic Church's fault.  They honestly aren't that much different than all the other denominations on this point.  It just brought it up again.  Because we have been looking into becoming Catholic.  And I love so many things about the Catholic Church.  The Liturgy, historicity, parallels with Jewish thought, less divided, greater diversity, views on women, focus on God and the wonder and majesty of who He is, demonstrated humility of priests to God and his authority, not based in the US (literally, politically and socially), etc.  And I just kind of hoped it might be different this time.  

I have never joined a church in my life.  I just wasn't raised that way.  As the title of my blog  says, I have never been one of the "us" really.  I have always been one of the others.  Even saying that doesn't tell you who I am.  I know the picture those words paint.  I love Jesus with all my heart.  And I have never felt far away from Him.  I have studied the Bible and theology more than the average person ever will.  I have also studied Jewish thought and history, been to Israel 3 times and celebrated Passover my whole life.  I have been some sort of leader in almost every church I have attended as an adult.  But try as I might, I haven't been able to join.  There's a lot in the answer to why, and honestly, I've worn myself out and I am starting my doctoral program tomorrow, so this is not really coming at the best time for me.  I wrote about it all to a friend tonight though, and so I will simply paste that here by way of introduction:

Everyone I talk about my feelings on church membership with takes a similar approach with me.  And I love them for it.  But it isn't where I am or who I am.  They tell me just pour your heart out to God.  I have been pouring my heart out to God all day.  I never ever ever need to be encouraged to do that.  He is my safe place, He is the place that has ALWAYS been my refuge.  I don't need to be told to tell God and turn it over to Him.  My issue is not with God.  And I don't feel like the hurt is from Him, nor do I feel that my issue is in any way with Him.  All these things that people say are things that are elementary in the Christian life and I really love that people care for me so.  But it leaves me feeling that they have missed who I am.  And where I am in my Christian walk.

The issue is this.  In the end, the requirement for being a part of the Catholic Church is the same as the requirement for being a member of any denomination.  Here is our creed.  It covers salvation, but it covers a lot more.   We acknowledge that you can have fellowship with Jesus, and enter in as a member of His body at the moment of your salvation.  However, to be in true fellowship with us, we require more.  We require that you say you 100% agree with our view of God and holy living.  We require that you believe it is without error.  And unless you do that, you cannot enter into fellowship with us.  You cannot belong here.  We will be happy to use your passion, your love for Jesus and people, your devotion to the Word, your energy, all of it.  You can hang around and we might even let you be who you are and lead a little.  But we will not accept you as one of us unless you agree that we are wrong in nothing.  And you must promise it before God.  

I could astound people with my devotion to denominational teaching.  I could be amazing at it.  People would say I was amazingly mature as a Christian and just be so impressed. But to be impressive, to be seen as what they want, I have to give something up.  I have to give up my integrity.

What would I prefer?

HOME.

I would love it if we could be just a little more like Jesus and a little less like people who require more than God.

Do you know what would be so cool?

"Hey, we see that you love Jesus very much, that you agree on the central things necessary for salvation and that you want to grow in what we have going on here.  That you want to grow in Christianity the Catholic, (or whatever) way.  We would love to have you!  Come on in, you are now Catholic.  Now, let's go on a journey together of discipleship".

That would be awesome, but that's never it.

It's, "ok, here, we are going to disciple you, quickly, (compared to a lifetime a year or whatever length of time it takes to become a member is quick), in all the stuff we believe and you are welcome to become Catholic, (or whatever), when you can say yes to everything.  Until then, hang out, but you don't belong.

Sorry, Jesus isn't enough.

You can't partake of His life, or His sacraments because those aren't for you.  Its just for our people.  The ones who agree 100%, or more probably, who lie a lot of the time and say they do but really don't.  We don't know which ones those are, but we know about you.  Your a little too honest and a little too literal and so sorry, your out.

And so I have made myself ok with that.  I have followed all the, "you can't do that" rules and I have honored what every church said I could do and couldn't do.  Up till today, I have been really been awesome at getting myself ok with it reality too.  Because I found I could happen outside of them.  I could be myself, be free, outside of established church.  And so I gave up on established church because it didn't want me as I am.  Only as I can dress up to be.

Why did Jesus not go over all the extra rules when He chose the 12?  Why did He not mention that they had to believe things about His mom and baptism and speaking in tongues and predestination?  He didn't actually say anything like that about being His disciple.  He didn't require any of that and he was a Rabbi recruiting to start the most incredible movement that ever happened on earth.  These were going to be the Apostles, the foundation of the leadership of the church.  And somehow, the extras didn't even come up.

Just simply one invitation to be a part of Him.  "Come follow Me."

My husband is struggling too, by the way.  Only his struggle is much different.  I didn't want him to know how much I was starting to hurt over this.  He's one of those rare guys who loves me so much, he would call the whole Catholic investigation off.  Tried to today.  But he has his own path, and he's really excited about this.  I literally jumped up and down on him until he promised to keep walking his path, and to keep letting me walk mine.  They are parallel paths, even if they are different, and I know we are headed the same direction, wherever that is.  I love him for wanting to stop the hurt.  But even if I never join any denomination ever, this hurt inside me has to be healed.  

And today, in the end, I think that's the point.  

I don't know where this is headed.  But hiding this hurt isn't healing it.  And it isn't helping me out either.  I did hear from God today.  In the midst of all the people and all the words and all the tears, I heard Him.  It was the beginning of something friend said.  And it goes like this:

Today, God, the God I know knows me, and loves me and gets all the stuff I can't express well, He is just asking me to be unsure for a while.

That is very very hard for me.  And I don't think I have ever once heard a sermon on the virtue of unsurity.  But be that as it may, that's what He's asking of me.  I am going to do what He asked.  Because God and I are cool like that, and I want to;)  Lol, well, I don't want to.  But I want to make Him happy and be connected to Him and He's letting me know this is important to Him.  So it is going to be important to me too.

I readily admit I'm scared.  But I'm going to be unsure and I'm going to be unsure in the Catholic Church, since that happens to be where I find myself when God asked.  

I'll keep you posted…