Grace

I awoke around 2 am, shoes still on my feet, glasses snarled in my hair, and my face pressed into the book I was reading when the long nights of baking pumpkin rolls finaly caught up with me. All is Grace. Brennan Manning's poignant memoir and most recent book. If you don't know Brennan Manning, go read The Ragamuffin Gospel, and then any of his others you might find. I am not going to give a full-blown review here. I'll just say his words have given me courage to live in grace more often than I could begin to detail.

In the last few months I have struggled so much with the honest expression of self that I've not been able to put a single meaningful word to print. One case of self-doubt after another, worried I'd offend or embarrass people who care about me, people I love very much, people who are embedded in my heart. But living unexpressed creates it own sense of shame, and that isn't the life I want to live.

So, for those about to read this, I want you to know from the start that I love you very much-just as you are-and I don't need you to embrace my spiritual or political views to walk in that love with me. I do need the wide open space to walk my own spiritual path, to be free to express it, and to be honest about who I am. 

This will just have to be the feeble beginings of my story.

On Easter Sunday I awoke prepared to go to the church I had been attending regularly for a little more than a year. In less time than it took to get dressed, I undressed, pulled shorts over a swimsuit, grabbed my eleven year old son, Noah, and our dog, Ariel, and headed to Bethel Beach, our little bit of heaven in rural Mathews County, Virginia. My husband, David, attended service without us.

If we had started that morning looking for God, I think I'd have to say that we found him everywhere--in the sunspeckled rippled water at low tide, in the call of the seagulls, in the sweet smell of the saltmarsh and in the sparkle of Noah's eyes as we danced and laughed and splashed. I felt blessed. I felt renewed. I felt loved.

What a beautiful Easter Sunday. I have yet to return to church.

David has never asked why I stopped attending, and I am profoundly thankful that he hasn't.  I still can't quite articulate the response. It has something to do with too many rules and rigidity, with the expectation that we all come to church for a singular truth. It has something to do with the views that there exists only one true interpretation of the Bible, that the Jesus club and heaven is exclusive beyond measure, and it has something to do with the idea that those of us who express faith differently will spend an eternity in hell. I don't even believe in the hell of the eternal fire and gnashing of teeth, but this line of thinking has a tendancy to get under my skin despite.

My core beliefs can be summed up in two short phrases: Grace is everything. Love wins. Beyond that, I believe that the Jesus message is bigger than the customary literal Biblical interpretation allows. I believe my best life is one lived out of compassion. Love first; understand later. I believe we are our brother's keepers and that loving our neighbors should have global implications and transcend race, religion, politics, cultural heritage and economy. Archbishop Desmond Tutu said it well "My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together."

Leaving church also has something to do with too much  fundamentalist-bent religion at home. To say that it has been difficult building a life with such opposing viewpoints is an understatement. But it is not without its tender moments and laughter at the insanity of it all. David is also a political conservative and I would have to say my political leanings are to the far left...so just imagine. We don't have many dull moments, but there are often long pauses when we dare not speak. Grace gets me through the tough times.

Life finds me at a time when I am unsure of where the path next turns.  There are times when I imagine finding the church with those wide open spaces where I would be free to journey and discover, where it is okay to be different, where there are neither rules nor boxes; where Noah could learn from multiple perspectives and feel loved and at home and at peace, wrapped in the blanket of grace, knowing, always knowing, that he is loved unconditionally.

There are also times when I feel an intense need to go on a long walkabout-- just pack up the Thoreau and go. But, I am a mother and an insulin dependant diabetic. I will stay at the job and the health insurance plan for now (and the job involves working with some amazing kids... it isn't half bad). Grace will find me where I am.

One piece of the puzzle for internal peace and happiness came suddenly into place on a drive home from work a few months ago. On the radio someone was talking about retirement savings. This is the point when my gut reaction is to turn the radio abpruptly off -- I have always thought "retirement" was far beyond my wallet. Suddenly a new plan came into focus. A blessing. I share this skeleton of a plan for the first time ever: A time will come when Noah is off at college and finding his own way in the world, and I will begin again to find mine... in poverty.  And I am excited about it! A sell-all and a move  to a place where I can be of service to someone who needs a hand, a chance to care for "the least of these." When the time comes, I feel confident that I will find just the right place/s. A long walkabout of service, perhaps. This is  is the piece that I am missing now. It is the "more" I think I've been needing all along. Grace will get me there.

In the meantime, I read, I contemplate, I learn, I teach, I do. Life is beautiful. There are many people who through their writing have helped me feel less crazy than I did awhile back: Brennan Manning whose sermons on grace and God's unconditional love sustain me, facebook friends and Divine Nobodies Jim Palmer and Donna Pratt Ridge who inspire honest self-expression (my apologies for not  yet  making the Divine Nobody call), Brian McLaren who always has something to teach me thru his wisdom packed books and daily blog, and my friend Bert White who writes so eloquently on Extravagant Grace  and provided an awesome reading list when it was really needed.

So this is just the begining. More to come. :)

Peace and love, K