Morning Time

Mozart - a great way to start any morning...

I have never been a morning person. In fact, my mother used to call me “Evil-ina” as a child when I reluctantly descended the stairs.  For me, morning was always the time to shrink back underneath the covers and pretend that just a few more minutes of closing your eyes in the darkness would do the trick.  These days, mornings are my favorite – especially days like today when I don’t have to be anywhere. I rather enjoy stumbling around the house in my bathrobe searching for that first, elusive cup of coffee, strains of “The Golden Girls” on the tv in other room as I stare blankly out the window, ignoring the lawn that needs to be cut, reveling in all the changing colors, but not the neighbors leaves on the grass…ah, fall.  

I work from home most Wednesday, although things seem to get scheduled on these days with annoying frequency.  In theory, Wednesdays – at least the mornings – are supposed to be all about me.  It’s not selfish.  It’s survival. 

At this morning’s brain feeding at the time-sucking trough of Ye Facebook Oracle, I came across 2 articles – this one here  about understanding and living with the things we feel like we’ve lost (even though, perhaps, we haven’t lost them yet), and this one here about Millennials and high church.  These articles seemingly have nothing do with each other, but the combination of the two unleashed some powerful stuff.

I had an immediate, irrepressible urge to write.  For me, writing is much like music and the need to get on the instrument - gotta have it, gotta have it now, when the heart says it’s time.  Screw the world and its schedule.  It’s not a need, it’s a NEED.  I opened up my blog interface, was assaulted by that dark page with the red candles on it, and I just couldn't do it.  I clicked the “x” and moved on to Word.

Under the Cassock.  A cassock that has been a suffocating, torturous presence – a reminder of hurt and loss, of unanswered prayers.  A hurt that is deep, because it is mixed with joy and success and music and life changing opportunities.  I can’t integrate these things together in my mind.  These feelings can’t possibly coexist.  I don’t want this cassock anymore.  I don’t believe in it

Or do I?

I have struggled mightily with my beliefs and with my faith.  Do I believe in God?  Yes.  Probably.  Most of the time.  Probably all of the time, but sometimes I don’t want to – not always because of God, but because of all the ‘stuff” that comes with God, even though it really has no place there. “They” – you know, those people - say that “God’s presence is with us through the people around us.”  Really?  Even when those you love and to whom you are closest disappoint you and fail you in massively destructive ways?  What a cruel joke.  Some other “they” will probably say, “Well, Nicole, if your faith was stronger you would accept that this is God’s path for you, and would just bow your head lower and pray for Jesus to take all your pain away.” 

I think “they” are full of it. 

God doesn't promise that to take all our pain away – not in this lifetime.  God promises to be a presence in our lives through EVERY time, difficult and joyful.  And guess what – his presence mostly comes through those people up there who, at times, fail and disappoint us.  See?  Here I am making arguments for God in the midst of doubting him.  Perhaps I was just well indoctrinated as a child.  Or, perhaps faith is a living, breathing, organic being that can never tolerate being static.  <Sigh>  Sometimes the truth is annoying. 

Do I believe in The Church?  No.  Absolutely not.  It’s a dream that will never become a reality.  Too many people posturing, hurting, hiding, making it all about themselves instead of about God.  “But, Nicole,” you may say, “don’t you ‘work’ in a church?  Doesn't your ‘work’ require you to fill a pastoral and educational role that, if you really don’t believe in The Church, would make you a hypocrite?” 

Why yes, yes it does.  Well, in a way.  I work in that little community because I love those people.  Some of us have been through quite a bit together, and some of us are making new, awesome memories as we speak. And throughout all these things, we come and worship together every week, even when we don’t want to be there.  There are times when I cannot wrap my mind around these things coexisting together; times when all that hurt, loss and unanswered prayer seems insurmountable, and the best thing to do is turn your back on it and walk slowly and deliberately towards something else.  But then those NEW things come bouncing along and for just a few minutes, I can forget about the hurt.  And the hurt drifts farther, and farther away.  Don’t get me wrong – it's still there.  Just in a fuzzy, indiscernible shape on the horizon.  Some wise person might say, “Well, duh, Nicole, that is The Church.”  Wish I could see it.

I used to have a lot of interesting conversation with friends and colleagues about faith and church.  I used to enjoy them.  Now they just make my head hurt.  I learned a lot about God as a child – hard to avoid it as a Preacher's Kid, but we tried our best.  I also heard a lot of people talk about their relationships with God.  Most of this talk happened on Sundays mornings in some liturgical or teaching context.  What I never really learned is that doubt is ok.  Doubt about anything, really.  How else can we really learn what is truth to us if we don’t explore every side of that truth?  That would have been a nice little nugget to pack away as a child – ignored at first, like every other seemingly unimportant parental teaching, but then discovered later on like your favorite piece of candy in your pocket when lunch is still an hour away and you skipped breakfast.

I suppose the beauty in all this is that different people see different things, and THAT is the beauty of life, the very life of what is beauty.  I can love it, you can hate it, and yet “it” is still there for someone else to interpret and breathe in.  I think, perhaps, there is a wee bit of The Church in that thought.