On Our Way To Crazy

I spend too much time worrying about my identity. The problem is that when I get to obsessing, it isn’t about who I am. It’s about who I’m not.

Why am I not part of that group of people? Why don’t they include me? Why don’t I get asked to be on that committee, to attend that party, to hang out with those friends? Why am I so… not?

I like the things I am. I like being a youth pastor, and a wife, and now a mom. I like being kind of funny and easy going and nerdy.

And I don’t think I want to be the things I’m so worried about not being. I’m not cool or flashy, I don’t know how to curl my hair or accessorize or wear heels. I have different tastes and sensibilities and style (or lack of). Even if they wanted me, I wouldn’t fit in. I would be unhappy.

But still. I get down. I look right over all the good things that define me and all the people who I fit in with and who love and support and get me. All I see is where I’m not included, where I’m not invited, where I don’t identify.

I want to be happy in who I am, not unhappy in who I’m not. Especially knowing that being who I’m not wouldn’t make me happy either. I can’t be everything. But I can be good at the things I am. I can own that. I just need to figure out how.

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This is my first attempt at Five Minute Friday.

The season and practice of Lent has always been a tough on for me. I’ve often given things up – sweets, soda, fast food, reading blogs, shopping. Sometimes I’ve even tried to replace those things with something positive, usually prayer or Bible reading. But I’ve never really put my soul into it. It was just something I did.

In the sermon on Sunday, our pastor talked about Lent as an opportunity. A time to take apart the faith we live with every day and look at it a little more closely. Spread out all the pieces, clean them up, make sure they’re still supposed to be there. See if the faith you hold onto still rings true in your life. And, if it doesn’t, dig into that. Take the parts that don’t resonate with you anymore and hold them up. Examine them.

We ended with the Apostle’s Creed and Communion. Before reciting, he encouraged us to really see the words we were saying, and if something didn’t feel right, don’t say that part. Let yourself be honest about where you are. Don’t just go through the motions and sign on to something you’re not so sure about.

So I’m going to try.

I’m not too worried about whether or not Mary was a virgin, or if the garden story is a metaphor, or which parts of Paul are meant to be taken in context. I feel pretty settled on how I view the Bible and what we’re supposed to do with it.

The parts of my faith that need to be examined are the personal ones. See, I am a cynical person. Sarcastic, defensive, uncomfortable with earnestness. I don’t feel an emotional attachment to God. I believe in God, and I believe life is spiritual, and I believe that Jesus is the example of what the body is supposed to do and be. But I don’t know what I think about God being personal.

It used to bum me out when people would talk about how God answered their prayers, or how they could look back at a situation and see how God had guided them through. How he had looked out for them, or kept them safe, or blessed them with a job or a spouse or a child or a new house or a parking space. It all just feels so random… not all believers get those things, and all kinds of people who want nothing to do with God have the same things happen to them. The only conclusion I can come to is that God’s not in the business of affecting those kinds of changes for us. They just happen.

And I’m okay with that. I think I’m more comfortable with a God who doesn’t play favorites or operate randomly. But what it has resulted in is a lack of personal devotion and a cynical heart. Even when I do feel an emotional pull, usually during prayer or music in a church service, I’m pretty quick to write it off. It’s easy to get emotional in a dimly lit room with beautiful music being performed, right? It’s not real.

I think I may have swung too far in the opposite direction. But I think God has room for me there, too.

So my goal for Lent is to try to be more open. Can you give up cynicism for Lent? Because I’m going to try. Cynicism and Chick-Fil-a. Those waffle fries are gonna be the death of me.

I never really planned on writing about this. I don’t like for people to know my business. But it turns out that sometimes when you talk about your life, people care. They listen. They have advice. (Some of it sucks.) They ask questions. It’s helpful. (Sometimes it’s not.)

I have always been… unsure about having kids. I have always wanted them in a very hazy, ambiguous someday in the far away future kind of way, but it’s not something I ever gave a lot of concrete thought to for whatever reason. When people would ask I would just kind of blow them off. Eventually people stopped asking. That was fine with me.

Part of the problem, besides being completely terrified both of the responsibility and what I considered to be the loss of freedom, was my fear of the actual process of pregnancy and childbirth. Fear, and anxiety, and a debilitating sense of oh-my-gosh-there-is-no-way-I-could-ever-do-that-ever-ever-ever. I’m not talking about nervousness. I am talking full-on, counseling-requiring, freak out in the middle of the night anxiety. It is real. I has it.

But finally, after SO MANY CONVERSATIONS about what we want and how to get there and life stages and schedules and blah blah blah, we decided to start trying to get pregnant. I was scared, Aaron was scared, but we made a decision and did not look back.

Months went by. I had it in my head that it would happen fairly quickly. This was based on… nothing. All I could think was that it had taken me so long to decide to try in the first place, surely it would happen quickly before I could change my mind, right? No. Apparently things don’t quite work that way.

We are closing in on two years since we decided to start trying. Obviously, things are not progressing in that area. I wish I had been writing about it all along the process, to help me figure out how I was feeling about everything, but apparently when I say I don’t want people to know my business that sometimes also includes me.

About six months ago we decided to start looking into adoption. I started researching and meeting with social workers and reaching out to friends who’ve adopted. A lot of what I found was really encouraging. Friends who were matched within a few months, friends who found a baby through another friend, people who had massively successful fundraisers and a surprisingly quick process. But a whole mess of it was really discouraging, too. People who had to wait years. People who are still waiting. The thousands and thousands of dollars it can take to adopt, even if you do it domestically. The questionable ethics of agencies and birth mother fees. The kids who don’t attach or adapt. Adoptions that fell through at the last minute.

Turns out there’s no easy way to have kids. I probably should have known that.

Next month we are officially starting the domestic adoption process. There are a few things we need to take care of first, things I think will be simple but probably won’t be. We will sign up with a social worker and complete a home study, and then we will wait. And I want to talk about it.

One of the counselors I met with told me the best thing to do when you’re ready to adopt is just to talk to people. And, she said, it will suck sometimes. Because people are crazy, even when they’re trying to help. They will tell you crazy stories, and say insensitive things, and sometimes you will want to break down crying in the middle of a conversation. But the more people who know, the more people who can potentially help. You never know whose neighbor’s coworker’s sister’s babysitter’s cousin will find out she’s pregnant and decide to put the baby up for adoption. And I want that cousin to talk to the babysitter who talks to the sister who talks to the coworker who talks to the neighbor who knows us and our story and gets us in touch with each other.

Adoption happens by way of the gossip mill, apparently. I can roll with that.

But I want to write about it more. I want to share the process with our friends and family. I needed to get you guys caught up. Here we are. Let’s do this thing.

I was a sophomore in high school when I became a music snob.

There was a guy, John, in my English class that I knew but didn’t really know, you know? You know. One day, out of the blue, he got my number from the class list and called me. He thought we should be friends. We started talking and the conversation quickly came around to music. Favorite bands, favorite songs, stuff we hated. I had recently been gifted the entire Beatles Anthology and was eager to discuss it. We awkwardly talked about how, like, so totally awesome the Beatles are and shared our favorite songs. His was “Strawberry Fields”. Mine was “Yesterday”.

Then it got interesting. Instead of continuing to be an awkward 16-year-old boy fumbling his way through a conversation with a girl he liked, he shifted into teaching mode. He refused to believe that “Yesterday” was really my favorite Beatles song. He told me that I was being a lazy listener, and that I needed to look deeper than the surface and find songs that spoke to me. “Everybody likes ‘Yesterday’”, he told me. “Find the song that’s yours.”

Pretty wise stuff from a dorky high school kid. I don’t remember much else about him, but I really took our conversation that night to heart. I didn’t want to be a lazy listener. So I listened to all the Beatles music I could get my hands on. Over and over and over. I learned that I liked the later Beatles better than the earlier, and that I liked the ones with the crazy lyrics. I discovered songs like “Across the Universe” and “I’m Only Sleeping” and “Something”. I found the songs that were mine.

His advice that night has carried over into other parts of my life, too, particularly my faith. I developed (what I hope is) a healthy skepticism toward the easy. I never wanted to believe something just because someone told me that was how it worked. The problem with operating that way, though, it that it takes work. Paying attention is hard.

But I think that’s how it’s supposed to be. We’re meant to dig deep and search and ask questions. Not because we’re working towards a goal of having all the answers and finally figuring it out but because the journey IS the goal. God honors the questioner and the process of questioning. I’m learning to believe that if we were just meant to glean the highlights and easily define what it means to be a follower of Jesus, then we wouldn’t have the book we have with all its different writers and crazy narratives and confusing contradictions. If it was about finding the right answers, we wouldn’t have a book at all, we’d have a pamphlet. Maybe with some bullet points.

In The Sacredness of Questioning Everything, David Dark puts it like this:

We should take advantage of every chance we have to lose our religion. As wonderful as our religion might feel, it’s never so fresh that we should settle for it. A living religiosity will be sustained by questions, revelations, and a determination to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

We are called to be active participants in our faith, not to sit and watch and consume. Called to make room for new ideas and fresh revelations and challenging people. If we let our beliefs get so set in stone that they can’t be broken, we miss out on something beautiful. We were created with brains and intellect and reasoning skills, and we don’t have to let them go unused. The questions are what cracks our hard hearts and shallow faith. And the cracks are how the light gets in.

So thanks, John Judy, wherever you are. Thanks for taking a chance, thanks for “Only a Northern Song”, and thanks for teaching me to pay attention.

(This post can also be found on GracePointe Conversations, our church’s new blog site. You should read it. There’s lots from Aaron and he’s a smart one.)

Have you ever realized that something you’ve always believed about yourself may not actually be true?

I think maybe I’m not very nice. I KNOW. I can feel your shock from here in my weirdly uncomfortable IKEA chair. But seriously. I think it’s true.

I mean, I’m friendly. I’m social. And I’m super nice and thoughtful in the context of my closest circle and the youth group. But on the whole? Not so much. I’m cynical and defensive and petty. I don’t give people the benefit of the doubt. I expect them to disappoint me, to hurt me, to put me down. It keeps me from getting hurt if I see it coming. But I don’t think it’s working for me anymore.

Apparently when people are caring and open and interested in your life, they expect the same in return. And when you continue to be guarded and judge-y and closed off, it hurts their feelings. Most people just let those things go and stop being so interested in you. That’s what I would do.

But sometimes someone speaks up. And it hurts. It’s hard. It is most definitely NOT FUN. Your defenses go up, their defenses go up, voices are raised and tears are cried. You leave, not feeling better, but feeling defeated. You are angry and hostile and LOUD. (So loud.) You write them off. You write everybody off.

And then you think about it. You concede that maybe they had a couple of good points. (YOU DID TOO, LEST ANYONE FORGET.) You spend some time thinking about that second circle of relationships, the one full of people you don’t know as well and aren’t as comfortable with, but who are active in your life and aren’t going anywhere. You realize you maybe aren’t as reciprocal in some of those relationships as you probably should be. You could maybe cut some people some slack.

AND IT SUCKS.

But it looks like part of being an adult is learning how to navigate these situations. If you see a deficiency in the way you operate (or have one pointed out whether you like it or not), you have to do something about it, right? You can’t just let it be how you are. (Can you? Could I get away with that?) So I am trying. I don’t want to. But I am trying.

IT IS SO ANNOYING.

I had a hard time when I first started going to church back in middle school. I blame my dad. If I learned anything from him, it was to think for myself. Don’t take anyone’s word for anything. If you believe something, BELIEVE it, because at the end of the day you have to answer to yourself, not anyone else.

As a 30-year-old person, that advice makes total sense. It is invaluable. It has helped make me who I am. But as a 14-year-old, those ideas made me crazy, especially when I found myself in Southern Baptist Youth Group Land. (I didn’t know that was A Place when I was there. But, oh, how I can see it now.) Everyone in SBYGL believed the same things and knew all the answers to all the questions. They had it down. I? Did not.

Youth group had a lot of things going for it: my friends were there, we did fun things, there were cute boys. But I zoned out when it got to the serious stuff. I think the biggest problem I had was how cut and dried everything was. The entire Bible was boiled down into a few bullet points that everyone understood and applied to their lives. There was a lot of talk about having a ‘relationship with God’, but I didn’t connect to that at all. I would get so frustrated because it seemed like the God everyone else was in relationship with was ignoring me. And there was a whole mess of stuff in the Bible that didn’t make sense or didn’t align with the bullet points, and I couldn’t figure out why no one was talking about that stuff.

I don’t say all of that to implicate my youth group. They very well could have been addressing all of those things when I wasn’t paying attention. (See above re: cute boys.) Being wrong and looking stupid are two things I am very self-conscious about, and it was even worse as a teenager. I certainly would have never spoken up or asked questions. I didn’t want to be the only one who didn’t get it, so I just rolled with it and played the part and wore the t-shirts. (I wish there hadn’t been t-shirts.)

That environment, coupled with my insecurity, led to a young adult faith that didn’t amount to much. God wasn’t personal to me. I didn’t feel connected to him. He felt like a guy in the sky who was really concerned with my behavior but not so much with who I was. I believed in God, for sure – I knew there was more to life than what I could see. But I didn’t appreciate the fact that he wasn’t all that interested in us knowing each other.

That’s why, when I read this passage in Susan Isaacs’ Angry Conversations With God: A Snarky But Authentic Spiritual Memoir (what a great title), I knew exactly how she felt.

When I think of the people whose character I admire, they’ve all walked through deserts or hells far worse than mine. And when they got to the other side–the ones who did get to the other side–they always said God got them through it. They have a peace and a friendship with God that I want. But the problem is, the man who’s stuck in the desert because God put him there looks exactly like the man who’s stuck in the desert because he’s lost. And I don’t know which one I am. I don’t know if I’m here to find friendship with God or if I’ve been left to die.

My ex used to get angry when I said that. He would say, “God isn’t personal. God isn’t good or bad. God is like science. God just is.” But even with science… Look at the stars. You see such beauty and order, and you sense the Thought that went into their making. But if that thoughtfulness is not extended to me, then all that order and beauty is merely cold and sterile space that mocks me because I’ve been excluded from it.

If God wants to burn up everything useless in my life, amen to that. But I want to know whether or not this sorrow has an end. Do these longings in my heart for love and purpose mean anything? I say yes. Is my need for God just misplaced longing that has no place to be satisfied? I say no. The body thirsts because it needs water and water exists. The soul longs for purpose because it needs it, and because it exists. And I wouldn’t long for God if he didn’t exist. I am taking this personally because I am personal. And I don’t think that an impersonal God could create humans to be personal. So I’m taking this personally from a personal God.

My life and my faith journey have brought me a long way from SBYGL. I do believe that God is a personal God. I don’t think I’ve been left in the desert to die, no matter how much it may seem like I have. I rarely feel it, but I’m learning that it’s not about feeling. I see God in my community, in the books I read, in conversations with junior high girls. The boundaries of my world are bigger, grayer, more forgiving. I believe that the thoughtfulness that brings beauty and order to the stars does the same for my life. And you can’t sum that up in bullet points.

Yesterday I had lunch with a freshman girl who was really upset about her faith. She’s been visiting another, more charismatic church with her family and is really concerned about how her response to the music is so much different from the people there. She’s worried that because she doesn’t jump around and wave her arms and fall out that she’s not as ‘close to God’ as they are.

We had a good talk about how people are wired differently and how your emotions aren’t as tied to the status of your faith as it seems like they are. How there is nothing wrong with her for not being a jumper/waver/faller any more than there is with them for being the opposite. How it’s a lot like any other relationship… sometimes you’re super emotionally high and everything is lovey-dovey wonderful, but most of the time it’s just normal life together. We spent a long time discussing what ‘normal life together’ with God looks like.

I’ve been going through a pretty major faith shakeup over the last couple of years, and the last several months in particular. It’s a tricky thing, trying to figure out what you believe while trying to teach kids how to figure out what they believe. I keep trying to write about it here, but the white box of death is too intimidating and I end up looking at pictures of barn weddings for my recently-engaged sister. It feels like I can’t write about where I am now because I haven’t been writing about where I was then, and I can’t write about any of it with authority because I don’t have any confidence in it. Ugh.

I have a lot of questions without a lot of answers. And I have a lot of kids with a lot of questions. And I am learning that the questions are the place where we can be together. I can’t say anything to them with any authority if I’m not being honest. So when they say they don’t understand why God doesn’t speak to them they way he seems to speak to other people, I don’t try to explain. I can’t. But I can say that I have felt the way they feel, have the same questions they have, get frustrated by the same uncertainties they do. I can talk about how I don’t have a lot of experience with those big spiritual moments, but I can look back at my life and see God moving in my life through community, through books, through them.

I don’t know where this path is taking me. But I believe that it is the right one for me. And I believe that it’s the right one for my students. I spent a lot of time in church as a high schooler feeling like something was wrong with me because it didn’t all sit as well with me as it seemed to with everyone else. In the midst of my own personal confusion and searching, what I know for sure is that kids need a place to be who they are. More than the specifics of their beliefs, more than knowing all the answers, more than staying out of trouble, it matters that they know they are loved. Church needs to teach them that, and that’s something I can do.

It’s the last week of my 20′s. I am almost officially old. OLD. A real grown up. This does not seem right.

I’m feeling pretty good about it, really. I’ve been having a lot of those wine- and music-fueled evenings where you talk, not about life, but about LIFE and where you are and where you want to be and where you thought you would be and is this the right path and should I maybe go somewhere else and what happens from here. It’s hard to know, though, if those would be happening anyway, given the way the past few months have shaken out in the Manes house. But that’s a post for another day.

I have a feeling 30 is going to be good to me. But first I need to squeeze as much as I can out of 29. So far that includes a Josh Ritter show, a trip to Holiday World, a Waterdeep show in the park and knocking out as much of my list as is humanly possible in seven days. Sounds pretty good.

I’ve never been big into worship music and singing at church. It has always made me feel really self-conscious. I’m not very expressive, I don’t really raise my hands, I always feel like everyone is looking at me. It’s not something I’ve ever really been able to shake.

On Sunday mornings I am usually dealing with kids or talking to parents or trying to calm down before I have to do the announcements. I sing when it’s singing time, but it doesn’t really feel like personal time, if that makes sense. It feels like work time. And that’s okay.

Last night I went to a local college/young adult service called Kairos. Our music pastor at church is one of the worship leaders there, and she invited the staff to come because they were doing a night of music. I went because I am a nice person and a couple of my college kids were going. It’s one of those big, flashy events with cool lights and several screens and projections on the walls that look like stained glass. The music is really loud. Everyone on stage looks like a country music star. Everyone in the crowd is under 23. It is so not my scene.

So imagine my surprise when I found myself crying by the third song.

It had been a long, long time since I’d been a part of a service of any kind that I didn’t have any responsibility in. It was dark and loud and crowded, and I got to just stand there, completely anonymously, and participate. There was no way anyone could hear me singing. The chances were slim that anyone could even see me. I could listen, and sing, and really pay attention to the words. I could focus. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been able to focus during a service? No? Well. A while.

I did not expect last night to have any kind of effect on me. (I don’t know what it says about me that I went into it so cynically.) I definitely did not expect to find solitude and freedom surrounded by 1400 flashy strangers. But I did. And I needed it desperately. And I am very, very thankful.

Oh no, You never let go
Through the calm and through the storm
Oh no, You never let go
In every high and every low
Oh no, You never let go
Lord, You never let go of me

When I started my job, I had no real idea what I was walking into. I knew I loved students, and I knew I loved my church, and I knew that my job with Reba was not the long-term solution for me. So I jumped in.

Do you now, in the presence of this church, commit yourself to this sacred trust and its attendant responsibilities?

I didn’t know what it looked like to work in ministry. I didn’t know how to have a pastor who was also your boss. I didn’t know how difficult it would be to balance work and personal time when so much of it was one and the same.

Will you, who are called to lead, still humbly follow pastoral direction?

I didn’t know how to teach. I didn’t know how to write Bible study lessons. I didn’t know what was important for students to learn about God and faith. I didn’t know what they would be interested in and what would make them think and what would change their lives.

Will you be diligent in your study of the Holy Scriptures, workmen who need not be ashamed, rightly dividing and applying its precepts?

But I did know how much they needed to be loved. And I did know what a difference it makes for a teenager to have an adult who cares about their well being. I knew that the only way they would care about God and faith and the Bible after high school was if someone gave them room to ask questions and learn and doubt in a safe place. I knew I could provide them that.

Will you undertake to be a faithful, loving and courageous pastor to all who need your care?

I learned quickly. Trial by fire. I learned that this was no ordinary job. I learned that who I was at home mattered in my work. I learned that a job you love can come at a cost. I weighed that cost daily. I struggled and struggled and struggled. I tried to be a good person and care for the people in my new world, even when it hurt and burned and they didn’t care for me in return.

Will you pattern your life and ministry after the life and ministry of your Lord and will you first teach by example what you will teach by words that the cause of God be not mocked?

I learned the value of words and the weight of actions and that how you speak matters more sometimes even than what you’re saying. I am still learning how to keep my defenses in check. How to turn the other cheek. How to hold my tongue when necessary.

Will you be a person of prayer and private devotion: a contemplative shepherd who spends time alone with God?

I know now that I can’t do this on my own. That no combination of organization and planning and personality can make this job happen. You can’t give what you don’t have, and trying will knock you out faster than LL Cool J. I am learning to take time for myself when I need it, whether that’s a quick road trip or a weekend in Texas or an afternoon at the park. It’s part of my job. It has to happen or I am ineffective before I even get started.
……………………

This past Sunday, I stood in front of my family, my students, my friends and my church body and said “I Will” and “I Do” to the requirements of an ordained pastor. The spiritual giants in my life stood over me, laid hands on me, robed me and presented me to the congregation. I helped lead communion for the first time. I went from pastor to Pastor.

May the Lord who has given you the will to promise these things forever give you the grace and power to perform them.

Amen, and amen.