"But Bell Hooks and others were right, that’s not healing. It’s a part of it, but it’s not finishing it. Finishing it happens when we grow brave again and begin to entrust ourselves to people again, engage ourselves to the lifetime of work that true faith is, and learn to attach healthily without putting all of our hope in people and institutions again." -Lore Wilbert
When it comes to my faith, I am "in progress." I believe that whomever is earnest in their faith and not delusional about the world is to some degree in progress, always. There is no finishing because there is no end to the river of crap you have to ford.
I described this sense of limbo in my prior post--the sense that I am ever progressively, precariously crossing a stream of hurt and confusion--stone-by-stone, step-by-step. I once believed the church community was uneven, but that collectively, they became a solid enough foot bridge, a scaffolding, a stabilizing way to embrace God and people.
But, institutions, leaders, and community that once felt stabilizing have become the very obstacle in my path. Instead of being the footbridge, they became rocks, then they became the very river that threatens to disconnect and divide me from from the functional visible church. I've tried, but I fail to connect back to it. The creek between us became a stream, then the stream became a river, and the currents are treacherous.
And this is where I become confused. Maybe that's the problem at its most basic--I'm confused. I have thought one way about Christianity as a Catholic child, yet another way as a teenager who saw the disconnect and was brave enough to call the bluff and pull my chips out. As a young adult, I pushed the chips back in, open to re-entering the conversation. I laid aside my reservations and anger, deciding to trust and learn anew, differently.
The trusting and learning since then has been difficult at best and disastorous at worst. I've been let down by the church more than encouraged. I've wondered if part of my healing will require working through all of those let-downs. They are not petty ones. They are not all the same, though they are all let-downs. I could and have stuffed them down, shoved them in a closet and secured the door, but they grow again. They multiply, they pile upon each other until the closet cannot neatly contain them. They begin to smell until one day you've just had it, had enough, are willing to face whatever is in there.
So what is in there? A lot of rot and junk.
The disconnect is not primarily in the words of Christ or even the Bible where admittedly there is greater room for confusion and disagreement. The disconnect for me is with people. People who have pledged allegance to Christ but behave in ways that are disgraceful to the Kingdom and hurtful to others in big and small ways.
The disconnect is in me being asked to commit to church institutions that have required a lot of inner work and time without reaping fruit or seeing fruit. I see self-sustaining communities that prop each other up often in obligatory, artifical ways. I see individuals who are generally uneducated and blindly trusting, but not in wise ways. I see a whole contingent and class of people who prey on this body of people, predators and charletains. I see earnest but out of touch leaders who continue to try, but are not of much efficacy.
Why? Why continue to invest and try to engage that? I'm not suggesting that we should not engage other people who believe and encourage each other. I'm suggesting that if as an individual, I try and try again to connect to Christians but ultimately fail, wouldn't it make sense to count the cost, step back from the process and wonder if I need to look at the effort anew?
In the end, how do we measure their work? The impact, the value. Is it in numbers? stories? functions?People's feelings? Financial contributions? new converts? the health of old converts? the degree to which the body functions healthily to sustain one another?
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