On Trying to Explain a Living Thing

I can tell that, to some people, I’m terribly offensive now. I didn’t used to be that way (at least I don’t think). I was in the same trenches they were in. We were on the same side. When my paradigm came crashing in, I suppose it’s fair to say that I blew up in the trench, pieces of my dearest thoughts splattering all over treasured friends.

It would have really helped if I’d not been online, co-owning and co-running a big website, blog, and forum for conservative complementarian/patriarchal women. And even better, it would have been nice had I some clue what was happening to me, instead of being a big weeping frothing disaster of bones and flesh. All I knew for sure was that my whole world was coming crashing down—whether right or wrong, it was unstoppable. And when the dust and smoke began to clear, I discovered that my whole world consisted 99.9% of wood, hay, and stubble.

I’d thought it was built on solid bedrock, built on Christ. That’s why I taught those things, that’s why I lived those things. I thought they were Him. But after the shaking, only He was left. And I hardly recognized Him at all. There was just this big gaping hole of nothing—the place where all my neat little conclusions used to be. I realized that my whole world was gone. I’d thought it was built on Christ, but What I thought He was, Who I thought He was, had all burned away.

I say all of that to try and explain that which I cannot seem to explain. I didn’t know what I thought or what I should think, then. I was shell-shocked. But now I’ve admittedly changed many of my strongly held views. Some people are very angry that I am now egalitarian in my views on gender. (It doesn’t matter if I explain that both my personal experience and my Scriptural experience began telling me that I was very wrong–that I cannot support patriarchy and still be consistant with who I see God to be). Some are very angry that I am no longer conservative in my political views. (It doesn’t matter if I explain that I’m not really in any party: I’m just no longer a knee-jerk conservative Republican and I rebel against the false idea that “good Christians” have to be one).

Some people assume all sorts of things about what I think or mean—sort of a, “when in doubt, assume the worst” approach. I admit that I find it painful to be viewed as an enemy instead of a person. And some are very angry that I am anything at all. Once I left their camp, their affection for me evaporated on the spot.

Sometimes love is real, and sometimes it’s just a performance contest—something to the effect of, “You do things my way, and then I’ll grant you my affection.” Conditional love: a love based primarily on outward performance. Not the kind of love that the prodigal son’s father had. You find out if love is real when you stop dancing to the tune.

And my heart is tested in this same way. I really can’t say that I spend a lot of time at the end of the road, waiting in hope, hurting because my love runs deep. Most of the time I find myself identifying with the elder brother in the parable, scowling, grumbling, or happiest when the “bad kid” in the family isn’t doing so hot.

And while it really bothers me that I’m like that, usually I don’t even realize I am. It’s only in retrospect, during the hours when sleep won’t come and I replay events in my mind, realizing just how grace-less I was in my interactions. My friends and aquaintances who continue to hold my former beliefs: do they have the right to continue to hold things dear that I now reject? Do I treat them with grace and honor despite our (now) differences, or do I make them endure the thing I so hate? “Ahem. Perform properly so that I can love you.”

I hate group-think in theory, but group-think is a lot easier to be around. Hey, if everybody does things my way, it sure makes life easier. It sure makes relating easier. Not nearly so messy. We can all just be “like-minded.” I think “like-minded” is just a lace-draped way of saying, “I like myself.” Because if I only want to be around people who think just like I do, then its obvious what I really want to be around. Me.

But I don’t want to be around group-think, not really. It provides a false sense of community, a pretend version of love, but there’s no teeth in it. And besides, there was no group-think when the Star-Flinger left it all and was born disguised in wobbly baby arms and legs. No unanimous consent, no Orthopedic mattresses at night, no adoring throngs that fanned Him with palm branches lest His precious wittle face get sun-burnt. The reason John notes that they spread palms before Him is because it wasn’t a normal event.

Shepherds lead the way—that’s what they do best. So I want to follow, and in so doing I choose this messy complex muddy world, where we must slog through muck in order to love, with no guarantees of being loved in return.