Wandering the wilderness once again...
Something inside me is percolating. The kind of percolating that led me to karate 15 years ago, to spiritual direction at a monastery 10 years ago, and to chaplaincy almost 5 years ago.
Waiting is hard. Anticipation is riding me like a horrible nightmare. I know transformation and change are sitting around the corner. The thing is, I can avoid it. For a while, I can avoid it. But eventually, I will be changed. It's not like I WANT to stay where I am forever. But I have worked so hard to be where I am right now, the Regan that I am right now. 5 years ago if you had told me the life I lead now would be happening, I'd laugh in your face. Both the joy and the pain, they would seem impossible.
My spiritual home doesn't fit me anymore. I've grown different from it, if I ever really belonged. 10 years in the UCC, and I still feel the love/hate dichotomy of an abusive relationship. The national church often represents the church I want to see, but not always. And the local church only sometimes represents the church I need or want.
When I read the stories and struggles of the feminist theologians who eventually leave the church, I remember thinking things like "I'm grateful for their sacrifice." or "I'm so glad I don't live in the same society they did." or "I understand why they left, but that won't happen to me." Here I am, less than 4 years out of seminary, and I'm already willing to call it quits. After long and agonizing discernment OVER AND FUCKING OVER again. Struggling with decisions to go to seminary instead of a secular grad school, oral reviews and whether to stay silent about what I truly believe just so I can get through the hoops, internships doing things that I loathe just so I can say I did it, whether to get ordained when I truly think the day of the church is OVER. OVER AND OVER being called a heretic, a blasphemer, a hell-bound sinner. Hiding my ordination from fundies who wouldn't talk with a minister with a vagina and serving sacraments to people who don't care or understand what they really mean. Using religious language that I often think has no spiritual weight anymore... not relevant and too tainted to be of any use.
I spent my time delving deeply into the faith tradition I was born into. And quite frankly, I'm over it. I don't really care what old dead men with power say is right or wrong or how I should think. I just really don't give a flying fuck.To be honest, we all know that I didn't ever REALLY care, only in as much that they could be inform me on my own journey, that is.
I'm not sure where my spiritual journey will take me, but I feel like I'm wandering the wilderness once again. Not like the Israelite slaves wandering the desert to get to the home they steal from the Canaanites, but like Hagar, blessed by God, yet shunned by society. Perhaps I just returned to the church like Hagar returns to Abraham's tribe, using his affluence as a shelter to protect her baby until it's time to leave again. I don't know. All I know is, I'm done trying to find wisdom or practices from the church that might help me answer my spiritual problems. I don't find solace or sanctuary in the church fellowship anymore and perhaps I should stop trying.