Grey is a Beautiful Color

For some reason today is the day for a more serious post. Ever since moving back to Kansas City I've thought quite a bit about who I was in high school and then college. I really grew and changed in Denver...partly due to seminary, a lot due to marriage, and mostly just from growing up. The most tangible thing that has changed for me is my faith. My faith is so different from what it used to be that I hesitate to even blog about it because telling everyone what I believe is what I USED to do. But, I'm an external processor so here we go...

I met with my college roommate today for a play date and had the urge to stand on top of one of the Step 2 play structures and proclaim how much I've changed and grown since 1999. Here is this amazing woman that I never really got to know in college because I was living in my narrow bubble. I want to apologize to everyone I run into from my past about parts of the person I was, especially in college.

I was introduced to the idea of faith in high school through a ministry called Young Life. For the most part I remained fairly open minded and well rounded in high school. I was friends with a lot of people in many different circles. After my senior year I went to work at camp for the first time and came back...different.

My view and scope of God and people started to get VERY small and VERY judgmental. There was one right way to have faith. That included a daily quiet time, memorizing verses from the bible, only hanging out with other Christians so as not to corrupt yourself, no drinking or sex, and seeking out "mountain top/spiritual high" retreats and camp experiences. Enter my friends at the Tri-Delt house. Very few women were living in my box at the time, so I had very few friends. Looking back, I think my personality needed black and white answers to feel good about myself. I was struggling with weight issues and needed to become a super-Christian to compensate. I was asking the question, "How do I have faith in college?" The answer was simple: do these things and be part of this campus ministry and you will be a "strong" believer.

The problem wasn't that I had faith. The problem was that it became my life. I wasn't open to new ideas and experiences BECAUSE of my narrow faith. It was my way or the highway, so most people in my mind were cruising down I-70 (they were probably headed toward the West Coast where all those liberal hippies live). With each year of college my thinking became more judgmental. My friends and mentors were telling me my thinking was "right" or "good," but deep down I knew better. I had to escape. So, I graduated early and moved to Boulder. I played my guitar on the street and worked in a public school to earn money. I didn't go to church or seek out Christian friends. It was the most open minded thing I had done in 4 years.

Enter David...back at spiritual wonderland, i.e. the camp where we both worked, David began to catch my eye. Here was this guy that had traveled all over the world, was pretty open minded, had rejected his black and white Baptist upbringing but still had faith. Hmmm. So in true spiritual high form we got married. FAST. Finally I can have sex. What a relief.

Our first two years in Denver were when things began to unravel for me. No one was praising me anymore for getting up early to read my bible. David wasn't really interested in going to church or reading his bible everyday. I sat in seminary classes and became more confused than ever by all the different ways to translate scripture. I became exposed to the world around me and saw some not so pretty stuff. HOLY SHIT. Faith is not a matter of black and white answers! Why do some people not have a home when others live in mansions? I don't know. How could God let some kids starve when I get to eat out all the time? I don't know. Why didn't I "feel" as close to God as I did when I was working at camp? I don't know. Why was the church shunning homosexuals or AIDS victims when they are the ones Jesus would have loved the most? I don't know. Why does the church I go to seem to care more about their new building campaign than the people without a winter coat down the street? I don't know. Why did all the "godly and submissive" wives I know really seem to be resentful and angry along with emotionally unhealthy? I don't know. With 6 Billion people on the planet, how could there only be one road to heaven? I REALLY don't know.

Then there I was in year four of living away from Answerville. For the first time since high school I have gay friends and alcoholic friends and party friends and Buddist friends and Latino friends. David and I were attending a church that cares more for their neighbors than whether the sermon envoked an emotional response. We still believed in God and had faith, it just looked incredibly different than it did before. Things were grey, and I was at peace with myself and in my relationships.

You know what is coming next, don't you. David decided that more than anything else he was passionate about people discovering their cultural identities and applied to several PhD programs, one of which was KU. I was pregnant, so we moved on home and immediately went through shell shock. I hadn't kept up with many people from high school when I was more free, so I jumped back in with the college crowd. I figured I could be my new, open-minded self even with my old friends. I'm sad to report that for the most part those friendships have not worked out very well. We had based our friendships on being like-minded in our faith, and since I now see faith as just a part of my life instead of my whole life it was hard to know where to begin with people. We also began at a church that didn't fit so well with our new selves either.

And so for the past year we have been left to again define who we are, what we want to teach our son about life, and who we want to associate with. We are not sure about the typical, evangelical, American church. So, we haven't gone to church very much. We love our gay neighbors and family members who have never "proclaimed Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior." We try not to say things anymore like, "God is so good" or "God has a plan" because sometimes the world is pretty crappy. We are registered democrats because we believe that people need help. And you know what? No one knows for sure what happens when you die. I do believe there is a beautiful place like heaven, but I also think there will be a lot more people there than I ever imagined.

So, to close my longest blog post ever, no, we are not cynical anti-Christians. Yes, we are going to raise Thomas as part of a church community. (We think we found one yesterday www.saintandrewcc.org that could be a good fit). Yes, we believe in God and that Jesus Christ was his Son who came into the world and died for us. Yes, we believe the church's main role is to promote social justice and civil rights, not to get your friends to come hang out with you over a donut. Yes, we are praying for soft, understanding hearts, especially with our friends who the black and white answers still work for. And no, we hope never to jump back into the hard-core evangelical circles we have both worked hard to break free from. Oh and no, we probably won't promote Young Life or Youth Group to Thomas unless it aligns with our/his values. Everything else we aren't sure about, but I do know one thing. Sometimes, even when your personal shopper that you won a free session with at an auction tells you grey isn't a good color for you, grey can be a pretty beautiful color, especially when you only used to wear black or white.