Two Parallel Tracks – Healing and Deconstructing

As I reflected on the past four years since we left Bethlehem, I realize that I’ve been on two parallel tracks:  healing and deconstructing.  When Bethlehem blew up, it felt like it launched me onto two parallel journeys, one of trying to heal and recover from the wounds, and one of rethinking and sorting through what I believe and how I want to do faith.  There’s overlap between the two paths, but they’re also distinct. 

The first journey, trying to heal, has involved things like:

• going to counseling
• processing with our monthly church harm support group
• talking with friends about what happened and trying to make sense of it
• finding a new church (me) and taking a break from church (Mickey)
• taking a pause on certain things that felt painful
• very slowly attempting to trust pastors again
• journaling
• finding bitesize ways to read Scripture and pray that didn’t feel overwhelming
• finding rituals to process grief and anger

 

I’ve had the image of being in a hospital trying to recover, with these things as physical therapy, trying to heal deep wounds.

 

The second track I’m on is detangling my faith, e.g. sorting out what is bad that I want to get rid of and what is good that I want to keep.  Sometimes I use the word “deconstructing” but that word means different things to different people, so sometimes it’s easier to just call it detangling.  I’ve also been discovering new and gentler approaches to faith.  This path has included:

• trying to get my head around fundamentalism (still a work in progress!  It’s really slippery.)
• reading widely, including authors I would have dismissed before
• trying on a more ecumenical attitude to other denominations (this has been largely shaped by my new church plus Bonnie Kristian’s book “A Flexible Faith”)
• rethinking women’s roles (at my new church on Sunday mornings women pray! and read Scripture!  and make announcements!  It’s wonderful.)
• realizing the church is so much bigger and wider than I realized
• discovering the world of spiritual formation and contemplative practices
• exploring Anglicanism (liturgy, saying the creeds each week, a service that centers the Eucharist rather than the sermon, the church calendar)
• learning to be more comfortable with not having all the answers

 

Much of this detangling has been eye-opening and freeing and refreshing.  And parts of it have been really hard and confusing and overwhelming. 

 

It’s been a really intense four years, and just having these two categories in my mind has been a helpful way of sorting and interpreting things.

 

The image is also helpful because it lets me pivot between the two paths, based on what I have bandwidth for.  E.g. early on there were a few big issues I knew I wanted to rethink, and I kept telling myself, “I’m focusing on healing for now.  I’m going to counseling, resting, and slowly trying out a new church.  These are fascinating issues, but I’ll tackle them later.”  And sometimes I’d see an issue and think, “Ooh, that’s interesting.  I want to dive in and read books and consider other views on this.”  And I’d realize I was focusing on the detangling side of things.  

 

In my case, church harm launched me onto both paths.  E.g. I got deeply hurt and therefore 1) I needed to heal and 2) I wanted to rethink everything in order to dig out all the junk.  But I realize that’s not the case for everyone.  For instance, I have friends who were so deeply hurt by Bethlehem that they went to counseling to recover, yet they don’t seem to be detangling their faith at all.  (Some have stayed in churches that I couldn’t stomach right now!)  And some people start deconstructing without having experienced church harm.  In the introduction to her book “An Untidy Faith” Kate Boyd describes how her own detangling journey started with a trip overseas where she saw people from a different denomination practice their faith in beautiful ways that didn’t fit her theological framework.  That story felt validating to me, that all of this detangling isn’t just a knee-jerk reaction to the junk at Bethlehem.  Well, maybe for me it is.  But that doesn’t mean it’s not legitimate.

 

I often say that Bethlehem cracked my faith wide open and suddenly everything was up for grabs.  I was so deeply entrenched in that system that I don’t think I ever would have started detangling without such a traumatic event to wake me up.  But I’m so grateful to be on the detangling path.  It’s been so freeing to find gentler approaches to faith.  Maybe I'll write a future post about all the benefits of leaving Bethlehem and how grateful I am for all that I’m learning.