When I first moved to town, I couldn't find the right church. This doesn't seem like a big deal; a neotranscendentalist is basically a Universalist or a catholic, depending on your point of view. Surely there was a liberal church in this Liberal city to suit my needs.
I began with the church from which I initially felt my calling; the UUs. The First UU was nice, large, central... but was a bit far from our first place, and it had that banal feel that many of the larger churches gain. We were greeted by Greeters, not by anyone actually interested in why we were there. They had also, apparently, just begun a search for a new minister because the old one did not suit the needs of half the congregation. Walking in felt akin to being in a friend's house growing up when their parents were in the midst of a particularly nasty divorce. There were groups for the old minister and against, and each group would congregate with their own, creating a rather unpleasant atmosphere for new seekers to stumble in upon.
We found a fledgling UU church closer to us. It was, in fact, so young that they had not a building of their own. I would get there early enough to help them set up chairs, and though funds were not plentiful we donated enough to purchase three hymnals (two for the church, one which I purchased for personal use so as not to use their small collection and also for the edifying ability to learn their beautiful songs on my own). They waxed historic about the American Transcendentalists and spoke on the love and beauty of nature, but there was no feeling of entrance into the community. Once the sermon was over, a core group would gather for coffee and to be bestowed a kind word was a giddy feeling indeed. Once, in reply to a compliment given (this person had a particularly lovely handlebar mustache...and as someone that had recently moved from San Francisco, I was very impressed indeed..impressed enough to tell it's owner that it was a very fine mustache), I received the reply, "And it's older than you, you little snot!"
Well.. I was getting a sense of spirit, but not of community... which I, personally, believe to be the lifeblood of a church. Community, in fact, is in my opinion the only true reason for a church. One may go to school to learn philosophies, or read theology on their own. One may pray and hear God's still, pure voice within them. A single person may walk down the street and in the mixture of nature and culture see the beauty not only that God has wrought, but that thousands of years of human history has tutored man to create. This is the key element of neo-transcendentalism; not just a love of and belief in the pastoral numinous and innocent spirit of nature, but arising from it as part of nature the amazing things (both good and bad) which have come from the minds and hands of humankind as a work of God. Once, church was not only a place to congregate and learn about (Christian) religion... it was also the cornerstone of community. People in a church looked out for one another. They prayed together, mourned together, created together, and celebrated together. The passage of time through life was a natural aspect of church; one was born, grew, baptized, learned the beliefs of the church, made lifelong friends within it, became part of the community, and the church was there as you created your own life. As you follow your own calling. If you were to move, say, far from your home... then you would be able to find (in most cases) a church nearby that had the same beliefs and within which you could feel safe as you continued with your life. The community took care of it's parishioners when they fell upon hard times, and allowed them to do more for the larger community (blood drives, food for the hungry, etc) than any one person could do on their own.
Unfortunately, I was raised in a semi-religious home within the Southern Baptist Convention. I was taught in Sunday school that women were not valued as highly as men and that God loved me less because I was born female. This did not make sense to me; why have children born female if God instinctively loved them less? Didn't God create (as we were taught) each child individually, with their own strengths and weaknesses? If he so disliked women, why make so very many of them? If women were so lowly, why did it seem most of the work of the Church of the God that disliked them so very much fall on their shoulders? As soon as I was old enough to be taken seriously, I put my foot down and refused to go. Add to that the fact that I had just lost the one person in my life that I felt truly cared for me as myself (my Grandfather), and I was very confused about theology indeed. Did I believe in the afterlife? Was he actually gone forever? I swayed from various forms of paganism through agnosticism and to atheism and back again as if going through some 18th century dance in which the partners were ever-changing. In nature, I could see the beauty and perfection that required some sort of intelligence to function, and as I learned more about science became more convinced that it would be very unlikely for such things to come together and work so well completely by chance.. but was unsure of what I thought caused it. The idea of a female deity appealed to me; someone like myself with my awkward new lusts and dazzling raptures, someone shaped like me that knew, like me, the cyclical nature of life (that horrible monthly secret that was agonizing and made the idea of death so very real but which I knew, at least academically, could produce life through some that experienced it). However, having grown up in the patriarchal, fire-and-brimstone church I did (and mine was made apparently liberal by others my friends endured)... the idea of a female deity seemed at times as far-fetched as unicorns. Perhaps people had not worshipped Goddesses, perhaps they had worshipped... feminine Gods (reasoned my not-so-reasonable pre-teen and teenage mind), much in the way that people had seen antelope and believed them to be unicorns.
One day during college, I was talking with a friend and he mentioned I no longer had the same passion for medicine that I'd once displayed. Surprised to find this the case, I agreed that I no longer felt the need to become a doctor. He then asked if there were anything else I could do instead. I opened my mouth and the words, "Well, I could always be a minister." came rolling right out. I did not think them, such a course would never occur to me. I felt as if I stood in silence inside a bell that had just rung; my whole body rocked with the reverberations of the experience. My friend laughed and our conversation continued; however, over the next few days I began to get signs that that I had, indeed, found my calling. I won't go into all of them- I think that anyone that has felt a true calling has found themselves receiving little nudges and acknowledgements. I had gone to a Unitarian Universalist Church once in high school and had been led there through the writings of the American Transcendentalists, so it seemed the place to begin. There is only one UU church inside the bounds of San Francisco proper, so that was the one I began to attend. It was beautiful, they had groups that met... but it seemed hollow. I found one of the two in Berkeley and we began to worship there; it felt like home. The people were welcoming, the space was comforting instead of ostentatious... this was the right place for me. I began to take religious studies courses at school when they were offered (the Religious Studies Department was the embarrassing offshoot of the Philosophy Department) and found myself enthralled in all of the belief systems that people followed; Varieties of Religious Experience moved me in a way that's close to scripture itself. On break from school, I went to the UU church in Oak Ridge and was awed by both it's amazing architecture and the fantastic way the minister balanced the liberal religious beliefs of his faith with the conservative congregation of a military town. I asked him to meet me for coffee and asked his career advice. He had gone to the University of Texas because of their broad teaching technique and on to Harvard (my ideal liberal religious graduate experience). We had been looking to move and had friends in Texas, so once my partner finished school.. we moved!
I began by taking many R.E. courses both to get a feel for them, and because many credits had not transferred. Each state thinks it's the only state that can teach a student anything correctly. I don't even know why I was on the Drag on a Sunday (the main road next to campus). I lived up north and had no real reason to be there, but I felt a yearning to enter an old church I had admired from the outside for some time.. just to see what it was like inside. It was a Baptist church, so I was terrified to go but it was open so I stepped through the old wooden doors anyway. I climbed the stairs and did what everyone does the first time they enter a church; sat in the very back. However, this was not any ordinary service. I was late enough to watch as a man entered the Baptismal pool in which the striking pastor already stood. In this church, apparently, one was required to make a statement of faith which was read as one was baptized into the community. I had my first real religious experience since hiking in the woods as a restless teen; the Spirit moved through me as I listened to this man's story and I wept. I left without talking to anyone.. but I came back. Again. and again. I began sitting in the not-quite-back and shaking hands. I was astounded that there were female ministers also, and that this congregation was welcoming to LGBT people. I began to go to the college group and make friends, having theological discussion about topics that were actually interesting. I began to look to the youth minister as a spiritual leader, someone to possibly emulate because I felt called to work with youth. How many of my friends from high school would have found spiritual succor in a community like this? How many would still be alive or have their freedom?
The college group began to grow, and I was thrilled to help in whatever way I could. This was a ground-breaking community- a Christian church where you didn't necessarily have to be in dresses and ties. They didn't go in for fake Christian metal or glitzy gadgets. They spent their time feeding the hungry and teaching comprehensive sex-ed. This could *be* that place where the disenfranchised and overlooked were taken in and became family. They had gay and lesbian couples, they had people without permanent homes.. all as part of their community. This would never have happened, even in the UU churches for all their talk of "faith without works"... this was revolutionary and God moved in it! I began to recommend this church to people I knew. We brainstormed and they adopted the slogan that I thought best encompassed this radical community- one that would help people see past the word "Baptist" on the door, because they weren't Southern Baptist. They were American Baptists and as such, had congregational authority.
I asked my youth minister if I could "job shadow" her; just to see what life was like as a youth minister. I had hoped it would be like my high school residencies; I would be acknowledged as someone interested in the ministry and ignored. I would watch pastoral care and keep silent. I would fetch and carry. If need be, I could come up with interesting topics to discuss. She reluctantly agreed to an unpaid internship and I prepared to file and type, thrilled to have any chance at a glimpse of the daily life of a pastor. Over the break, she asked me to prepare a lesson plan that would draw in more people like those I had discussed- the unChurched. Those that weren't looking for a church to fill the hole left by the church at home while in college... the people like me and others in our group that lived here and would not have been welcome intellectually or for any other given reason at most of the conservative churches on campus. Thrilled, I went through books and articles, spending hours at the library, and came up with a comprehensive lesson plan based on the path our particular church had taken to become such a different and unique place. This is where everything began to unravel.
My minister took my folder full of papers, placed it behind her on the desk, and described what she had imagined. While helpful, this would have been much more helpful if it had happened before all those hours of work. At the time, I was also embroiled in some personal matter which were causing great emotional and spiritual stress but which, at the time, I had no idea would be so destructive. I cheerfully shrugged off the uselessness of my hard work, deeply discouraged inside, but still more than willing to do anything possible to make this work. We tabled. We flyered. Our t-shirts with our logo and motto were a hit; they sparked conversations everywhere and everyone wanted to know about this awesome new place...but it wasn't awesome. It had been changing the culture of Austin since the Civil Rights Movement and now, people were finding that out! Not just people, but people that needed it. Confused, unsure youth began to drop in. I pinned our notecards, business cards, and flyers on every local note board in town and slid them in every copy of a liberal used book I could find at Half-Priced Books (if the Golden Dawn could do it, I figured.. why not us?).
This is when things began to fall apart. I started to have seizures. I had a panic attack during Easter service. I was well and truly pregnant. My grades had been suffering after the death of my father, now they plummeted. I was wrapped up in it and swept away. I was crying one minute, mourning my youth and happiness, and sitting in the sun the next, reading feminist prose to a fetus I never thought I would carry. I began to miss services and things I had planned; I was sick, I was tired, I was enlarging and trying to keep some sense of sanity in an increasingly insane world. I never imagined having children, much less without my family surrounding me... my friends were excited at first but as things progressed (as I progressed), they one by one fell away. We were growing closer to winter and they were drifting away like fallen petals in a stream. I became so angry at everyone because I felt so very alone and terrified... I never, ever planned to pass on my genes to a child that had had no choice in the matter. I had seen how the genetic symphony played out in my own life and felt that any child of mine deserved so much more. I also knew as a matter of absolute fact that I would die in childbirth. It was more than a fear, it was a phobia..and no treatment seemed to help.
Fortunately, I need not fear- after one pre-term labor and long, horrifically boring (and fattening) bedrest, I had a seizure and c-section. My deacon was one of the very first to see my son... or so people tell me. The medication they give you for c-sections mixed with anti-convulsants is pretty weighty. I was alive...I think. That first week was a blur except for the first time they made me walk; that was it's own trial. My mother was still in town for a month or two and people dropped by. Things went on as they had, with one of my close friends visiting even though it got her in trouble with her girlfriend. I had noticed unhealthy things going on in the lives of people around me but was oblivious...apparently suffering postpartum psychosis, because I began to hear things. Not words, but cocktail parties in rooms I knew were empty, Gregorian chant when nothing was playing. We sought help. I took a bit of time off from school and church to recover.
When I returned, everything had changed. There was music, the kind you find in churches that are trying very hard to reach young people. Things felt different; the air had shifted. I was told, in my home in front of my friend-family that my best friend's girlfriend would soon be joining me as a paid intern. Up until that point, payment had never been discussed nor been an option. When I brought it up with the pastor I had grown to think of as a mentor, she brushed it off saying she had been going to tell me... and she'd come up with the internship as a way to introduce people into the ministry. None of this had happened in that way and I was incredibly confused. However, I kept showing up. I arranged for my partner to watch our son so I could meet-and-greet at school events. At some point we had merged with a church on campus in order to have both more college students and to have a site on-campus (never mind that our church was across the street from the middle of campus and next to the most popular cafe in the area). This church had different values, and the values for which we stood shifted. We became a church for the liberal church kids- the ones that believed they were saved by Jesus but had never had so much freedom at home. The motto and slogans changed in order to try to reach these kids and we began to study non canonical gospels (which I do love), but that seemed a bit.. much for incoming freshmen that weren't sure if God was real, what form God took, or if the universe had made itself for kicks. I was encouraged to bring my son with me to service, but when I did and he cried (as all babies are want to do), I got dressed-down for it and the sermon I had prepared cut short. When I asked about bringing in those we had been reaching out to- the queer kids (like myself), the young parents, the people of college age that didn't go to UT... I was horrified to learn that was no longer part of the plan. As my son began to get older, he took up more time. A retreat was announced and I was told it was mandatory for me, though I had never spent more than 8 hours away from my infant. The ministerial intern for the church began to hold forth on food activism, and I agreed with her. I suggested some alternate means of looking at the problem, but she became more and more convinced we were on opposite sides of the debate. On the walk back, my Mentor pulled me aside and told me I shouldn't argue about things which I had no idea of, and would not listen to me when I explained that, having grown up on a farm, I most certainly was a part of the movement...and she was welcome to attend the next March Against Monsanto with me. I was scolded and reprimanded. Fortunately, I ended up with a greenstick fracture in my foot at the same time it became obvious my friend's girlfriend had become...a controlling influence in her life and I went home to wrap my foot, prop it up, and hold my son like the dawn would never rise. I was increasingly ashamed of my appearance (milk-splattered, unwashed, large... like most new moms) and went out socially very little. That was all right, things were going down that I wanted no part of being. It was agreed that my "Internship" (what a fancy word for 'can I see what your life is like at work?') would end at the end of the semester.
It was becoming clear that there was less of a place in the church for me. This saddened me a great deal. I had been baptized, shared my life, become part of this community. The thought that as a college parent, a polyamorous person, or a genderqueer person, I would be excluded from this community would never have crossed my mind even a year before. I got to church late one day and was invited by a dear friend to chaperone the youth to the other church for their study time. My partner had previously had more interaction with the youth by teaching them tai qi. This was my first time meeting the new children's minister and I was charmed; she seemed quite kind, if a little quiet. Someone I would not mind my kid learning about religion in her care. Two other women were introduced to me, and we went into the basement hang-out of the partner church. Once there, the minister from the other church played a few introductory clips by the Jesus Christ Church of Latter-Day Saints (a church which has, by the way, a center for higher religious learning directly diagonally from our Baptist church)....and then began to blast their beliefs and lay out falsehoods. I was stunned. We had presented ourselves, always, as a church open to religious conversation and dialogue...and here we were, vilifying a fellow Protestant faith! I respectfully mentioned that I had married into a Mormon family and spent years studying their faith and asked if it would be all right if I could clarify a few things. They had mixed up the LDS church and some cults, they were saying the LDS church helps only those within it's own faith, and there was quite a lot of confusion surrounding the afterlife, polygamy, and "holy underwear". The minister asked several times if I had converted and I assured everyone that no, I was an American Baptist from their sister church. The kids were very interested and asked some very intelligent, telling questions showing that they both wanted to understand and could grasp the concepts even if they did not share them. I was impressed. At the end, I apologized to the minister for taking up so much time and hoped that she had not been offended. I was assured she was not. I also shook the hand of the children's minister, telling her how pleasant it had been to meet her and how much I looked forward to learning about her lesson plans as my own child got older.
A few hours later, I received a frantic phonetical from the friend that had invited me. She explained that part of the reason I had been invited was that, when presenting on anything, they usually have both their own ideas and an outside "expert" come in and she had found out last moment that there was no counterpoint... but that my husband was Mormon, so I probably knew something. She continued to explain that not only had the other minister been horribly offended and called my boss (my Mentor), but that the children's minister had also done so! I felt my stomach curling in on itself. I called the other church's minister and apologized once more, but was told it was not a big deal, I needn't even have called! She was simply doing her duty. I received a call from my boss (Mentor) telling me not to bother calling anyone else, she'd worked it out but that she was incredibly disappointed in my behavior. Disappointed in my behavior! I was an adult parent, chaperoning the youth as other adults from our church had done, and was not there in any capacity to do with my work. Further, I explained that both claimed to have not been offended to my face. I was not a child... I was a member of the congregation. I was not there as a representative of a college organization these children would be exposed to at the correct time and place my Boss had picked out for them. At our next meeting, I was not only called to task but told that if I did not get therapy, I would lose my position. Never mind that I had a new child, church/work, school, and neither the time nor the money for therapy!
Fortunately for me, my Calling was still strong despite all this. If our church needed that sort of college group and could sustain it, then that was wonderful! However, we still had a dwindling population of congregants that were separated by a widening age gap.. perhaps I had not been called to college ministry. Perhaps, like Nadia Bolz-Weber (one of my idols), I had been Called to reach out to the American Protestant "untouchables"; the strippers, the queers (like myself), the not-quite-agnostics, the poly families looking to raise their kids in community, the people at the bars discussing philosophy with no theological context, covered in tats and discussing Sartre with their Belgian beers. As a young mom, it was going to take me a while to get through the rest of my undergrad and even longer to get through grad school (I had already ascertained that everyone I'd met from the local one wore a facade of piety that felt too false for a religion as gritty and real as the flavor of Christianity many people needed). Our church was congregational based! Anyone that had been a member for a certain amount of time and had served in an internship-type position could request ordination within your local area (our's was the south/southeast). I spoke at great length with both my trusted friend that had been born into the church, and with my previous deacon...a kind and upright man that I believed would give me honest answers. They both supported my bid. I approached our Minister and told him of my Calling, of my wish to proceed, of my ideas to help our community flourish. He explained that I might have to spend another year in "internship" but that it could be voted upon. I would have to submit my request, my calling, and plead my case in writing. He was concerned with the state in which my previous internship had dissolved, but (though it had hurt me very deeply.. so deeply I can only now write on it), I assured him that it was simply a difference in communication style and that I would work diligently to overcome such an obstacle- but that no one began perfect. I was also told that since the congregation was older and more conservative, a lot of my proselytizing might have to be done "underground" (i.e. without mention of the church and unpaid). This I was also willing to accept. People would connect the two, trickle in, and I already had plans in place for bridging the age gaps and creating a sense of continuing family. Also, however, I would have to include my orientation. I do no believe this to be necessary, nor right. I do not know if the children's minister had to disclose first-thing that she was a lesbian. I do not know if single ministers would have had to state that they might be dating while religious. I do know that I was confused by this request, but did so anyway. I told him that since I would be seeing my Mentor that evening at service, I would inform her then of my intentions in a straight-forward manner.
I did not get the chance to do so. She requested I stay, and began to berate me. When I told her that we had had lapses in communication, they were all blamed on me. When I pointed out that she had hired an intern without telling me and without backpay, that was also my fault. Finally, I took a deep breath and said that perhaps there were other things in the way and that misunderstanding me was the easiest way of making everything right to her. She exploded and began to curse at me and told me to leave the sanctuary. I insisted no, I should not until I had calmed down also and that I needed time to pray... at which time I was told to "Get the **** out!"
I cried and walked to a friend's house. The person that I had confided in with such honesty had been holding back quite a bit of anger and possibly loathing toward me. If someone could appear so nice, and hold all that inside... what did that say for the religious community as a whole? My husband picked me up; I was unfit to drive.
My proposal was brought before the council, I believe, but it was after my "mentor" had spoken to them of... whatever sins she felt I was guilty of; selfishness, narcissism, laxity...things that I do not deny I engage in, but that I engage in no more than others. Things which, with time, I am conquering..particularly as a young mother alone in a strange state. I never heard what was discussed, but I was offered the position of entertainment committee chair. I accepted, not realizing I had no idea how to entertain a group consisting of the elderly and middle schoolers. Every idea I had was tossed out. However, it was not that which was the finishing blow. When I came to worship, I could sense the ill-will directed at me..not only from those that had supposedly been wronged by my actions, but by those that knew me by face alone. I was still dealing with postpartum (still am). I could not face these stone-masked people simpering at one another. Only the elders had any actual honesty visible; all else was smiles and handshakes oozing venom. I stood in the sanctuary and closed my eyes. I reached into my heart and let my soul breathe; the Breath of God was not there. There was no scent of the Spirit. There were TVs and gimmicks and candy-coated animosity. This haven had become exactly like the hell I had fled.
I continued togged increasingly frustrated emails but could not respond to them.. how could I plan events for people that loathed me? I had never worn a disguise in church... the person they had hated was me, in all my naked but well-meant honesty. I spoke with several other previous members of my age that had left and found that they had also found the change distasteful and felt as if they were being forced out. The church was no longer liberal enough to hold everyone; it was Liberal and could only hold those that shared every belief. It was the other side of the looking-glass of the large, Conservative churches. I hope that it thrives, if for no other reason than it has such a beautiful past, such a past of resistance to hatred and falsehood that to lose it would be an emptiness in a world that needs more Fullness. There aren't a lot of places the Spirit still resides; I hope that in my continued searching, I will find another that will begin to heal the torn scars in my soul where this church had patched me up and ripped me open once more. Maybe I'll even walk through those heavy wooden doors again and see if there's a place for me amongst God's children. There's no way of knowing, but in God there is always hope.
(*For the purposes of clarity, I have used the term "God".. this is not meant to represent a specific theological interpretation, nor to spark a theological argument. This was simply to unburden myself. I have left out all names, including those of my Church of which I am still a registered member. This is not meant to be inflammatory, but to tell my side of the story as viewed from my perspective alone. I am not the easiest person to work with, nor the kindest... but I have been and am continuing to work on it. That, in itself, is quite a feat considering my personality and my past. It should also be pointed out that the day after my best friend's girlfriend got my job, my best friend took me to get a drink. I was honest, and asked her if this was just a meeting to see if I were angry with her girlfriend. She said, of course not... we're friends. I have never heard from either of them again.. guess it was just information seeking. I am sorry to any hurt by my actions or by these words.. but they are my truth and I could no longer stay silent. This is the type of spiritual abuse that turns well-meaning people away from church and God.)
