The first time my love and I met for Happy Hour 14 months ago she had a real problem when I told her that I was an agnostic, and told me as much. A bit later she confessed that she was more than a little conflicted that evening because while she very much wanted to find a way to get me “back to church,” at the same time she wanted to sit in the parking lot and make out with me. Over the past month as I have stepped out and made my own way back to church I very much understand what she was going through.

Just opening my bible again is enough for me to almost switch personalities and go back to the person I was 18-years ago. Some might not have a problem with that (the folks sitting next to me in church for example), but I do. When I first considered this “rediscovery” I very much wanted to “retain” what I had learned over the years and not try to squeeze myself back into the “bible box” that didn’t fit when I left it all those years ago. But how do I balance all of this? Somewhere there has to be room for the humanity and understanding that I’ve gained over the years that doesn’t have to be in conflict with the truths that i still very much value.

I guess the problem that I have is that the churches I’ve attended have been mostly of the “All or Nothing At All” variety. As soon as I start hearing the story about how God has to break you down before he can use you I’m drawn to wonder why. If we are God’s creation, if he loves us for who we are as we are, why do we have to be crushed and disassembled for him to be able to use us? I know that the story is usually connected with human pride or sin but … well, i think God is big enough not to make his working with us so flipping conditional. Maybe our understanding needs those requirements, but by definition I don’t see why he has to stomp all over what ever we do, like a bully on the beach, before he can do what he wants. Anyway, that’s now become my dilemma: how do I balance all of this?

In today’s service, well, there was a lot there that I could comment on beginning with today’s group being another home-bible study sized group and the apparent need of some personalities to be in control, but that was just a passing observation. Let’s just say that besides the small “can’t go unnoticed in this group” size, I knew I was going to be in trouble when the pastor’s talk was based on the Book of Revelation (chapter 2:1-11). From his talk I gathered that he teaches at the local Vineyard “college” and he did put more of a historical context/1st century spin on the text that I have not seen other Calvary/Vineyard pastors use. But interestingly, he seemed to use the text as a jumping off point and didn’t really “teach the text” from my perspective. Anyway, I caught it between the eyes when he used the Lord’s message to the Ephesians to talk about the temptation to dilute the truth and espouse some of the contemporary “Jesus plus” teachings (Jesus plus Zen, etc). He went on against such things as “Open Theology” which tries to combine the teachings of Jesus with other schools of religious thought. Ugh. I’ll get back to that one.

Then when talking about the church of Smyrna the message was about their warning against wrong living, specifically sexual immorality. Great. I guess if the shoe fits I should just eat it. So then here I am in church wanting to pray for my lover and the deteriorating situation at home, and how she’s probably suffering for our love and for the collapse of her marriage (because it must be her fault… argh!) and I know that my fellow worshippers would probably be appalled that I’d pray for the demise of this marriage when clearly I should be praying for it’s healing and restoration. So what do I do?

I am in church because I am learning that I cannot deny what is in my heart. And what is in my heart is pretty much equal measures of how important my faith is to me and how much I love this woman. Because of how much I love her I have prayed for her, for her life, and if that means that her marriage becomes the “gift of God” that it should be than my love for her would be satisfied. But I’m willing to venture that it’s not a simple cut and dried matter. If this is another case of God having to pummel us into powder to get the job done I don’t know how much more pummeling we can take before there will be nothing left to fix. I’ll be the first to say that I do not know the mind of God and accident or no I have to act on what I believe and pray that my actions and efforts lead to the general good for my lover, her boys, myself and even her soon to be ex-husband.

This is not about “my lover has to be with me because I’m the only one who can do X, Y, and Z.” I don’t have that kind of ego. I want to be with her because I love her, I find that I am fulfilled in my giving to her, and I find that I love myself more while I am in this process of giving myself to her. I don’t know if that makes sense, but the heart that God has given me, the heart that has been learning and growing with each relationship and all the years of being alone, from the center of that heart I find myself compelled to want to be with her. In a way that I do not understand I know that I am complete when I am with her and in her life. Whatever was before or lies outside of that reality seems empty and artificial in comparison. So if it is wrong for me to pray that she has the internal fortitude to ignore her husband’s continual intrusion and make a better life for herself and her boys… if that is wrong than I’m not sure what it is that I’m doing here.

Funny thing is that when I’ve been invited to churches like a former girlfriend’s Religious Science “Everyone is Welcome” church, I’m not sure that i want to be there either. I know, cake and eat it too, or at least a very bad case of crossed purposes. I don’t know if it’s the comfort I get from the more familiar surroundings (even if I disagree with the narrowness of the teaching), or maybe I’m just being a theological snob and find that I’m uncomfortable with what I think of as sloppy theology.

I want to have the freedom and love that I find in the early portions of the gospels where Jesus repeatedly let the religious self-righteous have it between the eyes but in the next verse welcomed and associated with the socially rejected and disenfranchised, telling them that the kingdom of heaven was theirs. That’s what I want to reclaim in my life. Why is that so hard to do? I guess it would be easier if I could get comfortable with the gospel-slippery ones, I just know too damn much for my own good. I value the conservatives’ stick-to-it-ness but I want the compassion and openness of the liberals. I just find that so much of the Calvary/Vineyard rhetoric is too narrow, demeans the value of our imperfect humanity, and reduces everything down to their one interpretation of God’s Word. I have to believe that God is just a bit bigger than that and able to work with us through and/or despite our “imperfection.” I mean, my values come in great measure from both my mother and my father, but because my mother is Catholic and has never “accepted Jesus” the way I did as a 15-year-old is God going to send her to hell for that? What does “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me” really mean? Of the billions who have lived and died on this planet, are only the “accept Jesus” Calvinists going to be the only ones in Heaven? It defies any logic that the God who created all of this would leave us to that kind of fate where “the Chosen” do not even represent a single percentage point.

I know that I have been given a gift. I have seen things, felt things and understood things that have changed me. Jesus’ message is one of those things, but I find after all of these years that just living an “actualized” life speaks more to the value of that understanding or belief than a thousand preachers on late night TV or any colosseum harvest festival. But I guess that’s just me. I don’t want to control anything, I just want to understand it and perchance by that feel like I’m a part of it. I do indeed have miles to go. But I very much want my lover to be with me on that journey. JBB 5.25.05

Music: I Don’t Want To Fall In Love – Sam Phillips – The Indescribable Wow