when it comes to faith, what really matters?

I was a good student, especially of English. Unlike my children, I loved literary analysis. I could delve into theme and motif and metaphor with the best of them. I learned what all the big classical symbols meant. … I just always thought they applied to fiction, not real life stories. ~ Karen, journal entry, November 2007

I know the writer only through others' stories and her writing. The first time I read her autothanotography (an account of thoughts and reflections on living and dying in the days and months following her cancer diagnosis), I recall thinking that she and I were alike in a number of ways – except, while I was a good student and loved language, literary analysis baffled me. When an English teacher asked, “What was the author thinking?” my inner response was “How could I know?!”

Funny thing, once someone explained that much of the Bible is metaphor (and reminded me what metaphor means), this set of books made so much more sense. Since my teen years, my literal way of interpreting had clashed with my science-loving mind. A growing understanding that these writings reflect the ways that an earlier people made sense of God, the world, and their connections to both as well as to each other did wonders for my views of the Holy. Written during good and bad times, they reveal their context as well as the joys and sorrows, hopes and fears of the writers and the people they served.

Armed with new knowledge, I could find comfort in some of the psalmists’ words:

Lead me to the rock that is higher than I am

      because you have been my refuge (61:2-3)

without being incensed by others:

A blessing on the one who seizes your children

      and smashes them against the rock! (137:9)

Not everyone appreciates my Biblical interpretation. Even though I toned it way down, it was a thorn in the sides of some of the folks in the churches I served. And I think a colleague may have used one of my recent posts to support their decision to move to the Global Methodist Church.* Yet, to quote Martin Luther, “Here I stand, I can do no other.” No longer pastoring, I can speak my truth without masking. And it’s a relief.

While I now attend churches of other denominations and find that they too have both conservative and liberal, one of the things I’ve long appreciated about The United Methodist Church is its “large umbrella” which welcomes many ways of believing. While the jury is out as to whether that welcome will someday include all the people God loves, it’s still my hope. I lament the harm which continues to be perpetuated on those for whom this welcome is only lip-service. At the same time, I remind myself that churches – and denominations – are as imperfect as the individuals who fill their ranks. Maybe this is a cop-out. I’m too close to say.

My former husband used to tell me that I took things too seriously (and I did). I think he meant to suggest that I lighten up – and I’m working on it, slowly – but I’m one of those people who believe that, while some things aren't important, some are not being taken seriously enough. Like caring for the most vulnerable, human and otherwise.

We’ll never all agree and that’s okay, maybe even good. We’re better when we live amongst, and dialog with, people who see the world differently than we do. It's uncomfortable but we grow. What we need is to relearn how to engage in civil discourse. To initiate the new conversations and commit to stick with them even when we’d prefer to get up and leave. 

I don’t mind if you believe in a 6-day creation (God rested on the seventh day) or in reincarnation, I just ask that you recognize that (as I express it) God loves everybody – in fact, all of creation. The queer and the straight. The fundamentalist and the progressive. The intellectual elites and the red-necks. The Muslim, the Buddhist, and the Christian. And also the bees and coyotes, magnolias and kudzu.

Be well.

* The Global Methodist Church is an offshoot denomination of the United Methodist Church (effective May 1, 2022) for those who believed that the only way to live their belief in the wrongness of homosexuality (and other sexuality/gender differences) was to form their own Church.