If the Catholicism that I was raised in had a fault, and it did, it was precisely that it did not allow for mistakes. It demanded that you get it right the first time. There was supposed to be no need for a second chance. If you made a mistake, you lived with it and, like the rich young man, were doomed to be sad, at least for the rest of your life. A serious mistake was a permanent stigmatization, a mark that you wore like Cain. I have seen that mark on all kinds of people: divorcees, ex-priests, ex-religious, people who have had abortions, married people who have had affairs, people who have had children outside of marriage, parents who have made serious mistakes with their children, and countless others who have made serious mistakes. There is too little around to help them. We need a theology of brokenness. We need a theology which teaches us that even though we cannot unscramble an egg, God’s grace lets us live happily and with renewed innocence far beyond any egg we may have scrambled. We need a theology that teaches us that God does not just give us one chance, but that every time we close a door, he opens another one for us.
(Ronald Rohlheiser)
If there has ever been a quote that has perfectly personified the majority of my struggles with faith and Christianity as a whole it is this one. This is not a strictly Catholic problem. This is a problem within the Church. We have not created a sense of brokenness that fosters hope within the people. This is the purpose of Christianity in my opinion. Recognizing that “I can’t” and embracing the fact that He already has is the core, the heart of Christianity. This is the very meaning of our brokenness and it opens the door for grace to take root in our hearts allowing us to follow after Him wholeheartedly, because He is our only hope. Our hope is no longer in our striving but wholly found in Him. This has become real for me only recently.
The last two months have been the hardest months of my life. Sometimes you can joke about these statements, but I mean this. These months have been brutal, but they have been necessary for my spiritual development. For years I have leaned on my own expectations. I have leaned on my own strength. I have drained myself in the process. I am tired. I am worn out. I hurt. I need something more than what I have been seeking.
I broke. I fell hard.
This experience is shaping me. I do not know what will come from it. Parts of me are shaking lose. Some are parts that I thought made me who I really was, but now I know that that was not true. Sometimes I physically shake and other times I can feel my soul quaking within me. There is really not a better way to explain it than that. I think if you have experienced it you know what I mean. It is a hard phenomenon to adequately put into words but it’s there and it shakes. I have attempted to run for a long time. The truth is inner pain had become a part of who I am. Anxiety, depression, and fear have governed my life for a long time and as a result I ran. The weight of my own expectations and the expectations of others added pressure that I thought I could handle, but I could not so I ran. I ran to numb the pain. I ran to my own strength and the strength of this world that ultimately fell.
For years, my strength had been enough, at least in my mind. It’s not that I did not rely on God, in fact I think he allowed me to rely on Him in circumstances where I thought I was in control when it was really Him. It is hard for me to understand that. I do not really know what is going on now but the best way for me to explain it is that I feel like I’m falling. I have been falling down a hole and for a long time I have tried to grab roots and branches to keep me stable for a little while but now I am letting go. I am letting go and embracing the fall. I think it’s a fall to grace. I think it’s a fall into His arms that I did not know was possible until now.
It hurts but it is working.
Scratch any cynic and you will find a disappointed idealist.
(George Carlin)
This is true of me as well. In many ways, I sought out an ideal world, an ideal church. I still am sometimes. However, I believe that we do not reach our full potential as the Church and that is more of what I am seeking, especially now. The Church is not a place for the healthy, but the sick. I am hurt, bleeding, and tired. I need a place that welcomes that honesty. I hope in that. I pray for that. Rachel Held Evans puts it this way, when she writes, “Imagine if every church became a place where everyone is safe, but no one is comfortable. Imagine if every church became a place where we told one another the truth. we might just create sanctuary.”
Before this kind of church can become a reality, this must become a reality in our own lives. I am working toward this. I pray that you will too. We need honesty. We need vulnerability. We need poverty. We need silence. We need Him.