It’s Holy Week, and we’re heading towards the earliest Easter (in the Roman Calendar) since 1913. Yesterday was Palm Sunday, and for the first time in a decade, I wasn’t in church to mark the memorial of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.
Lately, I’ve taken to telling people I’m “between churches.” It sounds like “between jobs” or “between relationships”, and honestly, sometimes, that’s how I feel. In the decade since I came back to Christ, I’ve been in senior leadership in two churches, and twice ended up resigning that leadership as a result of butting heads with staff. When I left All Saints Pasadena last summer, I pledged I wouldn’t seek out any leadership post in my new church (whichever one that was to be.) And I went to a few churches (especially the Warehouse community), where against all of my ENFP instincts, I sat quietly in the back.
What happened was predictable: when I sit quietly in the back anywhere, I end up losing interest. My mind wanders. The only way I can honor a commitment to show up is if I’m placed in a position of trust. If I know other people expect me and are relying on me, I’m there. If it’s just little ol’ me sitting in a chair in the midst of a large group, I instantly find excuses not to go. My faith is too fragile and too individual to get me to church as a “worshipper among worshippers”; being a leader is usually the only thing that will guarantee my appearance.
I haven’t been to church - anywhere — in 2008. This Lenten season, I’m reading Scripture regularly. I’m talking a lot to God, and trying to do the harder work of creating quiet so that I might actually hear something in the event He chooses to talk back. If you were to ask me whether Christ was in my life today, I’d say, “Yes, I feel Him next to me all the time, loving me in my anxiety and my mercurial brokenness.” But I’m not living in a church community with other Christians. I talk to a spiritual director, and I talk to friends, and I spend a bit of time mentoring younger Christians (former youth group kids, PCC students.) But when I hit my knees or raise my voice in prayer, I’m by myself.
Growing up in a secular household, the only religious music I heard were the folk songs and spirituals of which my mother was fond. One of my favorites was the Pete Seeger version of “Lonesome Valley”, based on Woody Guthrie’s clever blending of an old Negro spiritual with a modern call to unionize. The well-known refrain:
You’ve got to walk that lonesome valley
You’ve got to walk it by yourself
Ain’t nobody here can walk it for you
You’ve got to walk it by yourself.
The Catholic and the Mennonite voices in my head tell me that those lines reflect a questionable theology. My Catholic, Orthodox, and Anabaptist friends (at least the progressive ones) like to talk a great deal about the concept of “salvation working itself out in community.” Even most of my Protestand and evangelical acquaintances, often relying on Paul’s language about the early church, argue that we can, in the end, come closest to Christ when we approach Him together. They suggest, and on a theological and psychological level I know they’re right, that the task of following Christ is so difficult that it can only be done by a community of believers, walking together.
But those lyrics make sense to me on a very deep level. For me, as boisterous and gregarious as I can be at times, the journey of life is a walk through a lonesome valley. In the end, in the very end, I walk alone with Jesus. My wife is with me for part of the journey, perhaps (God willing) until the end, but she joined me late. My late father was with me for part of the journey, but he has left me now, and gone to join the cloud of witnesses who love me and cheer for me but do so from afar. Day in and day out, the life of faith is essentially solitary, even when surrounded by family and friends. And barring the apocalypse, we shall not all die together. The last stage of the Lonesome Valley crossing is made radically alone, even if (as we all hope) there will be a glorious reunion and eternal togetherness on the other side.
Yesterday, Palm Sunday, would have been my father’s birthday. Instead of going to church in the morning, I went running. I did eleven miles by myself, thinking about my Dad and thinking about Jesus and thinking about the lines to the song I quote above. But I also thought about a book I’ve been reading. It’s a review copy I got a few months ago, sent to me by the Ooze community. Life After Church: God’s Call to Disillusioned Christians is by Brian Sanders, a young Florida-based pastor who has worked to launch some fifteen home church communities. I’ve been “sitting with” this book for a while, as I work through why it is I can’t feel connected to any church at the moment.
Sanders writes not about seekers, but “leavers”. He writes for those who have physically left church, and those who still go through the motions of showing up on Sundays but who have “checked out” spiritually and emotionally. It’s a compelling book. Sanders goes through the reasons why people leave; he does a nice job of sketching out the familiar arc that moves from initial excitement to intense involvement to gradual disillusionment to “breaking up.” And he empathizes with those of us who have decided to “do it on (my) own for a while.” Still, Sanders argues, doing it on our own isn’t how we were meant to live:
There will be a period for every leaver between the church she has left and the church she hopes to re-form. That can and has lasted for years for some of us. Since this isn’t the way God intended for you to live, it’s impossible for you to thrive in this state. However, his grace is still accessible to you, even in the desert of isolation.
I’m not in a desert of isolation; as I’ve written before, I’m heavily involved with the Kabbalah Centre. I do practice some spiritual disciplines corporately, and I do have support from within that community. But I need to be with others who “know” Jesus too. I can’t buy into the myth that “me and God can do this by ourselves.” After all, I know the lines to Lonesome Valley. Just before the final chorus about walking it by yourself, the song claims:
Now though the road be rough and rocky
And the hills be steep and high
We can sing as we go marching
And we’ll win that one, big union by and by.
Maybe Guthrie was a heck of a theologian after all. Good theologians love paradox! The heart of Woody’s blending of two traditions in one song is the tension between “walking the valley alone” and the emphatic “we” that sings and marches together in this final verse. We are alone, and we are together. God calls us indvidually and collectively. It is a mystery.
Please, well-meaning friends, this is not your invitation to invite me to come with you to your church. When you leave a church, it’s like going through a divorce: everyone wants to set you up again in a new relationship as soon as possible. But while I will start “church dating” again soon, I realize now I still need some time to walk alone. Only God knows how long that will be. But I do acknowledge that sooner or later, this year or another, I will need to find a church home. I’ll sing and march and build the kingdom in community again.
But not yet.
I’m talking a lot to God, and trying to do the harder work of creating quiet so that I might actually hear something in the event He chooses to talk back.
Have you thought about a non-programmed Quaker meeting? I was under the impression that most Quaker meetings on the west coast are run by ministers, but I’ve heard that there are some around L.A.
Then again, it’s kind of hard to be a leader in a faith that’s as non-hierarchical as possible.
Hugo -
This is so very much me!
“What happened was predictable: when I sit quietly in the back anywhere, I end up losing interest. My mind wanders. The only way I can honor a commitment to show up is if I’m placed in a position of trust. If I know other people expect me and are relying on me, I’m there. If it’s just little ol’ me sitting in a chair in the midst of a large group, I instantly find excuses not to go. My faith is too fragile and too individual to get me to church as a “worshipper among worshippers”; being a leader is usually the only thing that will guarantee my appearance.”
I’m an INFP and I wonder if it’s an nfp thing? Seriously, I’m the same way. I’ll show up for meetings every night of the week if I’m expected to do something but as for just sitting in worship? Thank you no.
FYI, there is an unprogrammed Quaker meeting in Pasadena - Orange Grove & Oakland - 11am on Sundays - but it means sitting in complete silence for an hour, and there isn’t that much to DO during the meeting, unless you volunteer to be with the kids or you are the clerk for the month. That’s what I like about it, but I have a feeling you might feel pretty twitchy.
For what it’s worth, leaving church was the absolute best thing that I ever ever did for my spiritual journey, and honestly,from your description, it sounds like maybe not going to church is a good thing for you right now, and only you know when it would be good for you to go back and where you should go when you do.
And when people like Sanders say things like “you can’t possibly thrive outside of a church community”, it annoys me a bit. I think we can’t thrive without relationships, but those relationships can look very different for different people and do not need to involve going to church. And I was a hell of a lot more isolated in church than I am now. For me, church was the desert.
Of course, if he’s a pastor, he has a vested interest in people continuing to attend church, doesn’t he?
i agree, hugo, we are more alone than we think we are on this journey. and also more together. that is the tension. i, too, am a leaver or an in-betweener or a member of the now-and-not yet. a burst wineskin, i think. it is a mystery, that much i know.
Hugo, you wrote:
My faith is too fragile and too individual to get me to church as a “worshipper among worshippers”; being a leader is usually the only thing that will guarantee my appearance.
That really rubbed me the wrong way, and I say this as someone who has known you a long time and wtched your spiritual growth unfold. You were such an amazing and loving youth leader and I adored you when I was in high school. In so many ways I still do. But if there was one thing that even in high school I noticed is that you were better at practicing your faith when others were watching you. I remember when we got confirmed and it went on forever. Because you were needed, you were amazingly good at comforting and entertaining everybody during the service. You were focused and pressent. A few weeks later I saw you at a service by yourself, sitting and playing with your cell phone during the sermon. It made me feel as if when you couldn’ DO something, you had no interest at all.
Please don’t take this the wrong way, and you knw how much I love you, but after all this time I think you just need to buck up and figure out a way to be present and connected when it’s not all about you. You were such an important and loving part of my growth, but I think this is a place where you need to do some serious growing still yourself.
Sheena, you’re right. And I probably should not have said my faith was so fragile.
it means sitting in complete silence for an hour, and there isn’t that much to DO during the meeting
Exactly — not having to do anything trains you to “create quiet.” I agree that it’s probably not a long-term solution due to the lack of leadership positions and/or his activity level, but it might help on the quiet meditation front.
I hope you find a church that is right for you soon. I know it is not easy. At 40+, I am in a wonderful church for the first time in my life. I think we all need spiritual brothers and sisters in this walk. Lately I’ve had the blessing of being able to be the helper, but it’s just as important to be helped sometimes as well.
I think this is the first time I’ve written here. I know that I was attracted to your writing because it was so much in tune with my own theology in a way I feel that is neglected by many of my peers within the church (although I believe that my theology is that of the church), with your emphasis on high standards for yourself and keenness to find your own responsibility and the limits of it, so for this reason I was glad to see you mention for the first time the church I belong to.
And as ever, I was glad to see you talk about things I’ve experienced myself. I know about being alienated from the church, and maybe a bit about always wanting to be in charge, so yes, can I say as a grateful reader that you’ll be in my prayers these next few weeks in the run up to Easter, but only if you want to be.
Perhaps you should come back to the Middle East and live as one of the desert fathers =) If that isn’t practical, you might at least benefit by reading up on them. The isolated holy man has been such a critical part of Christian history, yet I, too, find it a challenging aspect of our heritage to which to connect.
Oh, Brian, I love me some Desert Fathers. Helen Waddell’s book about them was formative for me in college; I did an undergrad honors seminar on Athanasius’ “Life of St. Anthony”. Loved it.
Nothing wrong with taking a break.
If you’re looking for a place to go on Easter morning, I invite you to Church of the Angels, 1100 N. Avenue 64, Pasadena. We do the Great Vigil of Easter at 6 am, then move right into the Easter liturgy. Afterwards, we have breakfast in the Parish Hall.
We’ll also have the Easter liturgy at 10:15 am. I promise the homily will get you thinking.
http://home.earthlink.net/~chrisaskew/
Feel free to e-mail me if you have questions.
Have you ever tried All Saints Beverly Hills? It’s a lovely church.
Christy-
I’m not sure if you have read Sanders book or not but it might be helpful to understand what he means by “church community” before disregarding statement than it’s impossible to thrive outside of one. He is not a traditional church pastor and has no vested interest as you comment but cares that people are able to continuously grow and sustain long-term involvement in Kingdom work. He asserts (very well backed by scripture) that mission, worship and community are the ecclesial essentials of church amd that there are many groups, in many forms that can do these three things. It is a different image of church than just the buildings we picture in our minds. I think this is a fair interpretation of a few of his ideas…but I would encourage you to read the book if you haven’t.