I believe?

There was a time, not too long ago, that my whole world was my faith in God. As many of you who have followed along on my journey know, I even spent a year in a convent pursuing the religious life. My faith, the Church, devotion to all I had come to believe.... that was the beginning and end of my thoughts and hopes and dreams for my life.

Years have passed now, and I must say with no small amount of heartache, that I have (for the most part) walked away from that life. I rarely attend churches, and when I do its often an exercise in restraint as distaste wells up inside me at the hellfire-and-brimstone fearmongering that so often takes place in local churches. I struggle to connect with Christians these days, feeling the judgment rolling off them in waves the second I mention my partner or when they clock how I'm dressed. I know that it's not the Divine that has judged and hurt me so much, but human beings which have done so. But I'll be honest, it's hard to forget that teaching that these people are supposed to be the embodiment, the very hands and feet, of Christ in this world. If they so hate me and my fellow queer folk, if they take my rights away, if they preach hatred in their services against outsiders and foreigners, if they uphold those in power who would seek to harm me and others on the outskirts of society, how can I ever believe that this religion I once loved loves me anymore?

And so I've been presented with an interesting problem - one that 5 years ago I never would have envisioned would be in my life. How can I hold on to following Christ without being associated with Christians?

I still believe much of what I learned in seminary. I still wax poetic about the love of God when my partner and I discuss the big picture of life, faith, and how we all fit into this grand masterpiece of the universe. I still have a love for the liturgy. Incense still smells like home. The Lord's Prayer still easily comes to my lips. Church bells still make me want to cry with their beauty. I can still quote Scripture and talk for days about Church History and theology. I still get excited when I get to talk to people about what I believe, even on days I don't know what I believe anymore. And yet...

And yet I've had people tell me that I will "burn in hell for all eternity." I've had judgement passed on me without the person ever taking time to know me. I've felt downright unsafe, unwelcome, unwanted. How can I ever reconcile all this with the "loving" God I was told all my life that these people hold onto?

My struggle is not unique. I've heard of so many people who have struggled and ultimately left the Church for friendlier, more open company. And even still, as I have walked away from the organized parts of the faith, as I hear of others doing the same, we believe. We believe what they taught us in Sunday School and youth groups. We believe those truths we read in Scripture. I was taught that "God is love." So how can God hate me for loving my partner? I was taught that Jesus was a brown man, a refugee, and an outcast. I was taught that welcoming the stranger in my midst is welcoming that same Jesus. So how can I turn away the refugees, the People of Color, the outcasted, the marginalized? I was taught so much that I took to heart. And I still hold it in my heart.

Perhaps you too have struggled with this faith of Christianity. Perhaps you too have been told you're heading straight for hell. Perhaps you too have had judgment passed on you in the name of a God of Love. Perhaps you too have stood in churches and recited the creeds alongside others who seem so sure, when all the while all those lines feel like questions of your very being. "I believe....?" I'm here to tell you, dear reader, you are not alone. I don't have any answers (I'll let you know if I ever find any) but I do have this encouragement. The Divine that I know loves me. And there are traces, even an image, of that Divinity in me. And I believe the same is true of you. If ever I have doubted my faith, I have never doubted this. That you and I are made in the image of God, and that we are loved. And love never ends.

My prayer today, for you and for me, is that even as we doubt and struggle our way through this life and faith, we know we are not alone in that struggle. I don't have answers yet, friends. But I do have faith that this is not the end of our story.