Social Awkwardity

Mind. Body. Spirit.

I’ve recently been introduced to the teachings and wisdom of Richard Rohr. Rohr is a Franciscan priest who is essentially challenging Christianity to be positive change in the world based on awareness of our common union with God and humanity. In the words of his Center for Action and Contemplation website, his teachings are grounded in “practices of contemplation and self-emptying, expressing itself in radical compassion, particularly for the socially marginalized.”

This dude is on another level.

I have to admit, it’s sometimes hard for me to follow him. I find myself having to think super hard just to keep up and that is not comfortable at all. But, I keep at it because my spirit resounds with the heart of what he is trying to communicate.

Love God. Love your neighbor (all of’em).
(And none of that love the sinner, hate the sin bullshit!)

Now, time for some legit honesty and possibly unpopular opinion. I hate American Christianity. I hate being associated with it. I hate what it stands for as a whole. My natural reaction to church and to the label “Christian” is to run! This is coming from someone who was raised in the church and spent a nice chunk of her formative years in the ministry (aka Jesus bootcamp), preaching the gospel to the youth of the nation and ‘being a light in the darkness’ of the missions field. My bible is hardly intact and falling apart, spilling pages of highlighted direction and insight, weighed down by margins filled with scribbled words of enlightenment. I look back on those days and feel as if that time was spent being more of an archeologist, searching for some hidden truth or secret to help me through the desert that was surely to be the rest of my life as a Christ follower, than a Child of God. Based on so many of the examples I had to follow, once I hit the perfect level of misery and stress, I was surely doing it right. Right?

It was so hard to love God correctly.

It was so hard to live for God correctly.

It was so hard to say all the right words all the time.

It was so hard to fight all my genuine passions and desires because they didn’t translate into conventional ministry.

It was so hard to stay on the “straight & narrow”.

I recently hiked to Observation Point in Zion National Park in Utah. And guess what folks, I longed for the straight and narrow on that hike. It was where I could rest but keep moving forward.

Living a Godly life isn’t supposed to be difficult and dreadful. I’ve decided that if I’m truly a Child of God, living for Him is what comes naturally. Do my best to love Him. And love his people. The fun part is figuring out what that love looks like.

I want to highlight 2 things that resonated fully with my heart recently while reading Glennon Doyle’s, Love Warrior…

A very loose translation:
The church shows God as an administrator. Mary shows us God as a mother. The church says ‘Repent!’. Mary says ‘Rest.”

An administrator is in place to supervise direction out of duty.
A mother is in place to do the same, but out of love because she is incapable of anything else. One of these is not like the other.

It is a hell of a lot better to be ostracized by a religious organization than to be ostracized by your self.

Recently on SnapChat, Glennon also shared these words of wisdom. And I like it.

When you feel yourself getting really depressed and defensive, before you decide there is something wrong with you, make sure you are, in fact, not surrounded by assholes.

Check yourself if you’re miserable. The straight and narrow is rest, my friends. Translate your straight and narrow accordingly.

TRANSFORMATION IS MORE ABOUT UNLEARNING THAN LEARNING.