The message of this post has been a long time coming. The message of this post will be difficult pill to swallow. The message of this post breaks my heart on a daily basis. But I feel the need to talk about it and to publicize it because maybe I'm not the only one.
I have been actively involved in the church my entire life. I have participated in children's choir, Girls in Action, Acteens, handbells - everything. I grew up going to "big church" following sunday school. In college, I worked in the church. I taught children's choir and adult handbells. I was an intern with my youth ministry at home. I thought I knew everything there was to know about church. And then, I came to seminary...
When you start seminary, you are excited and scared at the same time. You are anxious and happy. You meet people and you bear your soul within the first few weeks of school by writing a spiritual autobiography where you outline and demonstrate your knowledge for all things church-related. In college, I studied music - I went to class and learned how to analyze musical phrases and I learned how to best educate children. I found refuge on Sunday mornings. Sundays were refreshing because I did not have to think about school, or music theory, or pedagogical techniques. But when you are in seminary, everything in your life becomes church. You go to class and you analyze biblical passages and you translate Hebrew and Greek and discover how ill-informed some translations of scripture are. Just three years ago, I found refuge in Sunday mornings at church because it was an escape from school and now I avoid Sundays at church because it gives me a break.
Being in seminary, I have realized how bad things are in the Church. I am around ministers on a day-to-day basis and hear them tell stories of frustration and anger. My heart has hardened and I have become a cynic toward the idea of Church as it stands today. I am tired of old, white men being leaders in the church and squelching the hopes of a younger generation because we do not have the finances to buy a voice loud enough to be heard - when the message of Jesus spoke directly to the least of these. I am tired of hearing why some people, created in God's image, are not welcome in church because they are "sinners" - when the message of Jesus spoke directly to loving our neighbor as we love ourselves. I am tired of politics finding their way into church, and Church finding its way into politics - when Jesus said render unto Caesar's what is Caesar's. I have taken my anger out on God and I have neglected our relationship because I felt like it was all God's fault.
I was sorely mistaken. God is not the one who is flawed - it is humanity. So, yes. It is increasingly difficult to find my refuge in church on Sunday mornings, but I still find refuge in God. Not everything about my seminary experience has hardened me. I have made wonderful friends, I have met my future husband, and I have discovered how important it is to maintain a relationship with God - because when your focus is on God, you don't seem to care as much about the problems of the world. This is a truth I'm working on accepting daily. I thank God for redemption through God's son. I thank God for the message of love and unconditional acceptance Jesus preached every day. But I pray, with as much sincerity as I can, that someday the church will begin replicating that love and unconditional acceptance. That is when I will find refuge in the church once again. I pray that day comes soon.
