Experience Now; Process Later

            I have always been an “experience now, process later” type of learner.  I’m all ears as I listen to what is being taught.  I’m making connections within, nodding my head in agreement, taking it all in.

            And then I go home and think.  Stray bits and pieces start to fit or not.  Other experience enters into this silent conversation with self.  Gradually, I integrate some parts, discard others, and piece together fragments.  The puzzle builds itself. 

Last weekend I attended a two-day conference, “Abandonment & Doubt:  The Unexplored Virtues,” featuring Peter Rollins, who is founder of the ikon faith group in Ireland and part of the emergent church movement.

            While it is true that the weekend resonated with me, in the days since I have gradually realized that my ruminations are different than Rollins’ (or at least what I understood him to say):  He reframes doubt and uncertainty as humility, and abandonment as relinquishment of human striving.  I see them as something else.

            Doubt and I are close companions.  During the dark night of my soul, doubt seemed to be the only thing of which I was certain.  Out of the sense of abandonment--when I felt that God could not be trusted and when I could not believe that God was good--sprang a surprise:  in the midst of despair I still hoped for grace.  Gradually, that hope became faith in God’s immutable grace. 

            Uncertainty is still on my page, but it is no longer an agonized uncertainty.  There are pieces of orthodox Christianity I do not understand and about which I have no firm conclusion.  Instead of forcing myself to believe what I don’t, I think and pray and wait.  God is big enough to handle my uncertainty:  He is the one with the answers, not me.  I’d rather be honest than posture before people, pretending to be pious.

            Praying and living from where I really am instead of where I think I should be takes conscious effort.  It’s easy to slip back into the old habit of pretending to God and to myself that I am Miss Perfect Christian.  When I’m angry/bitter/unforgiving/depressed, instead of trying to cover up my real state of mind and emotion, I talk about it with God:  I admit that I am not where I want to be, that I cannot get there myself, and I that I am willing for Him to keep working on my attitude.  This, you may guess, is an ongoing conversation.

 Like everyone else in the world, I am no stranger to pain.  Who has not been broken by personal sin and by the sin of others?   Huddling in a self-protective shell is my typical response to pain.  Wounds are deep and sometimes just when I think they are finally healed, they begin bleeding again.  However, I have found that bleeding and brokenness do not mean defeat; they mean that God is doing a deeper work.

            There is hope in the gospel of grace.  I do not need to stay mired in pain, in abandonment, and in doubt.  Yet I do agree with Peter Rollins that certainty and satisfaction can become idols--when arrogance rules.  Pride refuses to admit problems; it demands perfection.  It rushes to judgment; it insists upon control.  It refuses to listen lest it be proven wrong.  Pride pretends to be immune to weakness; it boasts strength and victory.  It must win at all costs.  Pride always proclaims my rightness and pronounces your wrongness.  However, it seems to me that uncertainty and dissatisfaction can become idols as well if we glory in our doubt and wallow in our pain, if we proudly cling to our brokenness, and if in the name of authenticity, we engage in naval-gazing and forget about worship.

            In worship, pride gets upended.  When we encounter the triune God, we find hope.  The Man of Sorrows Who Is Acquainted with Grief knows our pain, knows our sin, and knows our posturing—but He still loves us.  He is the one who can bring us to truthfulness about our lives.  We don’t have to cover up before Him; we do have to let Him uncover us with His love. 

            And in the face of such extravagant love, we don’t lose our identity.  We find it.