Re-Thinking

The World Opens Up

This year, my husband and I separated after 20 years of marriage. Many people think that divorce is failure. I disagree. Divorce can be a sacred resurrection where something new is born.

I started this Substack after leaving the denomination that had raised me. The pain of “church hurt” felt white-hot and searing. In the church, I knew I was never “enough” but believed I could be if only I worked harder or achieved more. I blamed myself for the way I was treated within churches and the denomination. Eventually, the abuse and accusations were so extreme that I could no longer blame myself. I knew if I stayed, it would kill me. It already was. So, I left. I was a good pastor. I couldn’t figure out why God would call me to something that would end horribly. I had to re-think my call to pastoral ministry. Perhaps God called me to teach me. God taught me to trust myself more than “The Church.” Instead of betraying myself to exist inside a system that hurt me, I honored myself by walking away. It hurt. But I had never felt so empowered. Success was leaving what no longer allowed me to live in alignment with my values. Success was experiencing that The Church is Everywhere.

When we learn something new, we cannot go back. We cannot squish the toothpaste back into the tube. I traveled to Bolivia for a month and began to learn to be alone with myself. My mom started declining rapidly from Alzheimer's. Alzheimer’s revealed the fractures in our family system. All of these things continued teaching me that I am not responsible for other people's well-being. Even our own children become responsible for their choices and lives. Alas, I am not as all-powerful as I thought I was. What a relief.

When I stopped trying to change the people and systems around me, I had to reckon with the reality that actually was. For example, I realized that I could not change the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church. I could not make them understand me or want me. The question became: If the VAUMC does not change, am I okay with that? I realized that I wasn’t. I was tired of feeling like I was wrong all the time. I was neglecting my family and myself. I was exhausted from trying to be who I could not be. So, I chose to leave, trusting that the world would hold me. I made a choice based on who the UMC actually was, not on who I hoped they would be. It was a devastating decision, but also amazing.

After that, I stopped attempting to force people to be who I needed them to be. Well, this is a work in progress. John and I realized that we would never become who the other person hopes for. Society tells us that a successful marriage is a long one. But I had to re-think this assumption. One couple’s therapist, whom we loved, told us that divorce is not failure; it can also be resurrection. Something new can be born. Is it successful to stay where we cannot exist fully? Often, the parts of ourselves that we minimize to make other people happy are the best parts of ourselves—the parts the world needs. Divorce is the hardest thing I’ve ever done (x 1,000). The hardest part for me has been causing other people pain. Reckoning with my mistakes and things I wish I had done differently. Seeing my kids less. Being homesick. But I trust that perseverance is not always the best road.

Doing something I never thought I could or would do is weird. It is disconcerting. If this is possible, what else is possible? If I can do this, what else can I do? If there is a different way to think about this, what else should I re-think? The world opens up.

Here’s something - Why do I trust a “religion” that has largely silenced the female and erased the feminine divine for thousands of years? (I listened to an interesting podcast that speaks to this recently.) Why do we trust the Bible if the books that comprise our Bible were selected by men in power, hundreds of years after Jesus died? Why did those men discard the books that spoke more about women and their leadership in the world? Or the Gospel of Thomas, which teaches that the Kingdom of God exists within us and that salvation comes from knowing ourselves? How is it possible that Christianity has become the religion of the empire in the United States when it began as a religion for the oppressed? How is the name of Christ being used to terrorize every vulnerable population that exists in our nation? Why do some Christians believe that they are right, and everyone else is wrong? So many of the church’s traditional teachings have been something to recover from, so why do I still want my children to be shaped by it? I am re-thinking.