Claire: Step Two
Nestled within Claire’s life story are several beliefs that serve as threads, connecting her childhood love for the church and her fight for its reformation as a young adult. Here are some core beliefs that have carried Claire through life’s challenges.
Questions need not lead to answers; the pursuit is the point.
Claire loved the affirmation of the church, both her home church and Christian college, so she naturally appreciated what got her there—the answers. Claire asked lots of questions, amassing knowledge that helped earn her a reputation amongst the church as a bright and devoted follower of Jesus whom God is calling toward youth ministry.
Rather than focusing on her curiosity, the church praised Claire for knowing the right answers - a tricky thing in Christianity, as doctrine can easily turn into objects that we control. Stacked on top of one another, each piece of doctrine becomes Jenga blocks that build a tower whose height amazes a crowd but cannot stand the winds of change in life.
Each friend who came out to Claire as gay pulled a block from the Jenga tower until the whole structure came tumbling down. With all the blocks scattered, the point of faith (asking questions, seeking wisdom, constructing the building) was thrown into question. What was wrong? The answers? The pastor? Had they been fools all along?
Claire can reframe her learning journey by holding doctrine loosely and committing, instead, to the practice of asking questions. Claire has always shown naturally insatiable curiosity; it is God's fingerprint upon her. Asking questions moves us forward in faith. As children, answers feel foundational and important, but adults learn that answers can be the transition points that lead to better questions. God created Claire with a healthy sense of suspicion, unable to accept answers without first wanting to know the more profound truth behind what’s going on.
If anything, Claire’s journey right now seems to mirror her parents’ journey. Claire can connect with her parents’ story about finding a church when you have to move to a religious tradition different from what you experienced as a child. Claire’s parents were once young adults like herself, unsure of how to move forward and probably feeling mixed emotions about how they couldn’t continue in the religious history of their childhood since they married someone from a different tradition. They were momentarily lost and had to figure out how to move forward, if at all. Claire is her parents’ daughter, and the apple falls not far from the tree. Connecting with this family legacy can offer comfort as she feels displaced and unsure this season. Her parents can assure her that this feeling will pass with time.
I am at home no matter where I go.
Claire’s sense of safety, rest, and renewal at church launched her from childhood into adulthood with a sense of passion, community, and purpose. Ironically, those gifts have led her to distance herself from the people, places, and rituals that once represented home. Like we all do after a major life change, Claire is repeating the tasks of adolescence, re-negotiating her sense of identity, purpose, and meaning, but this time with the awareness of how fragile such foundations can be. Claire has the opportunity to experience this season of religious homelessness as the natural process of growing up and moving out of her church, which has felt like home.
Becoming an adult requires that we differentiate ourselves from our childhood home. We move out and have to develop a whole new life. Home turns from a place (our childhood bedroom) and a people (our parents and siblings) into a way of being (feeling at home in our skin). Claire’s heartbreak over losing her childhood faith resembles growing up and moving out of her parents’ house. She may have longed to be an adult, but realizing that she can never truly go home again can trigger sadness for she’s lost.
Growing up doesn’t require us to break all ties and get rid of everything to move on. Instead, we do the slow work of going through all our stuff to identify what we want to keep and what we no longer need. Claire can cherish the memories of her religious past while letting go of the expectation that they will continue to be her religious home and spiritual center. She can maintain a relationship with people from her childhood church while no longer expecting them to serve in the same role as mentor, guide, and pastor.
Claire knows from her theological education that the church was never meant to be the only place God dwells. God exists in and for and through the world around us. Therefore, that home within Claire is God’s dwelling within her. The more Claire consciously claims God’s abiding with her, the more she can venture out into the unknown, assured of who she is and that she belongs wherever she goes. As time passes, Claire will be able to see that the Jenga tower had been helpful for a season but its structure had always been intended to be temporary. Youth ministry offers teenagers a launchpad into adult spirituality, not a way of being that lasts forever.
Following Jesus means valuing relationships, even when my heart breaks.
Claire’s journey through college and grad school is a coming-of-age story that shows friendships' pivotal role in a young adult’s life. When all the doctrine and theology turned into flesh and bone in relationships, Claire realized how much living out our faith is far easier on paper. The actual living of our lives is a steady stream of new situations we could not have anticipated before they arrived. Yesterday's answers no longer fit when navigating a constant stream of unpredictable situations.
On her own in college, Claire took the beliefs the church handed to her and tried her best to make it all work, even as her friends came out to her about their sexuality. She strived to expand the evangelical tent to include all the folks believed to be outside God’s love. She could imagine a church that welcomes all people because God’s love is inclusive and all-encompassing. But trying to change her Christian college’s stigma toward sexuality was a revolutionary battle one student was unlikely to win within four years.
Claire’s teenage faith built a structure, while her young adult faith dismantled it. Ironically, following Jesus initiated Claire’s identity earthquake, so she’s unsure of where to turn when she’s gone from feeling teenage passion and clarity to tasting heartbreak and exile as an adult. Has she wandered outside of God’s presence? Feeling religiously homeless, untethered to a denomination, and distrustful of religious institutions, Claire wonders whether all the heartbreak is worth it.
Jesus himself felt religiously homeless, untethered to his religious roots, and undoubtedly distrustful of religious institutions (wise on his part, considering what happened on the cross). Even so, Jesus valued relationships, leading with empathy and an open heart. God takes on flesh to disrupt our religious systems, dismantling our answers and doctrine because they turn to us, judging and controlling our lives rather than leading us to Christ’s peace and God’s freedom.
We can forget how God’s presence, as we see in Jesus’ death, doesn’t always bring comfort and security. There are seasons in our adult life when God interrupts our regularly scheduled programming and invites us to live through a disorienting pivot. We might one day tell the story of this change and call it holy, but first, we must endure the heartbreak of what we’ve lost and confusion over where we’re going.
Connecting points to put each story in the context of our current day (resources), scripture (lectionary), wise thinkers (worth reading), and your personal story (reflection questions).