Good day. I hope that whoever is reading this, and whenever you're reading it, that you're having a good day. It's been a spectacularly beautiful day here in Waterloo, Ontario - about 22 degrees Celsius or so.
My day started off well. Miracle of miracles, I actually dragged my butt out of bed this morning and took the bus to church - Stirling Avenue Mennonite, in Kitchener. It was only my second time actually in the building for a service - the first being back on Good Friday. The church has been holding a series on death and loss for the last 3 Sundays, and I wanted to catch one of them. I'm glad that I did. Four members of the congregation got up and shared a bit of their thoughts on death. The most touching, for me, was when an older member got up and shared about "ambiguous grieving," having to slowly say goodbye to his wife who has Parkinsons and Lewy Body Dementia. Another member confessed that he is terrified of death, and that the notion of having Jesus as Saviour didn't give him any comfort. I was and am thankful to be attending a church where such raw honesty is accepted, even welcomed. There are a wide range of Mennonite churches, from Old Order, Amish, to more liberal and progressive ones such as the one I attend. To be sure, when I was initially looking for a church again two years ago, being part of a church that is LGBTQ+ affirming was a must. I'm happy to slowly be getting to know people from the church, and I just recently finished leading a book club there (we read Wholehearted Faith by Rachel Held Evans. Next up is No Cure For Being Human by Kate Bowler.)
It's been almost exactly 2 years since I re-entered the Christian fold and once again called myself a Jesus follower, after having left conservative evangelicalism 20 years prior after leaving Bible college. So...how is this Jesus-following going anyways? What does it mean to me to be a Christian now? In some ways this was much easier to define back when I was an evangelical. Being a Christian, of course, meant that I was a sinner, and that I asked Jesus to forgive me of my sins since he paid the price on the cross. It meant asking him to be my "personal Lord and Saviour" with one of the main goals being avoiding Hell and going to Heaven when I die. Two years ago when I re-entered Christianity, I knew that I would/could never go back to the majority of those beliefs, particularly the belief that we are all dirty sinners and that God had to kill his son in order to appease himself. But what does being a Christian or a Jesus-follower mean if not subscribing to those things? This is something I've wrestled with in those two years, and I suspect will wrestle with for the rest of my life. The short answer, I think, is that it means following the way of Jesus, that is, trying to be compassionate, loving, kind, just, and merciful, as he was. It makes much more sense to me to follow Jesus rather than to worship Jesus. I actually don't think he cared much for being worshiped. Instead, he was constantly saying, "Follow me." The Bible speaks of imitating Christ. This I can get behind. Right action trumps right belief.
Do I believe in God? That is a hard question for me to answer, and my answer today might be different than it is in two weeks. For quite some time I was almost referring myself as an atheistic Christian. To be sure, I no longer believe that God is a Santa-type figure in the sky who doles out blessings and curses depending on how good or bad we are or how hard we pray. So, then, what is God? That's too big a question to answer tonight, but if I had to guess, I'd say that God is that divine Spirit who encompasses us and enlivens us and in which we live and move and have our being. Period. Beyond that I have few answers at the moment.
It is also almost exactly two years since my father and I last had contact. To sum up my childhood in a few words, I survived relentless emotional and verbal abuse (which heavily contributed to my diagnoses of complex PTSD, depression, and generalized anxiety.) My father and I have had an on-again, off-again relationship ever since. What it comes down to is that I refuse to be a doormat and to have my emotions and psyche played with. I need people in my life close to me who know and respect what boundaries are, and who really see me as I truly am. And that isn't him. This causes me a fair amount of pain, especially now that he is getting older and in fairly poor health. It weighs on me regularly, but the pain of his absence is more tolerable than the psychological and emotional rollercoaster of being in touch with him is.
Going back to God for a minute. Over the last couple of days I have been re-reading what is my absolute favourite book on the spiritual life - Life of the Beloved by Henri Nouwen, the Catholic priest and prolific author whose surname I chose when I was wanting to change mine almost ten years ago. In the book he emphasizes how each of us, no matter our status or possessions or abilities, that each of us is a beloved child of God. And on days when I doubt that there even is a God, I can get behind this idea, that I am deeply loved and held by something, someOne greater than I can understand.
So I conclude this introduction, or re-introduction to me, which is meant for the most part for a new Twitter friend, by offering this beautiful song by Sarah Kroger, simply called Belovedness.
Mark Andrew
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