The Journey of the AGNOSTIC: A SPIRITED MANIFESTO by Lesley Hazleton

"YOU ALMOST HAVE to admire the presumptuous absurdity of the word godless. It posits God as a thing to be owned (the expression “my God” comes to mind, or the twittery “OMG”)—a possession that can be sought out and acquired, or cast aside once you’ve grown tired of it or discovered that it doesn’t work as advertised. As with your keys or your wallet, you “find” God or “lose” your faith. Whether you believe or don’t believe, you’re stuck in a vast lost-and-found department, presumably of the soul." LH

 This week I finished another 1000 pc puzzle and started a 500 pc.  I finished a book and started a new job.  It seems like this week has me thinking of beginnings and endings.  But is life really all about the beginnings and the endings, or is it just a journey that includes of a lot of things that were there all the time just waiting to be discovered. 

People's stories fascinate me.  Some people's stories motivate me to discover who I am beneath or behind the person that is out there for people to see.  People who have heard my rants, have heard me say that I don't like labels.  They are rarely accurate and never unique enough to define me.  So maybe instead of a label to affix on my forehead or my identity, maybe "Agnostic" is better affixed to my journey.  That might get people exited who are hoping that this is only a phase, but I do not see myself returning to what I had, what I professed or what I believed.  The only way to go now is forward.  

"Metaphors aren’t just for poets. Or perhaps we’re all poets without knowing it, because metaphors are built into the way we think." LH

Life is too short and too valuable for us to spend it pretending we are someone we are not.  There are too many stories out in circulation trying to convince each and every human being to believe it.  Even stories meant to be stories are begging to be marketed as a news headline.  

"I'm real, I'm true, believe me!"

And we believe them.  What if we can embrace stories as stories and understand the value in them as stories whether they happened or not. 

"Naming God invites the personal pronoun—He, Him, His, all capitalized like the name itself, and all with a kind of male inevitability. Monotheism’s male gendering of divinity has run so deep for so long that you only need to refer to God as “she” for people to be taken aback. Try using “it,” and most will react with visible shock; even militant atheists will respond with a quiver of transgressive thrill." LH

Many of those stories are built around a three letter word that in English we call "God".  Maybe faith and belief wouldn't be such a complicated concept if there was one idea floating around for people to grasp onto.  The problem is, there are thousands and millions of ideas that are begging people to sell themselves to.  The only relief for many is just to follow in the path of their parents.  After all...  "Mom and Dad know best!"  What happens to that person who dares tread beyond the borders of what their parents have set up for them as children?  What happens when they start to hear and see some of those millions of ideas that are floating around?  Do they ignore everything and stay at home?  Some do.  Some don't.  Here in lies the problem.  

"But what exactly is being transgressed? The uncanny otherness of “it” seems to me to accord much greater respect than either “he” or “she,”though even it has its drawbacks. It still assumes an entity—something that can be described, defined, apprehended, encompassed. By even asking whether God “really exists,” all we bring about is an extraordinary diminution of the concept of the divine, so much so that for a growing number of people, the name has become little more than a convention, even an almost embarrassing one, like an outmoded term of endearment. Trying to make the unknowable knowable, we reduce it to what we know best. We make God human." LH

I stopped using the personal pronouns in my own reference to the Creator. It is awkward and so much easier just to reduce the giver of my breath to a specific gender, but it is far less real for me now.  The Shack helped me transition to the idea that "Papa" isn't about gender restrictions, but about rising above them.  But our limited human minds can't imagine Love coming from something or someone that defies gender.  I would like to still imagine Love coming from somewhere.  That is the hopeful part of the agnostic in me.  I am just not willing to put my restrictions on what that will look like.  

Where belief tries to expel doubt, faith walks with it, offering no easy answers. Belief insists, while faith hopes and trusts. The one is demanded, the other freely given, and this freedom means that real faith is both difficult and stubborn. It involves an ongoing struggle, a continual questioning of what we think we know, a wrestling with issues and ideas. It goes hand-in-hand with doubt, in a never-ending conversation with it. And sometimes even in conscious defiance of it. LH

Admitting I am on an agnostic journey, really just means I doubt and some things don't make sense to me anymore.  And yet doubt is the most compatible with faith... or so I've been told.  So faith would come easy if I can just doubt and have faith... right?  Well... maybe not right now.  Right now I have questions, concerns, struggles, wonders, unknowns that I don't feel like I can talk to too many people about.  I wrote a poem about that.  I just grew up in a world that is filled with people who must be uncomfortable with the unknown... so the need is great to latch on to something to define them and their reason for breathing.  What would it look like if we all embraced the unknown?  All we would have to do is be nice to other people and live life to our fullest.  Love wouldn't need a face itself as long as it was something done to and with the faces we had before us.  What kind of world would that be?   

"I refuse to call closure on hope. Not blind, delusional hope, but conscious hope against the odds—the kind of hope that allows me to speak, to act, to not cave in to the stone wall of the impossible. If I have to, I will keep banging my head against that wall rather than sit numbly at its foot in the cowed inertia of despair, because despair is the inability to imagine oneself into the future. It is a failure of the imagination—of the human ability to conceive of a different reality, and to act accordingly. By resisting despair, then, I rationally choose to be irrational. I defy my own disbelief. And that, I believe, can only be called an act of faith." LH

I want to thank Lesley for sharing her story and her discoveries.  These are the stories I want to listen to.  Not that they will convince me in any direction, but that they will affirm the need for me to be honest about my journey.  There is a big world of people who are longing to be understood, known, valued and loved for not only who they are but who they are becoming as they journey.  Somehow this has to be the better way to live.  Maybe if we have been told that we can't live this way, maybe it is those voices we need to question.  That is what I have been doing... just questioning the voices.  

Leslie has numerous Youtube videos and Ted talks for anyone who wants to hear a little more of her.  There is no arrogance in her message and that is so attractive.  

"For myself, I have no intention of only half-living this life in anticipation of a hypothetical next one. I want to live my life as well and as fully as I can—in consciousness, in commitment, in full acknowledgment of its difficulties as well as its occasional rewards, its pains as well as its pleasures, its absurdities as well as its mysteries. The last thing I would ever want is to have no end, to find myself adrift in the horizonless expanse of eternity. I want, that is, to live the mortal life I have." LH

I have already shared my thoughts in previous blogs on my idea of the "horizonless expanse of eternity".  It has been a good thing to find people whose words can paint the picture of what that might look like if we really understood the idea of "forever".  

"It’s often said that the more we know, the more we know we don’t know—the kind of remark that gets people nodding sagaciously only to begin their response with “But . . .” Even as we acknowledge this in principle, we hanker for the security of convincing ourselves that we understand reality, and that everything can be neatly laid out in a self-contained system. Both bad science and bad religion operate on this assumption." LH

I had a thought as I lay in bed this morning.  Any label, be it atheist, agnostic, skeptic, none... seems a relative term.  If I call myself this, I am relating my status to that of those who have walked a religious path of sorts.  So in doing so, I compare myself to other human beings and thus making my identity dependant on their identity.  Why doesn't that make any sense to me?  

What if I just call myself a human on a journey of discovery.  What if my identity is not dependant on another human being, but something that unfolds on the journey as I discover, as Michael W. Smith so beautifully put it, "My Place in this World."

But maybe I need to acknowledge labels too.  We live in a world and are restricted by our language/s to communicate with others.  So labels help others get to know us or understand us without a lengthy explanation.  So there may be a place for labels.  But they are limiting in their capacity to paint the whole picture.  If anything, they are the base coat of the portrait.  The fine details are seen as a relationship develops and the beauty of the nuances show through.   

'The glory of the concept of infinity is that it always has room for more. It is an endless, open invitation to live larger.' LH

A real person, a real woman and a real inspiration ... "BECOMING" by Michelle Obama

The "Becoming" Website

"Now I think it's one of the most useless questions an adult can ask a child -- 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' As if growing up is finite.  As if at some point you become something and that's the end." MO

This book is journey into a world and into a woman's soul for me.  What am I getting from reading this book?  Maybe this is me "sitting at the feet" of a woman who needs to be understood for who she really is, not what the media portrayed her as.  Maybe if I can understand that just because someone is famous or high profile, doesn't make them less human and less worthy of respect.

"Even when it's not pretty or perfect.  Even when it's more real than you want it to be.  Your story is what you have, what you will always have, It is something to own." MO  

"Becoming" is Michelle's story.  It is real, raw and revealing.  It is the journey of a woman that started in the South Side of Chicago and took her to some amazing places... including the White House.  But her journey is so much more than just one residence for eight years.    

"Everyone on earth, they tell us, was carrying around an unseen history and that alone deserved some tolerance." MO

My journey to understand the world of African Americans started with Harriet Tubman and has led me to Michelle Obama.  

"But what if that wasn't enough? What if, after all the fuss, we were just the best of the worst." MO

I am Canadian.  When I think about my exposure to racism, I go back to grade 4 and think of the Suffolk ewe-lamb I chose to bring to school for our "Pet Day".  I remember one comment from one classmate.  

"Why didn't you bring a white lamb?"

"Somewhere in the background was another more-than-decent likelihood, they they, like me, were descended from slaves." MO

All I have as an experience, is a small sheep that was discriminated against because it had black wool.

"There are truths we face and truths we ignore." MO

I have to admit, I was mostly sheltered in my Northern B.C. community.  But that day, out of hundreds of white lambs, I chose Rosie.  Something in me thought that she needed to be special that day.  And for me she was.  I was just sad that the other children didn't see how beautiful she was.  

"It hurts to live after someone has died.  It just does." MO

I had to take a moment to sit with Michelle in her pain as she wrote these words.  She expressed something in me that I didn't have the words for.  

"When voters got to see me as a person, they understood that the caricatures were untrue.  I've learned that it's harder to hate up close" MO

I wanted to highlight that last statement.  It is something I wish everyone could understand.  It is something I understand and find the most valuable part of my life's journey.  

"I hadn’t been expecting to fit right in, obviously, but I think I arrived there naïvely believing I’d feel some visceral connection to the continent I’ve grown up thinking as a sort of mythic motherland, as if going there would bestow on me some feeling of completeness.  But Africa, of course, owed us nothing. It’s a curious thing to realize, the in-betweenness one feels being African American in Africa.  It gave me a hard-to-explain feeling of sadness, a sense of being uprooted in both lands" MO

I wonder if I would feel like that if I went to Germany or Denmark.  A place once called home by my grandparents. But since they moved to Canada, had a family, and their family had families... those families have no connection to what they used to call home.  In reading Michelle's words, I recall often people asking "Where are you from?" and wondering what that even meant.  But in reality... who am I kidding.  My grandparents chose to come to Canada... Michelle's ancestors were kidnapped and resettled, not as homesteaders, but as slaves.  

"What I lived for now were the unrehearsed, in-between moments where nobody was performing and no one was judging and real surprise was still possible - where sometimes without warning you might feel a tiny latch spring open on your heart." MO

Living for the moment and in the moment.  I have to believe that everyone wants a place and a space where they can drop their guard and just "be".  But we have created a world where "being" is replaced by doing and performing and parading and working endlessly.  Maybe the Creator of the Cosmos designed us to just "be"... and then everything we needed to sustain and grow life would flow out from that.  

"Throughout the campaign, I'd asked myself over and over whether America was really ready to elect a black president, whether the country was in a strong enough place to see beyond race and move past prejudice.  Finally we were about to find out." MO 

Election night: November 4, 2008:  I was in a hotel in Delavan, Wisconsin, watching the election results.  I had gone down to the States to take part in a four day training program through work.  I was in the U.S. of A when history was made.  I don't know if it really sunk in what I witnessed on the television that night, when Barack Obama stood on that stage with his wife and two daughters, after the results had been tabulated and a conclusion was made.  Barack Obama would be the next President of the United States of America.   What I didn't realize was just how close I was to the action.  Barack Obama was in his home town of Chicago as the country voted him in... and not even a two hour drive from my hotel in Delavan.  History was happening that close to me.  

"There is no handbook for incoming First Ladies of the United States.  It's not technically a job. nor is it an official government title.  It comes with no salary and no spelled-out set of obligations.  It's a strange kind of sidecar to the presidency, a seat that by the time I came to it had already been occupied by more than forty-three different women, each of whom had done it in her own way." MO 

Reading this book, diving into Michelle's story is a lesson in compassion for me.  I don't understand her world. There is no hope of me every walking in her shoes.  So all I have to offer her is compassion for the world she walked into because it was the world chosen by others around her... including her husband.  She walked with him on the most difficult journey, supporting him, loving him and lifting him up to the masses as the man that could do the most prestigious job in the world.  That must have been a weighty burden to bear.   But what did she do with it?  She did what I did when I walked into my husband's world... she planted a garden.  

"As the morning went on, we planted lettuce and spinach, fennel and broccoli.  We put in carrots and collard greens and onions and shell peas.  We planted berry bushes and a lot of herbs.  What would come from it? I don't know, the same way I didn't know what lay ahead for us in the White House, nor what lay ahead for the country or for any of these sweet children surrounding me. All we could do then was put our faith into the effort, trusting that with sun and rain and time, something half-decent would push up through the dirt." MO

She planted a garden and like me... she was proud of it.  

"We didn't join a church in Washington, because we didn't want to subject another congregation to the kind of bad-faith attacks that rained down on Trinity, our church in Chicago.  It was a sacrifice, though.  I missed the warmth of a spiritual community." MO

This is where my compassion really kicks in for the Obamas.  I have been among a lot of  "Christians" who claim that if you aren't going to "church" you are not obeying God.  If that is the case... how does someone like the President of the United States and his family "obey God" if they can't blend in a community like they would hope to, but their profile and status prevents them from doing so.  Maybe those people who say that "church attendance" is mandatory to please the Creator, need to take a better look at the obstacles out there.  

"Bear with me here, because this doesn't necessarily get easier.  It would be one thing if America were a simple place with a simple story.  If I could narrate my part in it only through the lens of what was orderly and sweet.  If there were no steps backward. And if every sadness, when it came, turned out at least to be redemptive in the end.

But that's not America, and it's not me, either.  I'm not going to try to bend this into any kind of perfect shape." MO 

This is why I am reading this book.  If there is ever a common theme among the books I have been reading since I started my book blog... the authors are not "trying to bend this into any kind of perfect shape".  I want to get there... I want to get to the point where I can be honest about my journey.  I think I am doing that a little on this blog as I journal through my rocket reads.  Maybe it is just a little of the Enneagram 4 envy shining through.  I admire Michelle, but I also have a little envy... a longing to be just a little more authentic about my journey.  This book is a amazing for that.  She talks about the hard stuff and doesn't hide it.  If anyone would be in a place where hiding the truth was the biggest temptation... it would be her.  But she is bold and tells her story.  I really admire that. 

"I'd been lucky to have parents, teachers and mentors who'd fed me with a consistent, simple message: You matter. As an adult, I wanted to pass those words to a new generation." MO

So, for this blog post, I have inserted as many of my favourite quotes from Michelle that I could.  I read the hard cover book this time, so I didn't have the option of highlighting any of the quotes which is what I do in my Ibooks.  This post is my record of the wisdom that Michelle Obama has passed along to me.  

I usually pass along a link to my blog to the author, and I have received quite a few replies from some of the authors I have shared here.  I won't be doing that this time, because I have no way of emailing the former First Lady of the USA with a link to my meagre blog.  But I still want to convey my gratitude and thanks for this book, even though she will most likely never read this.  Her story has planted itself deep into the crevices of my soul and for that I am very grateful. 

"So many of us go through life with our stories hidden, feeling ashamed or afraid when our whole truth doesn't live up to some established ideal... That is, until someone dares to start telling that story differently" MO

It is my remaining wish that Michelle's words change me.  It is still a journey, and a long one at that, but I long for the kind of courage and spirit that I discovered in her story these last few months.  

"It's all a process, steps along a path.  Becoming requires equal parts patience and rigor.  Becoming is never giving up on the idea that there's more growing to be done. MO

"I'm an ordinary person who found herself on an extraordinary journey." MO

Maybe even every once in a while,  I'll even remember the heart that inspired a ten year old girl to chose a black ewe-lamb to bring to school, because to her, she was just as beautiful. 

"It's not about being perfect.  It's not about where you get yourself in the end.  There's power in allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using your authentic voice. And there's grace in being willing to know and hear others.  This, for me, is how we become." MO

Personality Processing and The Art of "READING PEOPLE" BY Anne Bogel

 "Reading People: How seeing the world through the lens of personality changes everything"

Anne Bogel's website

"The words of Reinhold Niebuhr’s now-famous serenity prayer spring to mind:

God, grant me the serenity

 to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference."

I don't know if I can sum up my obsession with study of  personality any better than with these words of Neibuhr's, that have been displayed in my kitchen for over a decade.  

 "I’ve found that personality insights help me see what changes need to be made, why those changes are necessary, and how to carry them out. Learning more about personality has helped me make peace with the way I was made (even though some days I’d rather trade myself in for a different model). It has helped me understand the people I love, live with, and work with, and it has helped me accept the way they were made, which is to say, differently from me." AB

There are countless amount of books out there about personality and countless systems and ways of studying personality.  But "Reading People" is the first book I found that gave me such an easy to read  bird's eye view of some of the more common and effective ways of processing personality.  

"But you don't like labels!"

Yeah... I don't like labels, and I don't like boxes.  But I am learning that this journey isn't about affixing labels or enclosing me in boxes. 

"Understanding our personalities makes it significantly easier to change the things within our grasp. This is the whole point of studying the various frameworks! Some people resist personality frameworks because they say such frameworks put them in a box. I’ve found that understanding my personality helps me step out of the box I’m trapped in. When I understand myself, I can get out of my own way." AB

My journey with personality started back in the late eighties when I was a freshman in bible school. I was handed a test sheet for Myers Briggs and asked to fill it out under the assumption that I knew the answers to the questions it was asking.  I was twenty years old at the time and in my mind now... much too young to process my personality.  I got a type... I just don't know how accurate it was. 

 Over the years, I dabbled in personality in the way of birth order (Thanks to Kevin Leman) but I had to wait until my fifties to be introduced the the Enneagram. 

"Until we learn to pay attention to our own patterns of behavior, we are powerless to change them." AB

It took me a while to embrace the Enneagram as something that could help me in my personal growth.  I avoided it for a few years, but finally dived into it in 2020.  So far... it's been worth it.  

"Many people are afraid this introspective “navel-gazing” is narcissistic or indulgent, but I don’t see it that way! It’s brutal and necessary work if we truly want to see personal and spiritual growth." AB

I realize that a lot of people can navigate this life without the work of self-awareness and introspective work, I just realized I'm not one of them.  I don't have it in me to just coast in this world and not dive deep into my soul for some purpose.  My struggles with life are real and I need to address them, or they have the power to take me out.  

"Self-discovery and self-formation are lifelong processes. No one is ever going to have all the answers. We’re not going to complete the task of reaching emotional or spiritual maturity, but if we can make substantial progress on the journey, we’re doing pretty well." AB

Thank you, Anne Bogel, for bringing me up a little higher in perspective when it comes to processing personality.  I was feeling content to dive deep in to one expression, but you have helped me see that there is a lot of  value in all expressions.  Each brings its own value to the search for the answer to the ultimate questions... "Who am I"; "Who are they?" and  "Why does that matter?"

"We are all different—in matters both serious and silly—and discovering those differences is strangely enjoyable. Cynics argue that we’re drawn to these simple check-the-box quizzes because we’re ill-equipped to deal with the complexity of real life, but I believe this trend points to something more substantial.

We’re not just looking for a way to kill five minutes online. Our methods may be questionable, but our motives are pure: we truly want to know more about ourselves and the people we interact with every day. We suspect our lives would be better if we actually understood ourselves and the people we love. We want to know why we do what we do, think what we think, act how we act—and why they do too." AB

I'll be okay with a little "PATIENCE WITH GOD" by Frank Schaeffer

PATIENCE WITH GOD: 

FAITH FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T LIKE RELIGION (OR ATHEISM) 

FRANK SCHAEFFER'S WEBSITE

"The point is not to argue over how we got here but to agree on a better vision of where we want to evolve to now, not just physically but also ethically. That is a project that we believers, and we agnostics and we atheists, can and should agree on. We don’t have to “fit” our ideas about how we perceive things together in order to work together. We can be the same “particle” but exist in two places at once." FS

I read a lot of books on my iPhone.  It really helps to keep track of the portions that resonate with me.  I tend to highlight in three different colours.  Yellow is "I need to read this again", Pink is "This could work in my blog post as a quote"  and Blue "This is profound and needs to go in my blog post because it's a life changer."  

If I put all the quotes that I highlighted in blue in my blog... I wouldn't have room for my own thoughts.  I may as well just recommend that you read the book and leave it at that.   

I read this book, because I must still be looking for someone to give me permission to be okay with my journey.  I still doubt myself and still look for affirmation that I going to be okay.  I guess the ship called "Safe and Sound" has long since sailed.   I just want to be okay.  

"Concentrating on belief rather than on character leads some people—be they atheist or religious—to get stuck on the training rules and miss the whole point of “boot camp.” They never get their “eagle, globe, and anchor” emblem and graduate. It’s as if there were platoons of recruits stuck on Parris Island who had never graduated and who, now as crazy old men, are still marching around yelling cadence, having mistaken the training phase for being Marines. Rifle drill and doing a perfect port arms are seen by this lost platoon of fundamentalist recruits as the end point, not a step along the road." FS

Maybe my search for the ultimate way for me to express my spiritual pathway is over.  Maybe I am okay not having an ultimate way, maybe I'm okay just being on a journey of discovery that doesn't have to look like anything else or necessarily be approved by anyone else.  Maybe I have graduated from "boot camp" and now being out in the world, and loving people and developing character is all there is too it.  Finding a way to be a better person, and stumbling along the way is all there is too it.  

"There is no theological answer as to “why God allows” suffering, some of the worst of which is caused by God’s followers and done in God’s name. There is no answer as to why God seems to be such a lousy parent. All the nonsense about how God permits suffering because of our free will—blah, blah, blah—is just scared religious people making excuses for their mean and/or grossly incompetent God.

What is the source of comfort, if any? It’s not found by making excuses for God or for Nature. It’s found in the reality of living by the light of the gift of love." FS

The days can be over where I have to defend why I think the way I do and why I don't agree with the billions of other human beings that have occupied the same planet in the cosmos as me.  I don't even have to explain why "bad things happen to good people" 

The fear can be over that I will be abandoned for being different or believing different or behaving different.  I think as I read over my blog posts, I am in good company with a lot of people who don't have it all together and who have ruffled feathers of a lot of people.  People, who don't have anything better to do with their time than condemn people to hell, because that seems like a more righteous option than loving them in their differences.  

Here's the thing.... I'm not that well known.  I don't get comments on my blog from people condemning me to hell.  That part is in my imagination.  I think I am a lot more loved than I give most people credit for.  I think there are a lot more people that have appreciated my contribution to this world than are worried for my soul.  I think I need to have a little more faith in people and have a little more faith in the common love that we share.  Love matters... and in that Love that matters... I just might find that I matter just the way I am.  

"Atheists, agnostics, Jews, Muslims, Eastern Orthodox, Hindus, Mormons, Roman Catholics, Protestants, et al. we are all on a journey. That journey is happening to us with or without our approval. It’s called evolution. Some of us say we believe “every word of the Bible” or “every word of the Koran” or “what science says” or whatever other scripture we hold dear, but we’re all slowly learning discernment because we are evolving in spiritual sensibilities as well as physically. This is why today, there are fewer religions that demand blood sacrifices than there used to be. This is why Christianity is less anti-Semitic than it used to be. This is why I believe that in the contest between extremism and moderation, enlightened Muslims will eventually win the hearts and minds of most Muslims, who, like almost everyone, want to love their families in peace.

I think that most people are better than their official theology and/or ideology. There are wars aplenty in the world and hatred abounds, but there is also peace aplenty and love abounds as well. There are extremists in all our camps—religious and secular—who’d kill the rest of us just to prove a point. They have the anger, or worse yet the blind certainty of their correctness, but the rest of us have the numbers. The future belongs to the peacemakers." FS

So thank you, Frank Schaeffer for putting the icing on the cake for me.  For telling me that I am okay just being on my journey.  That evolution isn't a cuss word, but a reality of the change that we all go through in this existence we call life.  

I am still going to read books by authors who get more hate mail than I do for what they write, because I need to support them.  They are the ones out there trying to affect some sort of change in their world.  They are the ones who are trying to tell people like me that "You are okay." And if all this blog is for, is to thank those authors for what they have given me, then I will keep reading and keep blogging and keep thanking those writers who are so much more braver than I am.  

"Okay, about that “fairy-tale” of religion. I discovered from the emails I’ve been inundated with since my memoir was published that there are more of us perplexed former (or currently) religiously inclined or religiously raised folks on a journey from past certainties to points unknown than I’d been aware of. We want to have faith in God in spite of our bad experiences with religion, oppressive family relationships, and/or doubts and questions. We too worry that we’ve been hoodwinked by a fairy tale. I hope that this book will provide a meeting place for those of us who count ourselves among the scattered members of what I’ll call the Church of Hopeful Uncertainty..." FS

Colour and Conviction from "THE VERY WORST MISSIONARY" By Jamie Wright.

 Jamie's Website "The Very Worst Missionary"

"I’m still trying to make peace with that silly child who daydreamed her life away. I’m still kind of pissed at the girl who was always unprepared, still disappointed in the one who didn’t do her work and frustrated by her inability to get her shit together. I’m annoyed with the girl who made a mess of her life and then pretended the only way out of the mess she’d created was exactly the way she wanted to go, as if it had been her plan all along. That girl? The one with so much “potential”?…Ugh. I just want to kick her.

Probably because I still am her." JW

Where do I start?  I thought I might start with a disclaimer, but looking back at the other blogs posts I've written, I don't think I have to.  I have already offended a vast amount of people in my life with some of the admissions I've blogged about.  I have been journalling through my book reads, so this one will be no different.  I read books for how they will help me on my journey.  But I rarely read books that invite me into a place I am so scared to go... only to find out I think I might just live there already.  This is one such book.  (That first quote... could have come from my lips.) 

"So, there’s this funny thing that happens when you get real in front of people: It’s that they start to get real in front of you." JW

I remember wanting to be a missionary when I was child.  It was a toss up between that and a police officer.  I don't know what gave me the desire, but in my world, the missionaries were important people.  They went to exotic places and experienced cultures I could only imagine.  Maybe it was my hunger for adventure that had me admiring the missionaries and their stories, but what ever the reason, they were important people to me. 

"In the process that led us there [Costa Rica], we had often been advised, “God doesn’t call the equipped. He equips the called.” We had practically congratulated ourselves for being inexperienced and unqualified for the work ahead. But surrounded by a whole bunch of other unqualified/ill-equipped missionaries, I began to question this logic." JW

I am not surprised when I read Jamie's chronicles of the messiness of "mission work".  I don't want to go into the details of that part of the story. Read it if you want to know the gory story behind the inspiration of the book.  What has moved me about this book is not so much the dirty details of foreign mission work (and there are more than most want to admit... hence the driving theme of the book), but something much deeper and more beautiful.  It is much more than her story; it is her passion, it is her vibrancy, her tenacity, her authenticity, her rawness, and yes, even her colourful language. 

I was born with a sharp tongue and the poor taste to say out loud what everyone else is only thinking. JW

My dad was the first person I heard swear.  He was yelling at the dog.  I remember it well, I remember where we were, I remember the dog and I remember the word.  It is still my favourite expression when I am severely frustrated.  

Scheiße (pronounced Shi-za)

My Google search translates that as "crap", but we all know what it really means.  Dad didn't say "crap" when Champ got loose... he said "Scheiße".  He was angry and that is what angry Germans say.  

There are so many descriptors today to call what we really know as our verbal expressions of frustration and anger.  Swear words; foul or unclean language; offensive speech; "Pardon my French"... but in this post, I am going to refer to it as colourful language.  Because to me.. there is a colourful beauty to authenticity... and when it's authentic expression of the ugliness of life, or the pain, heartache, stupidity that surrounds us on a daily basis.  Maybe the only response to it all is Scheiße. 

"But around Jeff and Kathy I could be my own someone. I could be sarcastic and sweary, opinionated, passionate, moody, funny, scared, scarred, and just generally goofy. Not only did they make space for my nature, but they coaxed it out of hiding by showing their true colors first. They were just real. Around their table we talked freely about our doubts and disappointments. We openly shared observations, good and bad, about life and faith and church. We debated. Sometimes we disagreed. But we came in as ourselves and we left as ourselves, and I think this respect for one another’s differences elevated our friendship even further." JW

Being myself --  What does that look like?  I don't really know.  I long for it, but I fear offending people still.  I fear alienating people that I love from my life. 

I was brought up in a culture that told me it was important to be conformed to a standard of defined decency and behaviour.  I want to share a quote from Tony Campolo that helps me understand a better perspective and a change in priorities.  

“I have three things I'd like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a shit. What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night.” Tony Campolo

I wonder how inauthentic we are all being because we are trying to keep the colour out of our speech, so as not to offend others.  My dad was being real when he yelled at the dog.  He was authentically angry.  He didn't hide his anger.  There was nothing wrong with that.  Even the part of teaching the baby of the family how to swear. 

I don't want to take up this whole post of the do's and don't of the colour of language. I do want to highlight the conviction of character that shone through in Jaime's story.  Here are some quotes from the book that show her beautiful conviction and sassy character.  

"When we do what we were designed, equipped, and educated to do best, in the company of a God who continually nudges us in the direction of love, I think that’s when we find ourselves in the most productive, most compassionate, most life-changing spaces." JW

"Who are you to judge? they demand to know.

Who was I to complain about the very system that had gotten me into missions in the first place?

Who was I to cast doubt on the people who came before me?

Who was I to wonder about God’s intent for the church and for the world?

Who was I to ask such questions? And what they really wanted was for everyone to see that the answer was Nobody. That way my opinion was worthless." JW

"I think most of us would love to do the next right thing, but what if, like me, you feel overwhelmed and paralyzed because you don’t know what the next right thing is? What if your life is actually super complicated, and you have lots of experience doing what you thought was the right thing only to have it end up being totally wrong?" JW

"Pretending to be someone else is exhausting. I’d given so much energy to keeping up appearances that when I finally realized I could drop the act altogether, it was like stepping out of a furry suit on a hot summer day. In a word, it was refreshing. It was terrifying too, because all of a sudden I was seeing and feeling and experiencing the world as my own self, and I felt exposed. But for the first time ever, I also felt free." JW

"You don’t have to understand how to cure someone to know and care that they are sick. When it comes to making the world a better place, we should all be looking for helpful ways forward, so don’t let anyone convince you that you shouldn’t engage in hard conversations. Your voice matters." JW

Thank you, Jamie for telling me, among so many things,  that "my voice matters".  I seriously doubt that most of the time. I loved your story about Knives.  I share your love for challenged cats and even more challenged human beings.  There is so much in this world that deserves to painted up with a little more colour. 

I read through the whole book, and found only one phrase that was truly foul.  And maybe you wouldn't call this inappropriate or offensive.  Maybe you still believe it.  But over the years, I have found this is the most foul word that has turned me off of the portrait of the God that so many believe in.  

"I do believe that God can use anyone to do anything." JW

I gave this book a 4 out of 5 star rating on iBooks because of one word and it is not a four letter word, it is a three letter word. Being used by anyone is not love.  Words have meaning to me.  If being used by people isn't love, how can being used by God be love.  Enough said on that topic. 

Will I recommend this book?  Emily Worrall did... 

“Jamie writes with eloquence, humility, and snark (no doubt a spiritual gift). Everyone should read this brave book.” EW

Although I agree with the first statement, I am hard pressed to agree that "everyone should read this brave book".  Another foul word in my book... "should".  I know a lot of people who can't get pass the colour to discover the heart of the message.  Maybe that is their loss.  It was almost mine.  I have to be honest.  I almost gave up.  I almost found the colour too much. (Still a "work in process")  But then I would have missed this. 

To bring light and hope, you and I must show up for life in our homes, in our neighborhoods, in our workplaces, and in our schools not as “missionaries” and self-proclaimed blessings but as imperfect parents, genuine friends, competent professionals, and messy people. We must show up as safe havens, not as mini saviors. We must bravely show up in our everyday lives to do our best with what we have, listening carefully, serving sensibly, and loving fully as active participants in the story of who God is and what God does." JW (the emphasis on the 'nots' is mine... I didn't want anyone to miss that) 

"We don’t need to spend another second of our life wondering about our spiritual calling, because we’re already right here in the thick of it. We’re already called. It doesn’t matter where you live, whom you know, what you can do, or how much you have to offer; you were called into the fray on the day you were born, and your calling is love.

Love God and love others. That’s the whole deal.

"But to love others well, we have to see them as whole people in a big picture, not just as cute little vignettes to be used in our own narrative. We have to remember that no matter how rich, poor, foreign, different, or messed up they might seem, they are as called by God and as rich in love as we are. " JW

"So, as much as it depends on you and me, let’s agree to write an epic of love to the benefit of others.

I can’t say exactly what this is all supposed to look like for you—our roles in God’s wild purpose for the world are as unique as each of us. But I imagine that our mission of mercy is similar, and it might look a little like this:

Show up as needed to love your neighbor with your eyes wide open and your arms outstretched. Start by doing your best…and then, tomorrow, do better." JW