On a recent trip to visit my youngest son in Tallahassee, Florida, I was reminded of the many moves we have made over the years. I had not been to his apartment since the day we moved him in one year ago. My husband drove our truck, pulling a U-Haul trailer for the 15-hour drive. It was a long day of traveling. In planning my visit this year, I briefly entertained the idea of driving, thinking better of it I opted to fly. I hadn’t flown since well before the pandemic. A two hour wait on the tarmac meant arriving too late in Charlotte for my flight to Tallahassee. It all worked out and I arrived just three hours after originally planned. Calvin picked me up at the airport and we enjoyed three days together before I headed back to Ohio.
Sitting on Calvin’s couch, talking about every little thing and just enjoying being together we fell naturally into a conversation on moving. We reminisced about all the times we moved him for college and the different places he lived. Some better than others. He had the house he shared with too many college kids that was very messy and dirty, the kitchen, I am sure, in violation of many health department codes. We talked about having to live in his fraternity house for a few months between moves, keeping his cat, Twila out of sight as cats were not allowed in the house. We laughed at how afraid I had been to leave him at his first apartment, it seemed shady at best, but he was fine and loved living there. He reminded me that it was named Eden of Easton, a far cry from paradise.
Throughout our thirty plus years in ministry we lived in six different parsonages (homes provided by the church.) Worked to establish ourselves in six different communities, served six different congregations, uprooted, and moved over and over. I started thinking about all those moves and then Calvin said, “Do you remember those boxes you just kept moving because you never unpacked them?” I had forgotten about them. There must have been about 3 or 4 boxes of keepsakes or other non-essentials that we just kept moving from place to place. When it came time to move, I did not have the energy or the will to unpack boxes that were already packed. I counted them as completed, we moved them again and again. A few years ago, as we prepared to move to our new home. The home we purchased in preparation for Kurt’s retirement, we agreed it was time to open each of these relics from the past, sort through the contents and make the hard, long put off decisions about what to keep. We no longer had the luxury of simply moving the boxes on. The home we purchased is a lovely home. We refer to it as the DLC (the Delightful Little Cottage). And little it is.
Before we moved into the DLC, we pulled the brittle tape from these boxes. As each of them was emptied of its contents we recalled fondly days gone by. As has been our practice we created the three piles that help make the sorting process more efficient. The possessions inside, many of which were wrapped in yellowed newsprint decades old, were placed in one of three piles; keep, throw, give. It was an emotional process as we remembered but equally unsettling when we couldn’t remember. It was those things we could not attach memory to that were the first to either be thrown away or placed in the give pile.
As I continue to deconstruct my faith and the connection my faith has to my family of origin, I can now see that there are many boxes that I have left untouched, held together with brittle tape, filled with relics of my faith, wrapped in outdated newspaper. Choosing not to examine these beliefs, understanding on some level their irrelevance, and yet afraid to move them into the throw pile. What would it mean to lose some of these tenets of my faith that I have moved from place to place?
Not only has this been a year of freedom. A year where I have gained so much. It has been a year of loses too. A year of taking a closer look at what I hold dear, what is no longer serving me and what I have already let go of. In Nicole LePera’s book entitled, “How to Meet Your Self,” she explains that we have more beliefs than we are even aware of because many are stored in our subconscious mind. These beliefs begin to be formed when we are young and many of them are wired into our brains before we even have memories. Our brains then work tirelessly to verify these core beliefs. This means that our beliefs are the filter through which we experience our world. LePera posits that if we want to know our selves fully, we have to understand the beliefs that our brains are constantly trying to prove true.
In deconstructing my faith, I am sorting through boxes of beliefs, long stored away. Some of these beliefs, hidden in my subconscious mind, were already forming in my brain long before I had the cognitive acuity required to examine them. This is where I find myself on this journey. Life has necessitated the opening of some boxes. Those filled with beliefs around gender and sexuality were separated into two boxes. What I wanted to believe and what I should believe. I kept them separate for a long time, until I couldn’t. When it was about others, out there, it was honestly easier to not decide. When it was my family, my precious children, I blew the dust off the box, opened it and began to sift through the contents, I challenged old beliefs. I say that but I think I had already decided, it was the fear of rejection, fear of having to defend my belief, afraid of being wrong or bad that kept me from taking a closer look.
Upon discovery I saw in my mind those two boxes where my core beliefs around gender and sexuality were stowed. Clearly labeled “What I Should Believe” and, “What I Want To Believe.” The should box was small, its contents confining, judgmental and harsh. The want box felt almost too good to be true, whimsical even. Is it really ok to just let other people be who they are?
Growing up with a critical mother and an authoritarian father, I developed a strong sense of right and wrong. These absolutes were moving targets in our home. An oxymoron to be sure. They were made as pronouncements of unquestionable truth even as they clearly contradicted other equally unquestionable truths. This meant that truth was defined by my parents. Parents who were inconsistent, self-absorbed, and reactive. Kind and loving to the outside world but often critical and judgmental at home.
Living in the world defined by my family required agility. A skill I call “reading the room.” When I am with any group, I seem to be able to quickly ascertain their stance on a particular subject allowing me to monitor my contribution to the conversation accordingly. At a young age I learned to keep my own opinions and beliefs to myself. I continued to hold my cards close to my chest as a pastor’s wife. Always flying under the radar. Certainly, this kept others from knowing how I felt and what I believed, unfortunately it kept me from knowing too.
As the unpacking and sorting continue, I am finding as I rummage through a lifetime of beliefs, within deteriorating cardboard and wrapped in aging newsprint, there are often two boxes for each core belief. One box containing what I should believe and the other containing what I want to believe. Growing up with a faith where wants were likened to my sinful flesh and shoulds were elevated to a divine mandate, has left me with more boxes than I have space. But I can see a ray of sunshine coming through the clouded window in this long-neglected corner of my mind. Its light illuminating the dust of the years almost like a beam of hope. I have been wondering around in the dark for too long, trying to get my bearings, stubbing my toes and tripping over all those should boxes.
I actually feel excited. I feel like I am on to something big. The attic seems smaller and so much less overwhelming somehow. Maybe I didn’t lose myself. Maybe my thoughts and feelings, opinions and beliefs have just been hidden in the clutter and dust. Thanks for joining me on this journey, stay tuned, there is more to come.