When studying at The Bread Loaf School of English (Middlebury College) at its New Mexico campus in 2003, I took a course called Rewriting a Life. Tilly Warnock, a genius of a writing teacher, created the course which has become a "must take" among Bread Loaf students who consider themselves serious writers. That particular summer, Tilly focused on the writings of Tim O'Brien, but we also read Leslie Marmon Silko and Reynolds Price. I wrote more that summer than ever before about myself, my understanding of my journey, and the world as I saw it.
More importantly, I have adopted that title to describe places on my journey as I continue to explore this life that has been given me. I'm in one of those places of rewriting right now.
I consider myself a "serious" Christian, but one who for many years has also been a serious churchwoman. By serious, I mean disciplined—disciplined by prayer, sacred reading, study, and service. That serious Christianity, thankfully, for a time dovetailed into my serious church membership as well. Or at least I thought it did.
For over six years, my main work in the local church involved designing and offering spirituality programs, and I thought my "mission" was to call people to their inner selves, their roots, their connectors to God for sustenance and nourishment before going out to minister to others. Much like the yin-yang, I wanted to provide the dark, feminine prayer and contemplation for people who would merge into the white light of masculine service and ministry to others.
For a while, the ministry worked.
But ministry is a far more comprehensive activity than what the institution normally conceives. Now that I have stepped back from running the Center for Spiritual Development, I have a sense of freedom that I have not had since more and more control from others was placed on the programs. I have discovered that participation in ministry is to participate in what God is doing and desires done, and the institution, the Church, as it now stands cannot conceive such a relationship between what Jesus named as Kingdom and what we have tended to identify as “the church.” In the Sunday liturgy, that which most church-goers tend to identify as Christianity, we might keep that dangerous and creative memory alive, here and there, now and then, but hardly ever consistently. And once one enters the domain of institutions, that creative and fragile vision of the Kingdom is at risk of being co-opted, coerced, and commercialized.
As I rewrite my life once again, I find I am no longer bound to the institution, and instead, I see before me an amazing opportunity to explore the Kingdom. I think this means a number of changes for me—by no longer being tied to the trivialities of the institution, I rely rather on Jesus as the model for becoming Christ-like and free. If there is nothing else to see in the life of Jesus, it is the freedom he modeled, and that concept is one that very few of his followers have ever gotten right.
It seems to me that my new mantra will be, “Love God and do what pleases you” (St. Augustine). In ancient times, the prophet Micah said it this way,
“He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8
The rewriting process is sweet, indeed.
