Spiritual Chapter

My spiritual story is defined by vulnerability. It is a story of vulnerability.

My spiritual story is not a closed remnant of the past. It is a living rough draft: edited in each moment; re-layered by each new experience; reshaped by new people, old friends, and anonymous strangers; re-reflected, re-remembered, and re-lived; endlessly rewritten, reworked, and rediscovered.

This is one chapter in a spiritual story of vulnerability. My story of vulnerability is translated through the peculiar and important voices of each chapter, and it is in this particular chapter that I found the virtuous voice of humility. Against such a backdrop I recall moments of becoming, theological re-birthing, and religious reorientation.

Becoming

I am vulnerable. But I haven't always been aware of my vulnerability.
As a youngster growing up in Oregon I clung closely to my religious upbringing and “moral center.” A member of the Nazarene Church, my religiosity, faith, and morality grounded my confidence and motivated my movements. I didn't swear, I didn't run in church, I didn't celebrate Halloween, I always played nice (okay not always), and I learned from the bible through Sunday school, bible quizzing, memory verses, children's church, and family devotionals.

Just as “learning the bible” was important, so was learning. I was a good kid, and I did what good kids do: excel in school. Of course, as I found out, the whole learning process is not limited to absorbing the “facts” of the external world. The learning process may move us to engage ourselves, and to become, self-consciously, the subject of our own understanding. As my learning turned inward, my vulnerability emerged: What if the religion I practice, the faith I affirm, and the world as I understand it could be otherwise? My first answer: it can't be otherwise, so find reasons why everything is as you see it.

As a “high schooler” in Kentucky I was constantly in pursuit of justification for the Christian (specifically my Christian) way of life, way of thinking, and way of reading the bible. I felt that “knowing God” meant knowing God. I thought that reading the NIV student bible, through a few selected New Testament passages, was the only correct way to read the bible. And thus, from my proper reading of the bible, I recognized, logically, that there was a very limited way to correctly live. In all this, there was an underlying desire for total assurance to guarantee that my faith was not delusional, stupid, or ridiculous. I embarked on a Cartesian-like quest for spiritual validity. I wanted a firm, solid, tremorless ground for my faith to build a life.

It was in looking for a tremorless ground that I experienced an earthquake. College presented all kinds of challenges to my thinking, both religiously and otherwise. Hearing new theological perspectives, engaging alternative readings of the biblical text, and, most importantly, questioning the very assumptions which grounded my faith, denominational affiliation, and life proved—at least for a time—to be a faith crisis.

I was immersed in a chaotic course of questioning which drew me deeper into unsettling insecurity about the contingencies of my existence, choices, and cultural location. I began to sense that I might have been wrong, that I might not have it all together, and that maybe, just maybe, there were other ways of thinking, reading, and doing which carried purpose, meaning, and truth. At the core of my crisis dwelt the most problematic thought: What if the God I've “known”, the God I've enjoyed, the God I've lived for does not exist as I've understood it? What if God doesn't exist at all? What if Christianity is an invalid, abusive system of corruption and greed which inculcates blind followers toward meaningless existence? This was a bad thing: an earth-shaking, ground-rocking crisis. This was my crisis of faith.

If the world isn't just as I've thought it to be, just as I've known it to be, just as securely in my grasp as I've secretly wanted it to be, then what is this world and this “God”? What if the religion I practice, the faith I affirm, and the world as I understand it could be otherwise? My second answer: it must be otherwise.

I entertained thoughts of atheism, and, for a while, felt numb enough to consider myself “okay” with the world around me. But my vulnerability wasn't solved. I still had reasons to think God could exist, or that my now old “faith” might have had some valid grounding. It was amidst this endless questioning and reconsidering that I came to a sudden and transformative realization. Maybe my problem is not with the content of my questions or doubts, but with questioning and doubting itself.

Up until that point, I hadn't really admitted the possibility of being wrong. Sure, we all say “yeah, I could be wrong” but I hadn't really admitted it. I may have admitted being wrong at particular instances in the past. But I definitely hadn't admitted the possibility that in everything I do, think, or say, I might be wrong. I hadn't admitted my vulnerability. I hadn't entertained the possibility of fallibility authentically, truthfully... existentially.

Theological Re-birthing

I am vulnerable. But I haven't always been aware of its life-affirming power.
In a moment of authenticity and truthfulness, my vulnerability transformed itself into humility. The insecurity and insufficiency of my life became the groundwork for the meaning and direction which I applied to life's events. Christianity, religion, and faith no longer concerned me in terms of absolute epistemic justification. Instead, my faith became a transparent resting place before God. As a finite, limited, unsure person I knelt before the alter of sufficiency and declared my own lack thereof.

I finally admitted that I could be wrong about my faith, my religion, and my encounter with the world, but despite that admission I affirmed my faith, my Christian heritage, and my interaction with the world nonetheless. I found the courage to affirm myself—to live—in spite of my insecurity, vulnerability, and limitedness.

The result was a humble faith, ever aware of fallibility and insufficiency, but willing to push forward in spite of such difficult circumstances. This new courage was powerful. And my life took on renewed purpose as a Christian living with uncertainty.

Religious Re-orientation

I am vulnerable. And I must live that way.

He has told you, O man, 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

Through a succession of strange events I came across a Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) congregation where, eventually, I would be asked to pastor. Knowing full well that they recognized my lack of training, absence of previous experience, and young age, I agreed. In the most humbling experience of my life, I discovered the beauty of sharing my vulnerability with others. My vulnerability was not something I ran from, but something I embraced with others. It was in our vulnerability, admitted before each other, that I was able to connect and commune with a congregation of faithful men and women in such a way as I had never experienced before. It was in this communion that I truly shared myself, in all my weakness, with those around me. In so doing, I walked alongside a woman going through a traumatic divorce, a middle-aged man battling a life of drug-abuse and family hardship, a young girl leaving behind her family to chase academic pursuits, and a family concerned for the life-decisions of their daughter. It was only out of my humility, vulnerability, and weakness that I could approach these people, their concerns, and struggle with them to search for answers.

It was in this community of faith that I discovered a desire to pursue ministry: not out of strength but out of weakness. Out of my humility came a direction and path that I had previously never considered for myself but which made itself readily apparent to me. And it is here, pursuing that path, that I find myself reflecting, reconsidering, and remembering a life that resisted vulnerability only to find peace within it. My hope is that this vulnerability, manifested as humility in all my pursuits, would be a source of courage and strength as I continue to live out my spiritual story, chapter by chapter.