This Square is Circling around again

7 years ago, when I started seminary, I was SO MAD at Jesus, I didn’t even want to relate to him. When we were asked to spiritually work with him, learn from him, ask him to assist us, etc – I worked with someone else on the spiritual level, because on a deep level, I really didn’t want to have anything to do with Jesus.

(I should say that within a year or so, that had completely changed. It took some investment in our relationship, and allowing God to heal me in a myriad of ways, but I am grateful to report that for a long time now, I have an ever-deepening, respectful, playful & loving relationship with Jesus, and we work Really well together!! I can’t say enough about how amazing he is ; )

But, back then, for many years, I was very mad at Jesus. And, worse, the reasons I was angry had absolutely nothing to do with him. It was all to do with my relationship to Jesus’ followers... Christians.

I couldn’t stand how ‘Christians’ were (in many public ways) behaving in the world, and I blamed Jesus.

More importantly, I was really hurt and angry about how I had been treated by many Christians, and I blamed Jesus.


Since my late teens, I did my best to follow where God led me. God led me to do and be and believe in many ways that are generally unpopular for Christians. So I ‘took a lot of crap’ from Christians. I gave some back, too ; )

• Part of this was just my path, I had to follow my path, and it was off the ‘beaten-track’. I had to be willing to do God’s will, whether it was popular or unpopular, whether it was in alignment with what I, and Christians in general, thought I ‘Should Be,' or not.

• Part of this was, I had to be re-trained. There are things that most Christians just know to be true: certain ways of speaking, being, understanding spirituality, God and the bible, relating to the world, etc. In the United States there is a generally Christian way-of-being. It has different flavors and variations, but although we fight like the siblings we are, we hold most things in a common ‘world-view’ in the Christian family. God pulled me apart from the 'herd' so I could get un-habituated to this Christian world-view and way-of-being. So I could see the habits more clearly. And mostly so I could drop them, un-habituate from Christianity, and instead habituate to following my unique path in God.

• Part of this was, I had to let go of being validated by Christians. I had to learn to be inner-directed, not outer-directed. I had to learn to listen and follow the ways of God and not be compulsively trying to fit-in, or obsessively needing validation from Christians. I had to learn to let their rejection and judgment pass through my space without “taking me off my game.” I had to learn to let my joy be full, ‘outside the camp.’

Through all this I made ‘friends’ and ‘enemies.’ I have ‘fixed’ and ‘broken’ (repeat) relationships and structures – both inside and outside the Christian 'camp'. Mostly, it has been the experience of going through amazing and endless cycles of feeling ‘fixed’ and ‘broken’ – sometimes both at the same time! All this was often hard and painful, although the fruit is very sweet. And of course this all is still in progress... I'm Not ‘baked’ yet, not nearly!


Meanwhile, after decades of being chased from the Christian 'camp' by God, and feeling like a square peg in a round hole (at best) with many Christians, there is a sea-change happening. I feel drawn back deeper into the Christian 'camp'.

I don’t know for how long? I don’t know how it will go? I am excited and afraid, hopeful and cautious. I guess no matter what, it will be a learning/growing experience!