We woke up on Saturday and I never felt quite settled. I couldn’t get comfortable in whatever chair I was sitting in and I felt compelled to pace around the house more than usual.

The hour for the funeral was approaching and the weight of its inevitability and meaning pressed into my chest.

I wanted time to slow down. I wanted it to pause and hold me in its arms for a while longer.

My father-in-law, Tommy, should have been half-jokingly saying, “I ain’t waiting on you all day!” while we attempted to scramble out the door in time. He should have been sitting in his green-striped recliner plucking a few notes on his banjo while waiting on us.

I shouldn’t be going to his memorial service.

–

That morning I walked into the kitchen to get some breakfast. The coffee pot was on and gurgling brightly.

Tommy and I always drank coffee together. When the four of us were camping at a music festival in central Illinois, he made coffee for the two of us every morning. When I was visiting family in Dallas a few years back for Thanksgiving he brought a French press and a bag of Community Coffee because he knew I’d want some. Every morning at work I pour myself coffee into a commemorative mug from Cornerstone festival, which he bought me every summer we went.

After he first got sick, Tommy couldn’t have any more coffee. He tried decaf for a while, but after so many years of drinking regular, decaf just didn’t cut it and he ended up giving it up altogether. He made me coffee once or twice after that, but eventually the smell was just too tempting for him.

So even though the brewing coffee in the kitchen that Saturday morning was everything I needed and it was going to help me get through the next few days of grieving, it was just another symbol of his absence.

–

It seemed like an eternity before we could get ourselves in the car. While we stood in the driveway, a mild breeze brushed our faces. My uncle Bill looked up and said, “I am so glad the sun is shining today.”

We arrived at the church. It was a small southern Christian church nestled in a tiny town square. A sanctuary with pews, white columns and arches framed the stage, and squishy flooring that was either green or red. (I don’t remember.)

There were several white boards near the stage covered in photographs of Tommy. There were displays of CDs, instruments he made by hand, and other artifacts from his life on tables surrounded by flowers. Tommy’s bluegrass CD played over the speakers, his voice and plucked banjo notes floating in the air above our heads.

–

Tommy’s laughter wasn’t a booming one, but rather one that would catch you off guard. After delivering the perfect sarcastic remark or dead-pan joke you’d look over at him and his nose was crinkled, eyes lit up and he was holding his belly in a delighted snickering.

Steve said to me, “I knew he liked you when we got to Cornerstone and within five minutes you two had teamed up and were making fun of me.”

–

The service was beautiful. It was almost three hours of music and friends talking about his impact on them. One of my favorite parts was at the beginning of the service when Tommy’s best friend, Dan, played “Amazing Grace” on the saw. (Yes, like a tree-cutting saw.)

Dan put the saw in his lap, pulled a violin bow across the edge and bent the saw just so to play the individual notes.¹ The sound reminded me of what a ghost or a flower might sound like if it tried to sing. Its whistling, timid voice sang into our cracked hearts. The simple and familiar notes of “Amazing Grace” were more potent than usual.

This was the only church, the only afternoon. We were alone and that saw was at the center of the universe. Time passed on behind us while we remained in a cocoon between loss and some kind of adjusted, new life.

1. It sounded something like this.

Hear me read this post:

Easter is the holiday that makes me the most tired.

It’s the most triggering. The most exhausting.

Other holidays I can handle. Most people spend time bemoaning the loss of whatever kitschy vision of Christmas they had, but for me, when the glow of Christmas sets in, songs sound brighter and food tastes sweeter. And when that same glow comes crashing down on my head after one heartbreaking phone call, it’ll still all be okay. Christmas still brings together the people I need, even through the grief and stress.

But with Easter, I just want it to go away.

In just a few short days there will be hundreds of good-looking, middle-aged Jesus’ draped in blue bed sheets coming out from behind Styrofoam rocks while the choir brings the cantata to a crescendo. Hundreds of my friends will post their celebratory, “He is risen!” phrases while I try to ignore the holiday that I used to know intimately and now hold in my heart like a bad breakup.

I’d rather it pass quietly. I’d prefer to go to breakfast someplace and try to remember all of the real examples of resurrection and redemption that I know outside of church walls and Easter Sunday over a plate of scrambled eggs topped with biscuit gravy.

I know, how could I abandon the holiday that gives our religion meaning? Go on, shake your head. Put me out in some overgrown pasture in your mind reserved for the dropouts, the deserters, the doubters, and the backsliders.

The reason this particular holiday gets under my skin is not because of the events it celebrates, but because the way it is celebrated amplifies what I hate about Christian culture.

When my twiggy, teenage self stood in the church gym in my new chunky white heels and sea green shirt and skirt on Easter morning about eight years ago, I felt like I was a part of a grand play. Everyone had their roles and knew what to say on this celebration morning. But I think that was part of the problem. Even after leaving the place I grew up, the colossus Easter continued to clobber me. Easter isn’t a play or rehersal. This all is much more complicated than that.

When I questioned the catch phrases and talking about drowning in Christianese two years ago, I was talked down to and told that my questioning was “abusing” the Bride of Christ.

“You know what it means, Deanna,” they said. Shut up, girl. Quit trying to be edgy by pretending like you don’t perfectly understand everything we’ve taught you, they said in between the lines.

Easter is the height of deaf ears and at least for me, has always been the least empathetic holiday. They didn’t stop to ask about why I might have been flailing in sadness. I could rattle off any good evangelical answer like I had attended Sunday School yesterday, but the words I used for 18 years suddenly sounded foreign, strange, and hostile flying off my tongue (“lost in the sound of separation”).

When you’ve had the Good Christian script for the first quarter of your life and after years of performing your role with perfection you suddenly show up one year, blank-faced with tear and mascara-stained skin, a crumpled script, and refusing to perform until you get some answers… you tend to lose your spot for prom queen.

Easter is the height of pre-packaged, “just add water” religion. They say that this holiday is the answer to the religion. Any question you have about why Jesus had to die or why bad things happen to good people or why we supposedly can’t trust our emotions or why women are treated like temptresses and peasants in the common church — all are silenced by this holiday. This cross. This happening.

And when you say, “Well, okay, but I still don’t understand,” you are interrupted by the screaming subtext, “This holiday is the answer to your question, doubter, and if you don’t understand that, well, you weren’t listening when I said it to you the first time.”

And so, this holiday darkens my doorway again. When I can’t buy a new dress and attend brunch like everyone else and just play along! … The scab rips off and is a fresh reminder of an anniversary of a very different kind.

A friend asked me what specifically I believed while we and some old friends of ours were out to dinner. I didn’t know how to answer him then, and I barely know how to answer him now. It’s not that I don’t have principles I believe in — it’s that I don’t have a faith that’s buttoned up. I used to be able to serve up the theology of angels and specifics of hell and dispensations and whether I was pre- or post-tribulation. But now the things that I hold dear are not shiny acronyms. I used to have tidy answers, but those tidy answers betrayed me so I don’t have them anymore. I kicked them out.

The guilt I feel for admitting all of this is immense. These demons in my head tell me that I’m the monster you always warned your kids about. I’m the girl who had such a promising and bright future in the evangelical Christian realm but then let those millions of evolutionary years and gay people slip into my heart and look where we are now! I’m deserting Easter. I’m the one who, in your words, is soothing my itchy ears and warping scripture. Honesty has no place with you. Honesty is dirty. Pain is dirty. You’d rather me give you some syrupy “I’m just wrestlin’ with the ‘stuff of life’” answer than admit my 3-year (and counting) fraught relationship with this hallmark holiday.

It’s like what Rachel Held Evans said in her recent post, “Holy Week for Doubters”:

But you won’t know how to explain that there is nothing nominal or lukewarm or indifferent about standing in this hurricane of questions every day and staring each one down until you’ve mustered all the bravery and fortitude and trust it takes to whisper just one of them out loud on the car ride home:

‘What if we made this up because we’re afraid of death?’

And you won’t know how to explain why, in that moment when the whisper rose out of your mouth like Jesus from the grave, you felt more alive and awake and resurrected than you have in ages because at least it was out, at least it was said, at least it wasn’t buried in your chest anymore, clawing for freedom.

So while you go and proclaim, “He is risen!” red-cheeked in your pew and roll your eyes at the “holiday church-goers”, just remember some of them are like me. For them to even get near a church on Easter takes an incredible amount of will and a lot of Tums. For some this holiday is healing, and for others it’s triggering.

But wherever you are on Sunday morning, try to leave your cloud of intention at home, remember that this is water, and recognize that maybe — just maybe — one of those people is hoping to get through the morning without a gaping wound.

Hear me read this post:

Photo credit: Flickr / Sapphireblue

It’s the new year and resolutions are flying around. I’m a bit worried to talk about mine because it seems the moment I declare something I break it. Like the 1000 paper cranes I was going to fold for my wedding. I got about 200 in and didn’t know what to do with them. I couldn’t get them to hang right on fishing line and I told too many people and gave up. They are still in a box in my house because I’m pretty sure it’s bad karma to throw them away.

Last year was a year of focus. I poured creative labor into an article and it got published. I created another article out of a difficult thing to admit and it got published too. I found a place I could put my creativity and passion into. I was a finalist in an essay contest. I was published in a magazine in Chicago. I worked hard to start building a community. I finally figured out what I wanted to graduate with thanks to a quiet rooftop bar conversation. I continued my quest to have more honest, healthy conversation with the people around me. I embarked on a labor of love that was terrifying for a lot of people but deeply fulfilling for me.

In 2011 I felt so restless and ready to sink my creative fingernails into something. I didn’t find it where I expected, but when it did come it all started because I said yes. I sent an email. I made a request. I kept following, kept working.

And here I am, one year later, realizing that I am doing it. I am doing what I love. I am doing this life thing. I am achieving things that I never really expected to be able to do. But you know what they say: things don’t happen overnight. *

–

I was sitting at a bar the other night with a glass of wine surrounded by ten of my good friends. I tallied up that I’ve known most of them for 15 years. All bright-eyed, wearing clothes appropriate for twenty-somethings, all doing adult things. One’s in the military, one’s in a rock band, one is ghost writing. Blue eyes, blue eyes, brown eyes.

I grew up with them. I lived through the trenches of church and Christian life and middle school and hormones and high school with them. Through stupid romances and summer camps and teen-hood. But then I had to break up with the church I saw them in most. I got so much push-back for it, mostly yelling. I lost a lot of friends through that process, including a lot of them at the table.

I experienced so much turmoil and alienation because of leaving that shaped me as a person…

And yet 7 years later we can all come to the table.

We can share a pint, catch up, and send the warmest of smiles across the table. That is deeply significant to me. There aren’t many things that make me so happy I am wont to shatter, but that’s one of them.

–

I had to leave in a half hour and my ginger-haired friend at the table starting asking me about theology, which I could talk all day about. However, I felt suddenly awkward because I’ve changed so much in that area in just the last two years I hardly know where to start. I either have to tell the whole story or work through specific questions that make me sound, as my mom would said, “all weird.”

I mentioned the “It’s turtles all the way down” story from Stephen Hawking, explained some of the inner workings of the emergent movement which I identify with, and talked about why when I hit the “secular world” ** everything fell apart for me faith-wise. I gave almost zero definite answers as to my particular beliefs, but I felt like I gave the most honest answers even if it did make me want to flee the restaurant.

The truth is I don’t have the answers.

–

Speaking of not having the answers, I have been watching this trailer a lot over the last couple of days. It explains exactly where I am. I saw him in Grand Rapids along with another guy named Kester Brewin and it affirmed my life path like very few other things have before.

I drove home across the state through the sunshine and biting air knowing that I was exactly on the right path, which was so terrifying and so relieving. ***

I also wrote a post for the new year containing stories to refuel your faith in humanity which took off on Facebook.

* And other boring adages that sometimes turn out to be true.
** I put it in quotations because there is no such thing as secular!
*** As I said to @joshua_eaton, “We didn’t pick easy lines of work, did we?”
Photo credit: Flickr / allison.hare

For every church I attend, there comes a day when the pastor tries to convict everyone in the room by railing against the “spiritual but not religious” crowd. My heart quickens because I belong in the group, yet I know I can’t say this publicly because of the miscommunication and rejection surrounding this phrase.

When fundamentalists or evangelicals say “spiritual” it means “secular” or “worldly”, and “religious” means “god-loving” and “good Christian”. The church sees “spiritual but not religious” group as Jesus-hatrrrrs who want squishy, watery faith in the “universe”. (I am putting that last word in quotes because the ‘gelicals say it with air-quotes.)

When someone outside of the church talks about the “spiritual but not religious” group, “spiritual” means closer to the Hindu word “brahman”, which is the word that means all of space, time, matter and energy. As my World Religion professor explained it, “It is all that is beyond.”

To many people outside of the church, “religious” means the stuffy church leaders who bully their members into assimilation, and who cause the world more destruction than they repair. To people who aren’t in the church, the phrase means more like, “I appreciate the whispers, flutters, and mysteries in this great big universe, and I appreciate the truth that I find in unexpected places.”

Do you see how this immediately causes problems? One group is trying to lecture the other about how they can’t commit to having Jesus as their homefry, and the other group says, “I’m this way because you refuse to recognize anything outside of the church walls and churchy things as spiritual, except for fairytale houses and trees because Thomas Kinkade painted those.”

The really ironic thing about this is that if one of the fundamentalists is witnessing to someone and the witness-ee says, “Oh, you’re one of those religion types,” the fundamentalist will respond with, “Actually, I like to think of it as more of a relationship than a religion.”

You’ll hear things from the pulpit like, “These so-called ‘spiritual but not religious’ people are trying to sound cool and smart, but ultimately they just can’t commit to the truth. Why? It makes them uncomfortable. They can’t admit that they are sinners.”

The “spiritual but not religious” group gets rejected, shamed, and treated as deceivers by church folk. They are told god will spit them out of his mouth. While true for some people, when you blame the movement on arrogance or commitment, you severely discount people like me who have left forms of suffocating religion and are rediscovering faith in healthier places.

♦◊♦

How do I show you this world? How do I show you this stupid, gorgeous rock we live on? How do I show you that we are all here together and are here for each other?

How do I show one of the most transcendent nights of my life that was at a Glen Hansard concert even though he said “f*ck” on stage a couple of times? We walked through the Zinzinatti Oktoberfest to get there. The air had a slight chill, a slight rush, and smelled of good beer. Glen Hansard didn’t phone it in or restrain himself on stage; he sang like the stars and Milky Way needed to hear him.

How do I show you that afternoon in the rain running across the Applebee’s parking lot when my husband (then boyfriend) caught me by the waist and kissed me? Some whisper poured into me and I knew at that moment I would be there beside him at the altar.

How do I show you the purity that comes from reading a poem by Rumi (a Sufi mystic) that strikes just the right note to where you look up and say breathlessly, “Oh, I get it”?

How do I show you the questions about anger and busyness that I and three Zen Buddhist women wrestled with over bowls of homemade cinnamon vegetable soup on a humid afternoon?

How do I show you that room years ago where I was sitting with a dozen people, and wishing I knew if which of them were gay, or straight, or bi, or trans, because then I “would know how to treat them”, and how I suddenly realized that my logic was the problem all along? I thought, Wait, so I need extra information so I know which people to mistreat? Because of who they might love? That’s when I started to see my LGBTQ brothers and sisters as equals and when they became perfect and beautiful humans worthy of my deepest friendship and love in my heart. That’s when I claimed them as my friends.

How do I show you the perfection of going to the birthday party of an old friend where wine, hugs, and science fiction jokes were abundant? We proclaimed, “This is family,” to each other after sharing stories of broken hearts and betrayal. We laughed, sat close on the couch and started to healed.

How do I show you the funeral of a friend who died too early? His friends and siblings, in their twenties with ink and piercings and jeans told stories about him in a small, plain church. Swear words sometimes slipped out while they spoke, but that was just how intensely they felt about him, and the gravity of how much they missed him. Those closest to him sat in each other’s arms in the back of the room and sang an Old Medicine Crow Show song at the end of the service. They rocked and sang, rocked and sang. It was the most appropriate and perfect funeral I have ever attended.

And you tell me those moments aren’t spiritual?

You tell me god wasn’t there?

♦◊♦

Am I supposed to just shut this out? To destroy all the important moments that changed my life that took place far away from any church? To abandon all the “unacceptable” friends that helped me survive and showed me what love is? To unceremoniously bleed out all the memories that contain cuss words and sex and keys to the universe?

I experienced more faith, truth, and heartbreak in a few hours with them than I did in years of pews. It’s not that the things I heard in pews were meaningless, but there I only received the textbook version and my heart starved.

Should I leave behind the ex-boyfriends that captivated me and that John Lennon play I assistant directed and sacrilegious kissing in movie parking lots in high school and blackberry mojitos and unorthodox books and delicious music by Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin and decade-long friends …

… all in favor of a religious interpretation that dictates I condemn all the people and memories that have made my life as rich, beautiful, and meaningful as it has been?

How can you ask me to leave behind the people I love and who love me because you consider some of them unclean? It’s not that I can’t commit; it’s that I can’t commit to that.

I still have faith in the same god. It’s just different now. It’s gritty, it’s visceral, it’s blooming, it’s healing.

I have experienced true communion, fire-like transformation, unbending faith, white-hot hope, and resurrection of the soul all outside of sterile church walls.

Thanks to these people in my life, I don’t have to hide now. I don’t have to pretend I don’t have questions, or be afraid of judgment when I need to talk to someone. I don’t have to worry about being blacklisted by my community when I mess up. I have people who care about me and who embrace me.

True love comes not from passing stale bread down from your pedestal to those you decide you like. True love comes from the bottom of your feet, hangs in your rib cage and screams at you because you know you couldn’t leave them if you wanted to.

I can be a spiritual person and still believe in a god because I don’t believe those two things are mutually exclusive.

I know there are some people who are uncomfortable with this, but it saved me.

Inspired by the wonderful Crystal Lewis and her post, “God In the Gray Areas: A Defense of the ‘Spiritual But Not Religious’”.

Photo credit: Flickr / www.metaphoricalplatypus.com

I met up with him and a couple of our friends from high school in the middle of the day. We went to a family-owned coffee shop downtown that was completely empty except for the four of us.

I hadn’t seen the swimming pools in two years. He was bubbling about hiking in the mountains, which he did nearly the whole time we were there. We played a version of pong on his iPad and I asked him questions. I couldn’t quite reach him, but after two years, I knew I wasn’t really supposed to be able to.

The other two friends across the table sipped their zebra lattes as they talked about minor frustrations with friends they have drifted apart from. I was surprised, because I guess I always thought their friendships were perfect and never changed. I remember arguing with one of them about Mohammed and feeling like they probably didn’t want me. But here we were at the table together, talking in a way we haven’t had time to in years.

This not being wanted thing is probably a lie. I figured it was better to maybe stay away, thinking that I was bound to only cause more problems than I was worth anymore. But maybe not.

I have always felt attached to this group of people. I used to have this sense of, “I was in the trenches with these friends.” The trenches don’t matter as much as they used to, but I still feel connected. As in: if I had my own room like the one in “Lost”, a couple of them might be there.

More talking about the mountains.

“As you can tell, I’m quite enthusiastic about it.”
“So, there’s ‘quite enthusiastic’, which is where you’re at. But then there’s the regular ‘enthusiastic’ underneath that, and way at the top is ‘overjoyed’. Is that what I’m hearing from you?”
He smiled, a laugh hanging right behind his teeth. “Hm, yeah. That sounds about right.”

His laugh is a little bit different. Same rhythm as it was the night we decided to have a mock alcoholic birthday party all those years ago—now it’s just coming from a different place.

On my way home, I put my head down on the window sill in my car as I waited for the light to turn. The air smelled like espresso, good coconut, and grilled fish. The sun licked my skin in happiness.

Time just sits back in her chair and laughs. Sometimes, I know nothing.

Photo credit: Flickr / Lee Coursey

The lights are on in the house. The sky is a plume of deep navy with grains of sea salt. We sit on the porch laughing, and discussing the situations that hang in our skulls pestering us through the day. Glistening, half empty bottles of dry white wine sits on the side tables next to us. Maybe I’d smoke for the first time, or make someone else smoke one of the those pipes they would bring over in high school that smell of leather and licorice.

I want to go to that living room one more time. We squish onto the couch whose cushions are far too large for it. We’d watch some movie we had vaguely heard of, and sink into each other’s shoulders. Faint white light is ebbing from the laptop in the corner.  I am drinking wine that lemon, grass, and canned peaches. We debate the movie one last time, discussing how that camera angle was weird, how they would build the shot differently, and how the misogynist undertones ruin the movie.

I want to ride home from the art museum. We get dressed up in the middle of January. I am wearing a plain white blouse, an undershirt that keeps riding up to the top of my hips, and black heels that make me conscious of my height. After visiting the gallery, we squeeze into an old Cavalier. I can feel the static building from the tights on my knees, and I arrange the stalks of my shoes in a way I only have to once a year. We are sitting close, the windows are heating quickly from the midday sun, and Norah Jones is wishing me off into the next life with her breath.

I want to go back to the restaurant again. I eat my favorite entrée with a rémoulade. The charred edges of the catfish fulfill all the prophecies about my life thus far. We laugh too loud and disturb the table next to us who is still waiting on their friends, but the blood is hot under our skin and we are having too good of a time to care.

I want to go back to Miami. The air smells like springtime, and the breeze flows through my hair and around my legs the way I have always needed it to. We walk along the shops by the water, by backpacks, and eat salty conch fritters. It is the eve of a new life, and I am with the only person who, when they touch the small of my back, it feels like their skin is part of me.

I want to drag one of our favorite bands into a town three hours away. The music is good enough that I can start to forget where my body is in the room, and let the notes sway me. The lights are purple and the lead singer is smarter than I sort of expected. There is no place better in the universe. The music swims in my ears, my husband is singing next to me, and the veil between the earth and whatever is above it thinning. And tomorrow we’ll wake up and visit a farmer’s market to buy dark green jalapeños that will—even with good intentions—sit in our freezer.

And when the last hours come, will the lights simply go out? And will I know they have gone out? Or maybe I just won’t exist anymore.

When the spark finally drains out through my ears, will I be stuck in that place where the sky blends into the sea in the middle of the night over the ocean? Or will I be aware of anything?

Will I wake up, emerging as a child again in a new body? To live another life, have sex with other people, to eat new meals and call new intersections in town my own?

Maybe I’ll be transported to someplace else entirely. Perhaps some heaven, or some strange country that has no name but houses us until something else happens.

Will it be like the L that I’ll ride between a celestial airport and the downtown on some nearby star?

Or perhaps I will be escorted out of the room by some dashing man to be shown to my grave site, where I will thank him over and over for giving me my own spot to sleep off the last forty years of beloved and ill adventures.

Photo credit: Flickr / JohnONolan

I know how much I care about the Sikhs at the gurdwara not far from my home, so I could only imagine what the family members, friends, and community members in Oak Creek were feeling. So, when one of the members of the nearby gurdwara told me about their new building and the open house and memorial service they were holding, I knew I had to go.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I got there, but I knew to wear a shirt that was not revealing (a good rule of thumb when visiting other religious settings), and I put on black dress pants in case the atmosphere there was kind of dressy. I also took the beautiful blue scarf covered in black flowers that my sister brought back for me from London to wear as my headscarf.

As I walked into the gurdwara, a teenage girl handed me pamphlets about the evening and the Sikh. I turned left into a side grey room where there were shoes all over the floor. Mandheer, who I have interviewed before, was directing traffic through the hall. He was wearing a black polo, jeans, and was carrying a little one around with him.

“Hello, Deanna! How are you?” He said.

“I’m great! I brought my own scarf.”

“Oh, you brought your own? That’s great!”

I slipped my shoes into the corner as he explained their customs to a couple entering the gurdwara, “When we enter our house of worship we take off our shoes and cover our heads to show reverence. There are scarfs provided for you over there.”

An example of how to wear a headscarf

I then went into the next room where the langar—the term for a shared meal in a gurdwara—was being held. It was a gymnasium-like room with long rugs running across the space with Styrofoam plates and cups on the floor set two feet apart. I found a spot next to some women and sat down.

It is a Sikh tradition to share a meal while sitting on the floor to represent equality. “This is so no one is higher or more important than anyone else,” one of the Sikh men said to me. (The absence of clergy in the Sikh religion also reflects this principle.)

There were Sikhs roaming the room with large pots full of the different items of the langar meal: delicious white rice with some sort of seeds, potatoes with dill seasoning, kidney beans in a sauce, plain yogurt, chopped greens with cucumbers, and tortilla-like bread. It was delicious!

I asked the woman next to me how she came to find out about the event. She said, “Well, there was an article in the newspaper about this open house, and … Oh, you know, I like to think of myself as open-minded and curious.”

After I finished eating, the next room had several poster boards setup with information about the history of Sikhism, passages/summaries from the Guru Granth Sahib (their scriptures), prominent Sikhs in the United States, and profiles of the Sikhs (and non-Sikhs) injured or killed in the Oak Creek shooting. There were Sikh women stationed at each board talking with guests about the information and giving personal experience. Standing at the back of the room was tall Sikh man in his mid-twenties standing in deep purple formal Sikh attire.

We then went into the main hall where the service was to take place. Again, everyone sat on the floor. The room had warm, red carpeting with an aisle leading to the front of the room where the Guru Grant Sahib sat on a platform. Men and women took their seats on opposite sides of the room. The room was full of rich fabrics, colorful headscarves and turbans, and sprinkled with navy and bright orange bandanas that flagged the guests in the room.

There were three men sitting in the front right of the room. One is singing, one is playing a djembe, and one is leading the song and playing a harmonium (an instrument that looks like a tiny piano with an accordion inside the back). They play three Sikh hymns. They do not sing in English, but the translations I read along with were beautiful.

The Transcendent Lord has given His support.
The dwelling place of distress and disease has been demolished.
Men and women celebrate.
The Lord God has extended His Mercy.
O Saints, there is peace in every place.

The rhythms and vocal paths of the songs were very different from what I grew up with as a Baptist, as the hymns are sung in the Raag style. My mind swam in the notes, and then came back to the surface to marvel at how beautiful it was to hear the room full of amazing people singing together.

There was a short presentation about the Sikh religion, and then the memorial section of the service started. Members of all different religions and sects were present: Jainism, Hinduism, Islam, Ahmadi Islam, Christianity, Albanian Roman Catholic, the Troy Interfaith Group, Robert Bruttel of the InterFaith Leadership Council of Metropolitan Detroit, and two city councilmen from Rochester Hills.

One by one they came up to speak their words of condolences, and condemned the act of hatred against their brothers and sisters. They spoke of peace, of working together, and learning to become a beautiful and diversity community together.

The road on which the gurdwara sits, there is also an Islamic Association of Greater Detroit, and St. Paul’s Albanian Community Center; all three centers are within a few blocks of each other. The Hindu gentleman who spoke joked, “Just by driving on Auburn Road I could convert to being a Sikh, then Muslim, and a Roman Catholic! I could convert to three different religions before being converted back to being Hindu when I got home!”

Some had prepared remarks, but a lot of them showed up without notes which caused their comments to come from the most tender, and awkward sections of their hearts.

One of the representatives from the Albanian church, wearing a clerical collar and a navy bandana came to the podium. He spoke with a thick, but pleasing accent, “I am very sure that there are two types of people in this world. Good people and evil people. And I believe that the man who did the shooting in Wisconsin was an evil man.”

A Christian pastor remarked about the response from the Oak Creek gurdwara, and Sikhs elsewhere throughout the country, “That sounds like Jesus to me.” He went on to talk about how even though we don’t agree religiously, there is still so much room to agree on common values.

For an hour and a half, person after person from different faiths came up to proclaim peace, community and solidarity before each other and the universe.

It was breathtaking to see some many people of so many different walks coming together under one roof to form something larger than themselves to promote a better world.

This is what interfaith efforts are about. Yes, it might be weird to enter someone else’s house of worship where they wear different things and have rituals that don’t make sense to you. But if you take a moment to grieve with those who are hurting, to stand up against hatred and discrimination, and if you come together, we can build something amazing together.

We have the tools to build a better world inside of ourselves right now. It’s waiting with for us with open arms.

If you enjoyed this, also check out my interview with Mandheer Singh for more info about the Sikh religion and what it means personally to a member of that faith in my Faith Interview Series in Provoketive Magazine.

The Borders is closed. The Starbucks, where I had my first date has changed its interior at least three times.

I’m sitting here doing very adult things like waiting in our only car (because mine is in the shop from being in two accidents) reading until my husband gets off work, and anticipating grocery shopping.

One of my major memories here was when it was cold outside. It was about four years ago when my husband first asked to date me. I was nervous, he was nervous, and I had a reason I was going to say no but as soon as I sat down across from him at their ridiculously small tables, it all melted away and I knew the only answer that could be was yes. I could not take my eyes off of him.

Going even further back was my first date here with a boy who moved far away. I thought I could handle a black coffee—how bad could it be?—but no. I barely sipped it between grimaces and eye-lash-batting. I like black coffee now from most places, but Starbucks’ house brew is still too bitter. (Which might be àpropos.)

The bookstore where I took all the boys is closed. The table where I first sat, trying to focus on writing an anti-abortion letter to the governor (oh I was so young and stupid) while holding hands with a twitchy/hyper, but marvelously handsome boy is gone.

And then I went there with the coffee guy, who named himself after the split names of two famous authors (and I after a mythological beast) but I don’t remember if we bought anything.

I went with my husband on multiple occasions. On our first date (after eating and Chili’s where I was so nervous I didn’t order for the first half hour), on many dates thereafter, and we met there in the blinding sunlight where I hid behind a shelf to reconvene (and makeup) after our breakup.

Borders and Starbucks were always a part of the journey; rarely were they the destination. I was always coming and going from somewhere else, but I always stopped for sweet lattes and flirting between bookshelves along the way. Maybe dinner at Steak ‘N Shake with the coffee boy (and later “Lady in the Water”), or meeting up with old classmates in the winter, reuniting with lost friends, and so many other times that were just as important that I can’t recall.

Borders is closed. Starbucks is not really the same. Mountain Jack’s is closed. The Caribou where I used to do Algebra homework and sit for long hours and talk about theology is closed too. (No more math problems, no more diagrams of time and space.) Steak ‘N Shake isn’t 24 hour anymore. And yet, here I am in the same parking lot, where I will be for years to come for very different reasons than I am now.

This must be what it feels like to grow up.

After my “Where the Church Lost Me” series, I had a few people ask me where I am now and I intended to use that as a follow-up post. But every time I approached my keyboard, I froze.

Over the last few years I’ve had a hard time figuring out what to do on Sunday mornings. I feel guilty not being in church every Sunday, but I don’t feel comfortable doing that yet.

After I left the church I grew up in, I moved to a church that had an incredible loving, non-judgmental environment that was full of learning, people who stole my heart, and Hebrew/Greek context to the teaching. But that church ended up closing its doors due to a lack of funds and a dwindling congregation.

We did the house church thing for a while, but that didn’t last because we didn’t have a sustainable group or model. There were two different churches I attended in spurts that I really loved, but our house is now about forty minutes from each, which is too far for us.

Every time I walk into a mainline church there is an instant flight response. The sights, sounds, smells, and phrases are immediately familiar. (Thank you, Baby Albert.)

This looks the same. It feels the same. The music is the same. The people say the same things. It’s happening again. It’s happening again. I have to get out. I can’t do this. I have to get out NOW.

Then my brain happily reminds me that I know exactly what’s going on. I have that outfit hung up and all I have to do is slip into it and no one will ever know the difference. I can slip right back into that culture and be the good black-and-white girl I left all those years ago. I knew how settle in there once, and I can surely do it again if I have to. (Or I sometimes like to think I could.) So, just for today, just for this Sunday, can’t I just be comfortable?

Come on, it’s no big deal. You can fit in. You have before. It’s okay, just calm down. You remember what this feels like, you liked it before. They will love you here; you’re a pro! You know the answer they want to hear to that question, so just give it to them. It’s okay, it will be all right. You’ll be comfortable in no time. They want you back—it can be your home again.

That’s when I saw that it calls to me like vertigo.

In the book “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera, the author describes “gravity” as the trappings of unhealthy but comfortable patterns embedded in our own histories. “Vertigo” is the heavy wish to fall back into those trappings.

The main character in the book, Tereza, has a mother who finds nothing sacred about the body. She would walk around naked in front of her friends, laugh at her own flatulence in front of them, and make fun of her daughter’s body because she thought that the body was just useless skin and that it was not beautiful.

Thus, through the rest of the story, Tereza constantly faces a choice. Gravity is the heaviness of the memories of her mother and the pull it has in herself. Vertigo is the magnetism and wish to fall back into what she learned from her mother instead of being healthy and fighting to live a different way. She can parade naked in front of her friends or treat her body like it’s beautiful and find someone who treats it as sacred.

There are days when the fight wears you down and it feels heavy. That’s the vertigo trying to pull you into a warm, but suffocating embrace.

So when I walk in, I get the rush of the flight sensation, then the attempt to settle coming from the rational side of my brain, then the freak out all over again. Ad nauseum.

I’m not looking to join a “church home”.  All I want now is to not feel like I’m in danger. I just want to feel okay.

Once again, my friend Kathy Escobar has written a killer post, “When Easter is Hard”, where she sends out love to us awkward-in-between-wounded-ex-church-folks. She quotes Phyllis Mathis:

“When the thought of walking into a church makes you feel a little sick. When nothing related to ‘church’ feels safe or good right now.”

Thankfully we have found a place to go on Sunday where nothing is threatening. The pastor is a great person and I know him and the staff aren’t out to get me. My friends are there to take care of me. And I know what comes from the pulpit is from a heart of sincerity and deep kindness. The messages have left me with nuggets to spiritually chew on.

So, a lot of it is me. I can finally rest, knowing that objectively nothing is hurting. Now I just need to let myself move through this period of mourning and alarm. Keep seeing that there is no danger, that there is good. It reminds me of lyrics in the song “Bury Me With It” by Modest Mouse:

We were shooting at a mound of dirt. Well, nothing was broken, nothing was hurt.

Maybe I can do this.

Photo credit: Flickr / laffertyryan

I understand that Easter the central holiday because it commemorates the single most important decision that makes the Christian faith what it is, I still just don’t understand the holiday.

I understand what it means, what I’m supposed to wear, and what I’m supposed to say. I mean, I grew up in church, I can play this game if I need to. But yet, it still feels hollow.

“O death, where is your sting?”

I suppose, just like two years ago, I still don’t understand the death section of Easter. How does this holiday that makes all churches abuzz with white flowers and high heels have to do with impacting how I interact with death? What does it mean beyond a nice phrase I can say to someone after a family member dies?

Death does have a sting. Over the last five years I’ve come face-to-face with this horrifying thing called death that will claim me, my husband, my parents, my sister, and everyone else I will ever know or love. How do people continue on in the face of that? How can we stand to get close to people? Why don’t we all just quit?

What I don’t understand about Easter is how this holiday is any different from any others. We get up a little earlier? Give Easter baskets? Repeat the same three phrases all day and flood Facebook with Easter statuses?

I mean no disrespect to the story. I am not questioning the events or the story. What I am questioning is our interpretation of it and our practice of it.

I’m probably going to wrestle with this same question for several years to come. Am I questioning it because I think I’m hip? No. It’s because these are real questions I have to deal with and I hate it. I wish I could present you with a cheery, faith-y blog post. But I can’t, because then I’m not being true to myself, true to others who might share my feelings, and no one will be is learning anything.

These big questions weren’t answered—or were answered too simplistically—as a child, and now as an adult I have to bother asking the hard questions all over again. (This might just be a symptom of coming of age.)

I realize I can’t be the kind of person that ignores faith until they get all the answers. At the same time, I’m too old to accept simple, empty answers. I need to know exactly how this story affects my mortality. I’m not sure how I’m this old, have lived through this many Easter services, and when the music stops with only one chair, I still leave the sanctuary feeling awkward, like I missed a great movie that all of my friends saw.

The only thing this holiday has meant in the past is: plastic Easter eggs, new dresses, and the yearly cantata, sometimes a brunch and an early “Son Rise” service that particularly good congregants went to.

While Christmas is a very practice-oriented holiday, at least you can unpack the holiday and explore the beauty of giving.

Pete Mannering, the pastor at the church we’ve been attending said something interesting this morning in the service that may have unlocked the meaning of Easter in terms that I could understand. He said that possums will not go into holes with only one set of tracks going into them because they know that there is most likely danger inside. However, if there are two sets of tracks, the possum will enter and go in without fear.

He said that the grave is like the tunnel. Christ had one set going into the grave, but on Easter morning, there was a set of tracks going back out.

There are so many times when I look back at stuff people have said to me and I think “Oh, that’s what they meant!” Because ultimately, the story Pete shared is about not fearing death. However, the way he explained it to us was different. Because when I would hear the traditional “We don’t have to fear death!” response to my question, my first thought was, “That’s cool, BUT I’M STILL AFRAID TO GET SICK OR TORTURED AND DIE. Doesn’t help me! I’m glad it helps you.”

For me, the possum analogy translates into not so much that we don’t have to be afraid of death (the end of the journey) but that we don’t have to be afraid of the journey itself. Easter is a holiday about the dawn of spring, fertility and new life, and new possibilities that wait on the horizon. Christ has the set of tracks down the tunnel of life and has tracks on the way out of the tunnel, so I don’t have to fear it anymore.

I can travel the path of adulthood, love, possible future parenthood, education, travel, careers, and it’s not just one giant death trap doomed to eat me alive and make me miserable; it’s this beautiful experience that I get to be a part of.

It reminds me of when my sister and I went to Kennywood, a coaster park in Pennsylvania, with our grandmother. The park is rather old and so a few of the coasters are still wooden. (Which I weirdly appreciate.) There was the baby coaster which my sister and I rode several times each trip, but then someone got the brilliant idea to put us on the roller coaster called The Jack Rabbit. It was mostly straight with a series of huge hills and drops.

My sister and I got on the coaster and as we discovered as we were shooting down the first hill was that our seatbelts were too loose and my sister was almost too short for the ride. It is still one of our most terrifying experiences that we’ve been through.

So, in a way, life is The Jack Rabbit, and the Resurrection is the seatbelt (except that it’s properly tightened and attached). I probably could have enjoyed the experience all those years ago if I hadn’t been fearing for my life.

Now, this doesn’t allow me to get comfortable or insulate me from trouble. What it does do is give me the knowledge that I don’t have to miss the beauty of the journey because I’m so terrified that I can’t focus or accomplish anything.

As I heard this analogy this morning, I need to chew on it some more, but if that’s the meaning of Easter… I think that makes sense. I can learn to appreciate Easter with that understanding. That idea is very significant to me as I tend to get caught up in the feelings of “OMG, how do you do this life thing, again? Can someone remind me?”

So, here’s to possums and a new understanding of Easter!

Photo credit: Flickr / JoshBerglund19