A stinging balm

There was a time in my not so distant past when going to church on a day like today would feel impossible, like the last thing in the world I wanted to do but something I HAD to do because it was my job. And so I would force myself to shower and get dressed and drive to church in the morning dark and hide behind “work Emily” for ten hours till I finally drive home in the dark again, exhausted and feeling so dangerously exposed.

Today feels like one of those days.

With male Christian leaders and writers minimizing Phillip Yancey’s almost decade-long lies and sexual misconduct (at best! we don’t know who this so called affair was with someone he was with or if she was someone he had authority/influence over) with tripes like talking about how easy it is to “fall” into an affair if you don’t trust Jesus enough and whatever, how do I walk into the doors of a church and trust a man with pastoral authority?

With male federal agents shooting a woman in the FACE in cold blood and calling her a gendered slur modified by a curse that connotes sexualized violence, and the people Christian leaders and writers said Americans HAD TO vote for to be pro-life not only excuse and justify but lie and smear and say she deserved to die for not submitting properly to this assumed male authority, how do I walk into a church and trust the people sitting next to me who may have voted for that and believe that?

For years, every Sunday morning I woke up and walked with dread into the place, the people, who are supposed to be a balm. A place where people took screen shots of my posts about caring for immigrants or accountability for abuse and told my husband to get me under control. A place where my work was wanted but my female body was a threat just for existing, especially if my female voice didn’t properly submit to every male who assumed authority. A place where my convictions, born out of scripture, were welcome as long as they matched the party ( a specific party) line. A place where my passion was a gift, as long as it benefited men in authority. A place where my person was less and so were a lot of other persons, while men in authority gave lip service to the imago dei and priesthood of the believer. A place where music turned to clanging cymbals and words which should be a balm only had the sting of surface contact, but no healing or repair. A place where I was forced to hide.

Literally. I would do my job and then actually, physically hide, in a sound booth, in a preschool hall, in my office. My body knew for years what my brain and heart were scared to admit. It was not a place that was safe for me. Not the version of me that was real and whole. Not the me that cared about preserving and dignifying ALL human life. Not the me who took seriously the minor prophets and the sermon on the mount. Not the me who questioned the hegemony of maleness as default, unequivocally and completely set apart to lead, in a church called a Bride.

Not the me who expect the moral tests applied in the 1990s to democrats to apply always to everyone. Not the me willing to lose whatever I had to do whatever I could for the sake of others and for righteousness. The me that looked at the Cross and said yes this is hard and costly was not welcome in the building with a big cross on the outside. Not if it cost anyone else anything. Especially not any men.

And so I hid myself away. For years and years. Most of my life really. Because I knew in my heart my work was welcome, but I was not. (This may be surprising to people who have known me a long time. They might say, Emily you were never quiet never hid what you thought. And that’s true. To an extent. I didn’t say I was GOOD at hiding. I said I knew I had to. That’s why I busied myself with SO. MUCH. work. Because I knew it was a thing I could acceptably bring. And maybe it would paper over the things I was not always hiding so well.)

Today. As I sit in executive disfunction paralysis trying to get myself ready to go to church, the internal battle is very, very different. I don’t have to go. It won’t hurt my family’s livelihood if I don’t. For the first time in my life it’s a choice. A choice I can weigh with completely different calculus.

I know it will be costly to shower and get dressed, that’s a lot of my capacity for things on a day like to day. I know it will be costly to walk into a building of friends and acquaintances and strangers, carrying with me all the things I am, with no work or secret retreat to hide in. I know it will be costly to sing songs and hear words that call up so much stinging pain and believe that in this new place, with this different people, it can be a balm. I know it will be costly to bring my whole self and offer her up for pain and reproach and rejection.

But today I am going to try. Not to allow poison be poured into an open wound and call it medicine. But to open the bandage where new skin is finally starting to grow and take some of the ointment that stings at first but soon becomes a soothing balm. Not quite healed, not quite whole, but done hiding.