Intent is No Longer Enough

I’ve written quite a bit on here about my value of assigning positive intent in my relationships. It has helped me so much in my marriage, with my relationship with feedback, and in my journey towards self-kindness. It’s been in my peripheral vision for some time now that impact is different than intent and that impact also matters. But it’s finally clicking this week, with everything happening culturally around the inherent dignity of black lives, that impact is actually a higher rubric than intention. It is my new goal to take responsibility for my impact while holding necessary space for my intention. I can hold space within myself to validate a good intention while still taking public responsibility for a harmful impact.

This space, my blog, has been a wonderful way for me to share my faith deconstruction experience, learn to tune into my own voice, and to express my anger, which was an emotion I had blocked within myself (I think this is common for evangelical women). The impact has been largely positive. However, the impact has not been only positive. I have written posts that have hurt people, ended relationships, and created lasting impacts in my personal life. And while I think sometimes pain leads to growth (hello our current racial justice tension - this is the way forward towards systemic change), it does not mean that people who were just going about their lives found themselves being called out by me publicly appreciated my writing about them. I understand that part of writing in public inevitably creates some negative reactions, but I also want to take responsibility for the impact I’ve made that has been harmful.

I certainly don’t want to link the posts that created harm here, but I do want to name people who I have harmed in my writing. I want to apologize to Ben Cook, Billy and Brenda McKenzie, and Kristi Belt for any harm my writing caused you. The impact of my self-expression in your life has not exactly been life-giving. And for that, I am sorry.

It’s amazing how long some things take to click in my mind. I think that might be just how learning works. But I’d rather apologize really late than not apologize at all. I’m truly sorry for hurting you.

It happened in a parking lot

Have you ever met your younger self? I’ve had friends who have had dreams of themselves when they were younger or who did EDMR to re-write events from when they were young. But last night, in the Winco parking lot, I was approached by a kid (he’s 21) who I swear was the younger version of me. He was so sincere. He was so brave. And he was trying so hard to please God. But he was afraid he wasn’t good enough, living in fear of taking even one step off course. The assumption was that one misstep would ruin everything. I remember feeling that way. The way he talked about his faith was so deeply personal. He knew and was quoting the Bible. I remember knowing Scripture well. He was kind. But he didn’t feel free. He wasn’t at peace because he was striving so hard to be okay. I want to say that his love for God is totally pure. But how pure can a love be when it’s wrapped up in such a deep desire to please? I think in some ways, love includes pleasing. As a 2 on the Enneagram, it is really fun and life-giving for me to please people I love. If that pleasure is coming as a result of intimate knowledge, it feels good to me to give pleasure in that way. But if pleasing comes from a place of feeling insecure or unsafe or if the desire to please comes from feeling inadequate, I don’t think I could call that pure anymore. And hey, that’s a problem based in bad theology, right, not bad intentions.

In my encounter with this kid, I got to say some stuff to my younger self that I know landed with him. I got to say, you’re already ok. Jesus already died and rose. You don’t need to strive. You’re already good. You please him just because he loves you. Find a way to rest and be at peace rather than resenting your embodied self (like needing to sleep and eat). You don’t have to spiritualize everything. I also deliberately cussed in front of him and that was fun. It’s nice to shake things up when your box is so small. He said some beautiful, insightful things to me as well. He asked if I was a writer. (This kid had some spiritual energy, what he referred to as the Holy Spirit, of course). I said yes. He asked if I had ever thought about writing a book. I said yes. He said, you should pursue it. Guys, this was a stranger in the parking lot of Winco, who I talked to for half an hour because he felt like God told him to come talk to me. He read to me from his journal. He played a song for me. We exchanged numbers. Like, this was one of those weird but sacred encounters with another human being.

Whether I want to call it God or not, this kid reminded me not to get lost in my family this summer. It’s so easy for me to take a back seat when my loved ones have things going on. A good gauge for me is, when someone asks me what’s going on with me, if my response is news about one of my 3 immediate family members first, that’s a red flag. And right now, all 3 of my people have things going on I could respond with. Tim just got back from Korea and is jet lagged and had to go right back to work. Macy’s show opens this weekend, which means she has rehearsal every night til 9pm. Penny spiked a fever and is stuck at home, which means I am stuck at home. Of course, all 3 of those realities affect me. And my semester ended a few weeks ago, so I’m game to step up. But I need to keep myself in the cornerstone of what’s going on with me. They will always be something that’s going on with me, but it’s a red flag when their stuff is the only thing going on with me. And that’s why I’m writing today. I need to keep in step with me while I’m supporting 3 other people.

Have you ever met your younger self? If you did, what would you say?

Sifting Reality Through Social Constructionism

One of the things I love about being in school, especially in a subject that I’ve circled around my whole life, is randomly when I’m reading hundreds of pages for school, something jumps out of the page at me and gives me words for my reality. I’m doing some reading for my Gospel and Cultures class and we’re learning about a process called Appreciative Inquiry, which inevitably, we’ll conduct as a project for the class. But within the framework of research and how we discern what is going on in a community, the term “social constructionism” was defined. It’s basically about how we use language to understand reality. Here are a few quotes from my book,* “Social construction counters determinism - whether cultural, psychological or historical. We use discourse - ongoing, thorough conversation - to make social meaning out of our pasts, to imagine possible futures, and to form cooperative practices.” (p. 45) Also, “We live our lives within a construct - a world created among our lives and in our minds largely through language.” (p. 44). It also talks about how social constructionism rejects “the belief in objective observation and pure empirical knowledge.” (p. 45). Why am I talking about this using quotes on my blog?!?! Because in learning this term, I have a definition for what I’ve been doing on this blog for 5 years.

I’m taking my trauma, especially being fired from ministry via my husband being fired from ministry, and I’m trying to sort it using language and engaging socially to imagine a new future as I sort my past.

That’s fucking crazy! Apparently, I’m a genius. No, but seriously, I’ve gotten some shit for what I do, being vulnerable in public and not expecting people to weaponize it. But this is actually a really reasonable thing to do - to take your stuff and process it publicly with feedback and support to reimagine something else. It doesn’t mean everyone can do it with you, hence the pushback I’ve received. And that’s fine. But actually, I’ve navigated this process knowing that my story and experience is specific to me, with the assumption that it might help someone in their process. That’s why offense surprised me - I’m not saying my stuff is true in other contexts. I’m saying my stuff is true to me just as your stuff is true to you. And in identifying my stuff, I grow more self-aware and kind. That’s it. I just have a word for it now.

* Mark Lau Branson; Memories, Hopes, and Conversations: Appreciative Inquiry, Missional Engagement, and Congregational Change (Rowan & Littlefield, 2016).

Being a Woman in Public

Hey friends! As you know, I've been wandering lately and I'm a person who struggles to put herself out there, though I do it all the freaking time. As I've been exploring what's next for me, I've been informally interviewing people in the different fields that I love, talking to people with experiences I want to have and trying to count the cost of my various options. It has been awesome, overwhelming, exhausting, slow, scary and exciting.

The thing that keeps coming back to me is expanding my writing and public speaking. It gives me a real sense of purpose and I genuinely derive energy and excitement from it. I have be honest with y'all though. This is the path that is met with the most resistance for me socially and in community. It would be so much easier for me to just get a job. I want to put a disclaimer here that I have not been perfect through this process of writing and speaking publicly using my story and sharing my experiences. I have been unkind, uncharitable and way too damn specific. 

Unfortunately though, a big HOWEVER is coming. And the however is, there has been a sense of kismet in me for a long time that this might be an inevitable part of my path, my process, my story. That if I sidestep the words within me, I will be sidestepping my destiny. That sounds hella dramatic, but what I mean is, I am regularly being put in a position where I can choose to be socially accepted ("normal") or I can be myself. This has been a great source of loss and pain for me. I've written about that too. And with a lot of grace for my humanity and my community, I think I can be proud of how I've carried myself thus far. That is not everyone's opinion, but within myself I can validate a true effort to have healthy boundaries and fairness for my detractors.

I am reminded often that women who are public figures are given an unbelievable, disproportionate amount of shit. The recent gorgeous letter written by Beth Moore and subsequent evisceration of her character (I will not tag anything here to avoid increasing their clicks but it is there, trust me) was genuinely triggering to me. I want to believe that someone like her who has played the evangelical game long enough, with such incredible integrity, would have built enough credit in public opinion to be able to lift the veil a bit.

I'm realizing that no amount of credit will sustain a woman who speaks truth publicly.

Whether it be Brene, Rachel, Glennon, Elizabeth, Jen, Nadia...there is no fucking exception. 

So if my dream is to become a woman who lives out loud, publicly, honestly, and with courage, I AM GOING TO BE CLOBBERED. REPEATEDLY. And that forever changes a person. I see that going one of two ways. You can either let it break you or you can develop a thick enough skin and strong enough boundaries that you can continue to be who you need to be in the world. But the cost is fucking high and frankly, mightily unfair. So far, I've held my pain, honored it and defined what was mine and what belonged to my critics. I think that puts me on a path towards the latter result. But I have to tell you, that month where I was spiraling was one of the hardest months of my adult life. There were a lot of tears, so much soul searching and an incredible amount of self-care. That is what I did full-time for the month of October. That's a big deal. If I'm honest, I'm still rebuilding my self-esteem because I was judged by people who I thought really knew and loved me. If I up the ante in what I write and how I put it out there, that is only going to increase. It is the ultimate sifting, right?

I'm intimidated.

I'm not sure I want to lose the safety of anonymity. 

I don't know how much I can really handle being told horrible things about myself, whether they are lies or not.

I don't know if my well will dry because the well I write and speak from requires vulnerability. And only a crazy person would be able to continue in vulnerability when spoken of the way these women are spoken of. Their public perception can turn on a dime. There's no winning, not really. 

Okay that's not true. The winning is being true to yourself, being strong in the face of unbelievable cruelty and fulfilling your purpose. The cost is public acceptance (or false public acceptance until you put one toe over the line), anonymity and freedom from accountability. I admire these women. I don't agree with everything they say and write. Why would I? We're living different lives. But I admire their courage and often, their words give voice to what I'm experiencing, feeling, believing and give me a sense of camaraderie. The good they're doing clearly outweighs the cost it requires. It does. 

Time to put my big girl panties on? 

How to Process Criticism

One my dear friends and I were just discussing the challenges of being a female writer telling the truth. It's really hard to put yourself out there in the first place. And then sometimes in the work of telling hard truths, people dump their anger, resentment, judgement, and pain on us in response. I don't like this aspect of what I do, though it is giving me a lot of real life practice in holding boundaries while making space for people's pain. It's an intricate dance and I've learned a few things about myself and about what it means to be a writer in this process that I thought might be helpful. Whether you're a writer who publishes publicly or not, we all receive criticism in our lives and have to figure out what the hell to do with it, am I right?

The first time I went through therapy, I was in college. The reason I found myself in that office every week was that I did not have a personal filter. Whenever someone criticized me, I took it deep into my heart and believed it. It was incredibly painful and left me ill-equipped for adulthood and authentic relationship. I find even now as I receive private lashings for my writing, sometimes it comes down to this truth. When we lash out at others, we are reactive versus responsive. When we respond to something, we use reason, we talk about ideas, we can even have big feelings but operate with those well in hand, giving people the benefit of the doubt. When we react, we defend, we mark our territory, we inflict pain on others deliberately. I try to write from a place of response to situations in my life and in our culture. But in writing my response to life, I sometimes receive reactions from others. I love to talk about the actual ideas of my subjects (abuse, church baggage, bad theology, mental health, feminism, family, etc). But sometimes people don't come to me to about ideas. They come to me to put their pain in my box. And when that happens, I've developed a few rhythms that have served me well.

Number one, I hold the pain. When people have said deliberately unkind things to me, questioned my motives, my character, my very self, it hurts my feelings. It makes me giggle a bit that this might surprise some people. As much as my pen has a bite, I am a very tender-hearted person! When you tell me I'm selfish or a liar, it makes me cry. I am human. And I cry. I think I cried the entire month of October because of that damn VBS post. But you know what? THAT'S OKAY. Not, I deserved it, or that's what you get. But it's okay because I was in a lot of pain. So I held it. I felt it. I cried. I went on nature walks. I wrote. I talked to my friends again and again. I sat in silence alone. I processed the pain. That processing can take a long time. But it is so important to process before responding to unkind push back. 

Why? 

Two reasons: I am worthy of having my pain felt, processed and validated. That time is well spent and I don't need to rush to respond because people are waiting. I am hurting. I don't want to respond from that place so that place needs to be sat in first. Two and this gets to the greater number two of this post. The number two is, decide who you want to be in the situation. This is the beauty of healthy boundaries! I love this so much. I don't get to choose how I am treated. BUT I GET TO CHOOSE HOW I TREAT OTHERS WHEN THEY HURT ME. This is so exciting because it means that I get to decide who I am no matter how others perceive me. This is self-love, self-affirmation - this is security, people! It's really exciting to get to a place where people can't tell you who you are, why you do what you do or how you feel. Even your closest allies don't get to tell you who you are, not really. I've even stepped away from finding my identity in God. I think my co-dependent, tell me who I am, shit started with church. I get to validate myself. It doesn't mean that others can't encourage you and affirm you too. But others fail us because that's what relationship with other humans is. It's fucking up and apologizing and also just plain disagreeing. That's okay. 

Once you know who you want to be in a situation and how you want to conduct yourself in it, you can respond with curiosity rather than reacting in self-defense (number three). Turns out, oftentimes a big reaction is a mirror in front of the person reacting, not the person they're screaming at. It's a reflection of THEM. Again, I want to make the distinction between people who want to debate ideas and people who are attacking you as a person. Personal beliefs (ideas) reflect us too but not in the visceral way that outbursts do. Maybe whatever you said or did triggered that person. So instead of defending yourself (you can decline to defend yourself), ASK QUESTIONS. What's going on with them that they felt it was appropriate to scream profanities at you? I'd like to think that there's enough room for big feelings and holding space for people without having to go straight to name-calling, denying the assumption of positive intent and character attacks. I love the use of these phrases "tell me about...", "can you speak into...", "I'd like to know more about..." It helps unpack what's really going on in them without taking on their stuff and making it yours to fix. I can't emphasize enough how important it is to decline taking responsibility for other's feelings. It denies them their work. And ultimately, that's a crying shame. 

Pain is our friend and our work is ours to do. Don't try to do other people's work. If you're anything like me, your work keeps you plenty busy without taking on other people's. The goal here isn't not fucking up. The goal is learning from pain and making space for others without taking on their shit. We all mess up. Hurt happens whether it's intentional or not. So let's be curious about our pain, let's sit in our big feelings and examine what they mean about US not those around us. 

One final thought, my friend made this point and I thought it was dead on. She said, the people who seem to be able to do this (the above three points) are those who have been in a practice of self-love. The more we learn to love ourselves, the less likely we are to lash out at others. Right? It's not about not making mistakes. It's about being safe to know you're loved while you're making mistakes. The mistakes are expected. Conflict is normal! It's about loving yourself through that learning process. And when we can give ourselves that love, that space to process our feelings and have compassion for ourselves, we are able to hold space for others, even those who trigger and hurt us. 

May you hold your pain and tend to it. May you be exactly who you want to be in conflict. And may you be curious about the pain of others instead of trying to fix it or feel threatened by it.

Peace, friends.