November’s slanted light creates a landscape that is both melancholy and soothing as the leaves fall away exposing the intricacies of the trees. They silhouette against the blazing twilight skies as the sun lowers behind the horizon. Hydrangea heads dry off looking like browned butter in a pan and are a thing of stark and fragile beauty. Corn fields are being harvested with an urgency as snow flits into the forecast.
Changing seasons.
It’s been over a year since I made the pilgrimage back to the tiny northern village where I grew up. That village is somewhat of a ghost town now, and it was both enchanting and enlarging to be there. I had this uncanny feeling of seeing my child self in that place that I loved with all my heart and felt a deep tenderness towards her. In the weeks that followed, this visit revealed itself as a metaphor of my pilgrimage in faith as a practice and a set of beliefs (if you like, you can read about that visit and my reflections around it here – Ghost Town). This shifting interior landscape has in some ways mimicked November with things falling away, subdued landscapes, and a slanted light that hints at wistfulness. Even a devout faith, maybe especially a devout faith, goes through the shakeup and withering of changing seasons.
Some years ago, the church that we had been a part of for most of our adult lives was reviewing a human sexuality report sent through by the governing body of the church. Among other things, the report was looking at whether the institution as a whole would accept and allow someone who is gay into membership.
My feelings around being a member of a church have been fraught with misgivings long before this time. As a 14 or 15 year old, I wanted to be baptized (as an expression of my commitment to following Jesus). The church I was attending with my parents would not support a baptism without a church membership. I knew that I could not align myself with the requirements of membership but went ahead with it anyway as I wanted to be baptized. After some years, I withdrew my membership in a bid for authenticity and to follow what I felt was my path.
Coming back now to the less distant past. When the human sexuality report was sent through, I read portions of it in an attempt at due diligence, then chatted with my pastor and followed his suggestion for action if there were concerns around it. And I pondered – what would I do if this report was passed and accepted thereby disallowing a gay person the same rights as anyone else in this particular church setting? I knew that anyone, anyone, would be welcomed through the door and into the pew. But, I also knew that there would be certain roles and tasks that would be allotted to members only and if membership wasn’t accessible to all, the welcome somehow becomes conditional.
One dreary, damp fall day I was out on a run. Mulling and running. Trying to discern what my personal response would be. And then it came to me, settling into my consciousness from somewhere else, or so it felt to me. If Jesus put himself in the margins to be in solidarity with the marginalized, laying down his rights to the privileges that his birth, religious affiliation, or societal position gave him, was that not also a paradigm for me to emulate? To craft my own life after? Why couldn’t I rescind my own membership thereby laying down the rights it provided me in that particular setting in order to align myself with someone who is gay?
The guidelines in the report were eventually accepted and passed. And with that came a test of my faith. My faith must be somewhat tremulous as I sat with this for a long time. However, one Sunday, after a particularly reflective and meaningful time at church, I knew it was time to follow through with rescinding my rights of membership. Our pastor responded with complete respect to me and my request and removed my name from the roster.
Did it change anything? Yes, I think it did.. internally for me at least. Were mountains moved? No, probably not. But there is something about finding a third way when only two seem available that is life-giving. It has the whiff of something that you recognize but can’t quite pin down.
In reading a book entitled “Truth” by John Caputo, I came across these lines that I found full of hope in light of experiencing a dismantling of what has been, like the leaves in a November wind. He writes, “His [a philosopher’s] famous word “deconstruction’… means finding a way to keep the future of a thing open, not to demolish it. So do not weep if something you love is deconstructed. Be grateful. Deconstruction is a love of the future”. It’s like the deconstruction that happens each autumn is making way once more for the future of a new spring. Can my/our faith be so robust?
My story is my story. All our stories are varied and unique. What for me was an act of faith to someone else might seem like a lack of faith. However, this is my story. Aspects of our lives ebb and flow, wax and wane, but watching and paying attention to these aspects (not only of faith but of life as a whole) brings a rootedness and a fullness to a life. I think we all in some way have the same invitation.
The light of this November will wane and give way to the brightness of a cold, snowy winter season where tubers wither in basements and fields lie fallow. But in that withering and fallowness is life, dormant and waiting. In an act of faith, I too wait and watch, trusting not only the future of a thing, but also staying present to it as it is now.
