Buy a Size Up (Spiritually Speaking)
What ill-fitting pants taught me about ego, evolution, and faith integration
It’s only been a few years since I left traditional church before starting a Wild Church. Ecospirituality feels like throwing out the closet entirely and running naked through the woods. So when you ask me to put on pants, of course it will feel completely foreign.
Hey freinds, Colette here.
You know those pair of pants that no longer fit but still live in your closet? You know the ones: a bit too snug, uncomfortable to wear but still cute. They hang there just in case you need to wear that outfit, whether for work or a night out. I have a few pairs of those pants. They have retained their style and I can still zip them up, but only if I have the energy to suck in the extra weight and stand with perfect posture. Strangely, I think of these pants when I am asked to participate in any of my former Evangelical traditions. I rarely have these moments but when you work for a Christian non-profit, they are inevitable.
This past week, I was attending a leadership meeting and found myself attempting to squeeze into a pair of pants that no longer fit. From participating in worship - singing songs from my adolescence, to being asked to pray (out loud!) for our meal. As I awkwardly stumbled over my words, the old shell (read ego) scanned for reassurance of Yes, Lord’s and Amen’s. I still haven’t figured out how one can pray out loud in public without the ego; I’m not praying scripture or reciting liturgy, it’s just whatever the mind can think of. In these moments, I feel every twist and turn of a container that no longer fits. The pressure to play the part, using lines I have long forgotten sends me into a spiral of judgment and anxiety. I know this feeling all too well, as I have asked many times since my conversion - I am doing with whole Christian thing right?
Franciscan Priest and Contemplative teacher, Richard Rohr, speaks often about the concept of “include and transcend” when talking about spiritual maturity. This idea focuses on integrating past experiences instead of simply throwing them out. The challenge is then to see the importance of our spiritual history, carrying forward the wisdom we’ve learned. When we first encounter spirituality of any form, we naturally gain a dualistic mind and an ego structure that thinks in black and white. Rohr explains how it’s necessary to first build a strong ego container, and yet, we are not meant to remain there forever.1 The dualistic mind must eventually crumble for us to step into a more expansive and transcendent faith. And yet, this journey towards transcendence isn’t found in our rejection of what was, but in allowing the natural evolution to occur. Needless to say that I am still learning this and it’s pretty damn uncomfortable.
Like the pants I force myself into to look a certain way, I have yet to learn how to integrate my spiritual past. Instead, I find myself squirming like a toddler when I find myself in any environment where I am unable to run free. It feels unnatural to sit still, fold my hands, and obey the required regimen that is acceptable to the community. But I am going to give myself a break. It’s only been a few years since I left traditional church before starting a Wild Church. Ecospirituality feels like throwing out the closet entirely and running naked through the woods. So when you ask me to put on pants, of course it will feel completely foreign. But integration doesn’t happen overnight, it’s a process of discovering ways to include what was while letting the slow stages of evolution to occur. Denying and rejecting my past would be much easier, but eventually the pants won’t fit at all, and I’ll end up pantless, and no one wants that.
If I am to begin my journey towards including and transcending, I need to start remembering how much the old container taught and formed me; Taking time to honor what was and appreciating the path it laid out for me. However, this doesn’t look like reading through my old journals and listening to Point of Grace belt out cross the great divide.2 I’m not entirely sure what integration looks like, and I think that’s the point. Evolution is natural and wild, and happens over years. When I think about integration, it’s tempting to simply replay only the bad shit and forget the gifts my former tradition offered. If I am truly going to live free from the old container, I also need to stop vandalizing it. It is what it is, and no amount of deconstruction will change that.
I took a style class with some girlfriends a few weeks back. The topic was around dressing for the body you have. The room was filled with 40+ year olds, wrestling with their bodies and wanting to feel good in the clothes they wear. The best advice I took away from the class was, buy a size up! If you have a pair of pants you love but don’t fit anymore, stop beating yourself up and buy the next size up. But there was a second part of this style tip that surprised me: don’t throw away the old pants. She argued that our bodies change and fluctuate, and a closet should be filled with all the ways our bodies change. So buy a bigger size, but don’t throw out the smaller ones. I never imagined this style tip would carry deep spiritual meaning around the idea of integration. My old container, as uncomfortable as it is to wear, is still me, but it doesn’t have to shame me. It can just hang there, clean and folded, while I purposefully wear what fits the bigger me. In reality, I will never get back to my smaller size, but I don’t have to look back on those days with dread or nostoglia. They are what they are, and most likely, I’ll eventually give those smaller sizes away. For now, I can learn to have both sizes take up space but keep reaching for the size that fits me best.
Perhaps this is the best way forward when it comes to including and transcendending: allowing both the past and present to take up space for a season. In doing so, I can honor what was and continue to live into what is in hopes that eventually no container, past or present, will be able to hold me.
Peace and every good,
You can read more about this in Rohr’s book Falling Upward
Well, that song is definitely in my head now. (I swear I have a drawer in my brain for mid 90s to 00s CCM hahaha)
And also yes to all of this. <3 Transcend and include was such a powerful idea for me when I read that book. The past couple years have felt like an ongoing invitation to keep meeting my old self and including her in who I am now. It's been such a hard but beautiful process.
It kinda reminds me of the idea of replanting into a larger pot. The old pot wasn’t bad. It was the right size at the time. But once we have more space, we fill it.