The undoing of a "doing" faith

Leaving behind the busyness of religion to wander the wilderness

I’m in a strange and wild place this Lent season.

After years of being active in a local church community, I find myself untethered from the many traditions that once filled my week with activity. The absence of Sunday church, small group gatherings, and Bible studies has me feeling weightless and disconnected. As I write this newsletter, I realized I haven’t put out my Lenten decorations for the season which usually include my resin burner for incense, a few Jesus icons, and framed scriptures. Even more so, I don’t know if I have the motivation to haul that stuff out of the shed this year. It could be the foot of snow in front of the door, but I feel it’s much deeper than that.

As I have begun to lean into contemplative practices of faith, I find myself doing less: less “doing” prayer, less “activities” of faith, and yes, even less “community”. I kind of feel a bit monkish these days and it’s unlike anything I have ever experienced. As my husband’s faith and connection with God is growing, mine feels like it’s diminishing.

In our marriage, my husband and I practice what we call a “3 Point Check-In”. We learned this activity through counseling and found it greatly helpful for gaining empathy and learning how to listen. It’s simple. We ask three questions:

• How are you doing physically?

• How are you doing emotionally?

• How are you doing spiritually?

Here’s the catch: You can only listen. No input. No problem-solving. No comments. Just holding space and listening as the other shares.

As my husband and I shared our answers to the three questions, something became clear to me. I openly talked about my feelings of disconnection in my spiritual life contributing it to my history of “doing” faith. I have always been so busy for God: Church leadership and service, teaching Bible studies, hours upon hours of “quiet times”, listening to worship music, and mentoring younger people in their faith. My husband, on the other hand, shared how much that stuff made him feel disconnected and it’s been the contemplative practices drawing him closer to God. He shared how he is seeing more and more of Christ in the people he works with and how he is easily finding God in nature. I was a bit stunned. I have always been the more spiritual one in our marriage.

As I write this newsletter, it will be my third attempt at writing. I have felt scattered, rereading my last essay to find my footing only to wander off the path again into a strange and wild terrain. Then, like a tap on the shoulder, I knew:

I am in the wilderness.

After Jesus was baptized, he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness and fasted for forty days before the evil one came to tempt him (Matthew 4:1-17; Mark 1: 12,13; Luke 4:1:13). Lent is based on the forty days Jesus fasted before his ministry began. It is then interesting to see throughout Jesus’s ministry, he had a lot to say about fasting as well as other pious activities. Long story short: he didn’t fast after those first forty days and was constantly questioned by the religious authority about it. Jesus wasn’t a big fan of “doing” religion, modeling after what the prophet Isaiah taught (Isaiah 58). Instead, Jesus was about embodying religion which had him dining with sinners and saints alike, throwing open the doors of the banquet to invite all to the wedding feast (Matthew 22).

Father Richard Rohr often teaches about our profound capacity for missing the point. Both in the teachings of Jesus and Isaiah, it is quite clear that God doesn’t need our religious activities, he wants our hearts turned toward him and toward our neighbor, especially the oppressed. So it seems that in this season, only one thing is required: us. Not our lengthy prayers or fastings or fancy church services. Just us.

Just you.

Just me.

Yet, it becomes increasingly difficult to offer ourselves when we are lost in the flurry of religious activities. And I must admit, I loved those activities! They made me feel like I was on the “right track” in my seeking God. See how easy it is to miss the point!? But now, by some divine intervention, they feel too heavy to carry as I wander in the wilderness. I see now the untethering I feel is my willingness to leave behind what I once knew for the unknown: For wordless prayers, for community among the trees, and for scripture spoken through the wind. I am deeply unfamiliar with this landscape which has me feeling disconnected, watching the faith I once had that looked so, well… good *ick* fade away as I travel deeper into the wild. Because if I am being honest, doing faith wasn’t drawing me any closer to the God who said “render me your hearts and not your garments”. God doesn’t want the outer exterior that is easily polished and presentable but our inner world that we painstakingly hideaway, concealing our shame, our bias’ and our oh-so-often, judgments of ourselves and others.

I have been a champion of missing the point, focusing my efforts on doing faith. So the uncomfortable, untethered undoing of my busy faith has me standing at the threshold of Lent looking out into the wild that requires very little of me but costs me everything: all of the things I once knew, to find that my new norm is now knowing very little. Yet by some miracle, perhaps it has been the Spirit this whole time, I am still stumbling after Jesus because he does not my heart, as guarded as it may be.

Before this week, I had a clean outline for this Lent series, offering you guidance in this season. How priggish of me when I don’t even know where the hell I’m going! And maybe that’s the point this season, for me and maybe for you. To confess we don’t know because, in truth, we are wandering the wilderness of a new and evolving faith.

In my younger years, I often went backpacking in the summers and if backpacking has taught me anything it is a lighter load makes it easier to traverse the path. This, however, requires we leave behind our known comforts and trust we will survive with less. I believe we can survive because faith isn’t found in the knowing but in trusting a Savoir who knows what it’s like to have faith in the wild.

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Note from Colette

Hi friends, thank you so much for taking the time to read and support my writing. It really means the world to me! This Lent I am simply learning to quiet myself through Centering Prayer, reading some scripture, and trying to have a few bucks on me for the poor. That’s it. If you want more, there are amazing series and books out there to offer more guidance (I will post some below), and if you have chosen to fast from something, great! I still believe in practicing fasting. As for my “Lent Series”, I am giving myself permission to step away from the rigid outline and just write from the heart. I don’t know if I’ll get a newsletter out once a week or not but I do know that you are always on my mind, and my desire for you is to have a resilient faith in the midst of suffering and deconstruction.

If you also feel like you are wandering in the wilderness, I want to be the first to say WELCOME! Please share in the comments what it has been like for you in a season of unknowns.

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Some Resources for Lent

Apps:

• Centering Prayer app - This teaches Centering Prayer and also has a timer!

• Lectio 365 - daily readings/ listening that are about 12 minutes long

Books:

• Wonderous Encounters: Scripture for Lent by Richard Rohr

• Bitter and Sweet: A Journey Into Easter by Tsh Oxenreider

• Lent of Liberation: Confronting the Legacy of American Slavery by Cheri L. Mills

Other/ Free PDF:

• Bless the Lent We Actually Have by Kate Bowler

• More resources at Wild Church Portland (at the bottom of the page)