The Faith We Build
Long before the fancy and expensive sets of today, I had a blue plastic brief case that held all my Legos and my hand drawn designs for building and creating.
As much as I liked putting things together, I liked taking things apart. I vividly remember being about 7 and sitting in the hot cement driveway deconstructing an old adding machine with a flat head screw driver and a putty knife. I took things apart because I was dying to know how they worked and I thought if I could just see inside I’d find the answer.
A few years ago, someone asked me if I was deconstructing my faith. I quickly said no. My faith was changing and shifting but it wasn’t coming apart. It looked different and I lived it out in ways than no longer resembled what I’d been taught as a child, but I wasn’t deconstructing it. Or so I thought.
I was examining my theology, my politics, my understanding of self, my worth and value, my goals and dreams, everything about the world around me. What I once thought was simply changing, actually was coming apart. And before I could embrace that process I had to acknowledge why it felt so risky to even use that term.
Doubts and questions, born primarily from painful rejection and genuine curiosity, acted like that screw driver and putty knife, helping me get to the insides of my faith and beliefs.
I first heard about “deconstruction” in a seminary course. And it stirred late night conversations with classmates and heated discussions while studying for exams. My inquisitive mind that loved taking things apart, seemed apprehensive to take this journey.
What I’ve come to realize is that I’ve been on this journey most of my life. And that what I feared wasn’t the work, but calling the work “deconstruction.” A mentor told me, “be careful with deconstruction. People will judge what you put back together. You’ll be accused of picking and choosing what you believe.”
I recently listened to a podcast where the hosts were railing against deconstruction. Suggesting it is for the weak and the faithless. It totally got under my skin, and now I know it’s because deconstruction is really hard and not at all for the weak. It is a daunting task that requires great faith. If you were faithless why would you even engage in the work?
Faith is strengthened by our questions. Faith expands when we seek to know more. Faith is not threatened by curiosity or wonder.
I was a kid who asked all the questions in Sunday school. Upon learning about the Trinity, I asked, “if Jesus is God how can he sit at his own right hand?” The teacher was surely baffled. And I’m not sure if that was because of the question or the fact that I asked it.
Whether we voice them or not, we all have questions. Many of us have been taught to suppress our questions, to deny they exist, to just accept what we’ve been taught.
A few years ago, after a horrible exchange with a once dear friend about my coming out as lesbian, in which they defined my queerness as sin, perversion, and mental illness, I spent a lot of time and energy revisiting my beliefs, wrestling with my questions. I lay in bed one night, weepy and anxious, asking, what if God does hate me? What if being queer does mean I am going to hell?
And there I discovered the question that began deconstructing the real struggle. For me, everything changed when I focused less on what I believed and more on why I believed it.
I no longer believe in a literal hell where sinners burn for all eternity, so why am I afraid of going there?
As a child I often heard, “don’t ask why, just do what you were told. Stop asking why, the answer is just because.”
When I was in the ordination process I was continually asked to explain what I believed. Never once asked to explain why I believed what I did. I still shiver remembering a tense interview where I was pressed to explain my beliefs on atonement. It was obvious that my beliefs of what happened when Jesus died on a cross were not what some around the table wanted to hear. I wish there had been an invitation, or that I had been brave enough, to share why I believed what I did about that long-debated topic.
The thing about the why and how it differs from the what is that it cannot genuinely be disputed or invalidated. It’s our experience. And no one can take that away. You cannot disagree with what I’ve gone through.
Why.
Why was I afraid of going to hell for being queer?
Because loud, angry, powerful people with large platforms and microphones quoting scripture told me I was. Because I internalized the subtle and overt homophobia that filled the spaces around me.
Why.
Why did I stop believing in an eternal hell?
Because I lived an earthly hellish existence for years void of life, light, and love. And God did not put me there, and people who believed in God helped get me out.
Why.
Why did I come to hold queerness as a beloved gift?
Because a beautiful group of queer souls offered me God’s grace in glittered rainbows of affirmation and acceptance, and new ways of reading scripture and communing with the Holy.
There was a time when my deconstruction was about taking apart what I believed. And that work was so important and necessary. And helped move me closer to health and healing. And a time came when my deconstruction shifted from what to why, when I began to focus on why I believe (or don’t believe) what I do. This is where I am today. And this taking apart moves me closer to wholeness and peace.
Remember that adding machine that I deconstructed in the driveway? Well, I was completely disappointed when the insides didn’t offer any insight into how it worked. And when all the pieces sat in front of me, I learned that the whole reason why it was given to me in the first place was because it had stopped working. I put it in a box and on a shelf in the garage. And then I went back to my Lego brief case and pulled out my designs for building an entire city. I had sketched a map with everything I thought a city needed, including playgrounds, water slides into the river, taco stands, ice cream shops, and a church.
I still like taking things apart to see how they work, but what I really love is creating new things, especially from the old things around me.
Why?
Because the faith that sustains us is the faith we build from the pieces of what once tried to take us down.
Water-fully Yours,
Rebecca & 10 Camels
Rebecca, Just read your what and why article. Wonderfully constructed. I Am a person who asks why and wish to know how things are put together. My father was in the construction business. I used to watch him repair things and stuff. It was fascinating to me.
My Religion, Catholic has so many rules and regulations that I find not to be "Godly". My children sometimes call me a Cafeteria Catholic. Perhaps I am. I do not believe a God would say or do some of the things I was taught. My father was not a Catholic. He was a warm generous, gregarious, funny guy. He made sure we went to church and "behaved". I was told if you are not Catholic you would not goto heaven. Do't think so.
Interpretation is different when talking to different people. Translating things from one language to another is not exact. Since we are all children of God and God loves us and we are not all the same. He/ she must have his/her own yardstick. I know we say Father because that is what we were taught. If we are made in his image and likeness and we are male and female who is to say what is"right". Your inner being tells you. God talks to us if we listen. Just because someone who is so "learned" says so. Don't think so.
In talking about Jesus sitting at the right hand of God. We are all products of our parents. We are not our parents. I say all the questions we ask and cannot find answers for, we will find out when we get to where we are going, after we leave here. By then we won't care because we will know. Keep shinning your light and thoughts with us my friend. XO Cheryl W
Thankyou!