The Distance No One Wants

Seminary creates a distance from you and others...

     Perhaps I cannot speak for all, but I know this to be true for me and many cohorts.  It’s not about “knowing” or “learning” the truth.  Many people skeptical of religion and those that study it assume that those well studied form pious opinions and somehow think that we’ve found the holy grail but everyone else is just lost.  That is not me, nor is that 98% of my seminary peers. This is not just exclusive to seminarians but rather to anyone who really delves into the Divine.  Here is what it often times does...
     It enlightens us through education and spiritual formation (aka, emotional military for the spiritual).  It challenges us in ways that lay individuals are not challenged in their churches, at home, or with friends.  It forms us into different people than when we started, and when the painful aching and realization hits - we are mostly, if not totally, alone with our partners, our children, our parents, our family’s.  We are different and it sucks.  A giant weight is on our shoulders of which we cannot ignore nor decline its demands.
      The world comes into a different light.  You see differently.  You hear differently.  You process differently, and once you have crossed that line, the Call, the Knowing, is simply too strong to deny or decline.  It separates. It’s something else to function in your beloved personal world where most of what goes on inside of you and who you are/what you are becoming is almost secretive.  It’s almost secretive because we cannot give what we have and we cannot expect those we love to arrive at the same place, same journey, either. After all, that would be counter to God’s divine desires for humankind. This has nothing to do with salvation or knowing Christ but rather it deals with Divine revelation through this spiritual boot-camp know as seminary and is reveled by self-knowledge, revelation, and the inevitable knowing that it is God who flows in us and through us.
      It’s not flowers and rainbows; it’s painful, hard, gut-wrenching, soul-breaking, work.  Anyone who is taking the process of seminary seriously, in my opinion, will inevitably have part of their soul destroyed.  And yes, it’s as awful as it sounds but in order for the new to come, the old must go and its our nature to cling to what we know.  Spiritual pain and lack of direction isn’t always God leaving you or changing what He/She once told you the light while you are now in the darkness; it’s reformation. This is extremely well and necessary for the Christian and, hell, any human being to go through and arrive at, however, it makes you not your own.  And when you are not your own, suddenly the relationships you used to have or have begin to look differently; less connected.  Again, I cannot speak for every seminarian, however, the disconnect for me comes with not being understood.  I deeply, so very deeply, long for my heart and soul to be understood.  The further I delve into the spiritual as an intellectual and as an emotional being, the further I get from who I used to be and become formed into who I am supposed to be; this often times is a wedge.
       A longing to be known and connect in your realm is created.  But what do we do when few, with the exception of seminary friends, knows of our deepest needs and changes?  How do we engage with our loved ones without some sense of frustration for being so separate? I wouldn’t change my call in life for anything, but one thing I petition to God for is, “Please, just let them know me”.

Outcast

      As a 2nd year seminary student, the public and some family members have been holding me to a certain set of standards of which I am not obliged to follow.  It’s been an interesting trip to discover the public’s understanding of what I am, who I am, or WHO I belong to due to being enrolled in Seminary.  What I have learned, per freedom of speech (of which I exercise daily) and this election year is that people have a very skewed idea as to what a Pastor or Priest should or shouldn’t believe and do AND people assume that I am already liked a caged Priest lion that is shackled into having to watch my p’s and q’s.

     To much of my delight, I am not yet burdened with having to fret about losing parishioners due to statements I make in leadership.  I can take a stand for the things I believe in on social media and the only fret I have is that somewhere in my future I won’t get a job because I took an ethical stance for something I believed in.  The monetary part of me thinks, “just be quiet”.  The Spiritual part of me says to “preach/take a stand for the things in which God has laid on your heart. Don’t be fearful but trust the Lord.  The Lord is above monetary comfort and our call as Christians isn’t to be comfortable but to be revolutionary in the name and imitation of Christ”.  Therefore, I am in the perfect position to proclaim unpopular beliefs.  If I appall individuals in the process, so be it.

      I had a family member say to me in response to a post on Facebook about businesses not being business savvy for posting giant signs advocating for Trump, "you know I love you. I think you enjoy making posts like this. You get people's hearts pumping and blood boiling”.  To be clear, I deplore any issue that divides me from those I love. It is never my desire to push an issue that creates separation.  In my world I desire cohesiveness.  I desire harmony.  I desire peace. But for me, there is no peace when there are people in this world that work for and support injustice.  

      I am a Christian Pluralist. I am both pro-life and pro-choice. I believe that in today’s political terms that Jesus was and is a Liberal (This is different from a Democrat).  I believe in delivering safe needle kits to intravenous drug users.  I believe not drug testing welfare recipients. I believe in teaching "non-traditional” but socially conscious Christian sexual ethics in the church. I believe in marriage. Period.  I am pro legalizing marijuana. I believe in a large array of humanitarian efforts, policies, and protections; all this being justified and reconciled in my faith.  

      In my year and a half of seminary, I have discovered that those of us who are educated in religious studies, racism, sexism, classism, and prejudice in this day and age are often outsiders that stir or offend even the simple and complex believers in our families and friend circles.  As leaders in the church our charge is not to meet the status quo or find a comfortable homeostasis within our churches and communities. Our charge is to move us closer to a life together that is cloaked in Christ and help usher in the Kingdom of Heaven.  So the question is to ask ourselves (clergy & lay alike) what qualities does a world or a person need to possess to do that? 

      I’ve been mulling over responding to my family member for the last several weeks.  Night after night it became apparent to me that I couldn’t just not respond in an effort to create some false sense of peace.  I responded, "I’ve been pondering your statement above for the last two weeks. For everyone, if we all stayed silent about the things we believe; if we all were afraid of of rocking the boat; if we all allowed ourselves to let someone else fight for what is ethical and right, then nothing in the history of humanity would have ever or will ever evolve. It takes minority voices and voices in the majority speaking out for the minorities to make change and create space in this world for what is right."   Do I believe that hearts should be pumping and blood boiling over certain injustices in this world? YES!  

Peace is not real peace if it’s founded in apathy or ignoring and/or waxing over issues.