When I first started this blog, it was merely a few months after I had been confirmed in the Episcopal Church. In but a year and a half, I had seen in fast forward the extremes of beauty and harm that a faith community can bring to its people. Harm done in the context of religion is a special kind of harm because leaders in a faith community- both lay and clerical- become stand-ins for the divine. When people in these contexts hurt us, the process of recovery can take years- or sometimes never happen at all. On the other hand, when a faith community commits itself to continually learning to accept and forgive its people unconditionally, remarkable healing can take place.
Of course, the idea of learning to accept and forgive others can be an overwhelming idea. Are we supposed to be able to unconditionally forgive those who have committed terrible acts against us- whether those are acts are tangible acts of violence or intangible, emotionally hurtful behavior where we feel ignored, disrespected or unwanted? The idea of adopting such a stance by ourselves is daunting.
But we are not supposed to do this by ourselves. No, I am not saying we should not aim to improve ourselves, but this is where a community learning to take this stance can be a source of healing. For when we cannot, by ourselves, accept everyone unconditionally, perhaps the community can do it for us. And if we commit to being part of such a community, then we gradually may transform ourselves and others, and this process may be a source of healing.
But what does this look like? How does a community do this? I have experienced this in several communities. What all these communities shared was a deep reverence and love of beauty, and these values led their members to live out all their communal actions with intention and presence. When they gathered together for liturgy, every step, every word, every gesture, every note sung, was a prayer. When they gathered together in meetings and in coffee hours, every moment was a moment where someone could be welcomed through the actions they were involved in. In one particular community where I saw this, the people were not especially gregarious; in fact, it was a parish of introverts. Many people had a hard time initiating conversations with new people. But their actions spoke for them. Welcome, I saw, was not about effusive greetings.
The liturgical way is not the only way this can happen in a faith community. I happen to have a bias towards incense, sung liturgy and worship filled with bowing and other physical ways of being engaged. But this is not the only way to be a community. It is not for everyone. But reverence, love of beauty and intentionality are for everyone; they are the things that make a community's life sustenance for the people. And spiritual sustenance brings healing.
I am now without a community like this. I have searched within my own tradition, and it is not within my reach. As more time passes since my experience of healing faith communities, it becomes tempting to think it was but a dream. But I know it was not; and part of why I know it was not is because that way of being - the sense of reverence for the divine, beauty and intentionality-are still the ways I try to carry out my daily life, even though they are not to be found in the Church I call my faith community.
I teach religious studies at a local Jesuit college. Of my almost sixty students, most of them grew up Catholic and their faith has been a driving force in their lives. On their first assignment, I asked them to write goals for the semester. As this course is part of the core curriculum where they learn how the Jesuit mission can inform their life as a student and beyond, I wanted them to step back a bit and think about what this opportunity to reflect upon religion might give them. Sadly, many of my students wrote about how guilty they felt for not going to church, and many of them set a goal to go to church regularly. Some of them said they felt they were "bad Catholics" for not going to church. But what none of them said was why they stopped going. While I do not know why many of them stopped going, I know that few of them have been invited to read scriptures with a creative frame of mind. And I know from what many of them wrote that they view a religion class as a chance to become closer to God. And so I know that in my classes, I must approach them with the care of someone who knows how much religious communities can be a source of harm and healing.
For now, these classes are the only way I have to develop communities as a source of healing in the church. When I moved here for the work I do now, I gave up being part of a Church where the healing stance I've written about here was the goal. One day I hope this will change and that I will be able to do this work in the church, not only in a classroom. And like my students who feel bad for not attending their church regularly anymore, I hope all the people who have helped form me in the communities I have been part of before will not give up on the fact that one day I will be able to give back to the Episcopal Church. It is still the community that defines my path, even if I do not feel welcome in the local iteration of the Episcopal Church where I am.
