The Messiness of Healing

I wasn't prepared.

I found myself all at once in a sanctuary full of Christians singing "Let it Rise" and I didn't know what to do with myself. It's not that I haven't been among Christians in months, I have, but I have struggled in entering the structured worship service setting for a long time now. What I thought was going to be a round table meeting turned out to be nothing of the like, and I found myself saying "I wasn't prepared."

I felt my anxiety mounting in the space, and I wanted to run. I wanted to run from whatever it was that was causing distress inside of me. The people gathered were a majority white, smiling crowd--a crowd I also have been avoiding for months now. The two threads--a majority white, smiling crowd and a structured worship service were crossing in an anxiety inducing panic. And to top it all off, we were singing "Let it Rise" which I associate with my childhood and listening to its notes lull me to sleep on the radio.

There are a few things I've learned about anxiety. One is that you don't really see it coming. Another is that it's usually linked to something deeper. A third is that the way towards peace is naming your truth, letting go, and envisioning a new reality. I wasn't prepared to do any of these things. 

But I was prepared to run. I looked over at my friend, panicked. "I didn't know what I was coming to." She looked at me, and spoke wisdom. "I want to challenge you to sit in the discomfort. It's easier for you to run to other cultures--like when we went to the Mon community festival earlier today--then to remain in the complexities and paradoxes of your own." Her words hit me as once as Truth, and I knew that whatever this anxiety was that I had to wade it out once and for all. 

And so the band began "Let it Rise" and all at once all I felt rising within me was a torrential downpour of tears. Immediately I experienced resistance--I did not want to cry in this space. I didn't want to deal with it. The only place I've felt comfortable crying for months has been by myself, because I'm the only one who gets what I'm going through. This is my perception, at least.

But here I was, clearly about to have a breakthrough emotive experience in front of all of these strangers. I had two choices--let it out, or stuff my emotions. I tried stuffing my emotions for about three seconds until it became clear that this wasn't going to happen in this space. I was going to have to submit and allow healing to run it's course. 

And so I did. Eyes closed, the first tears spilled over, and then more, and then more. "Let the glory of the Lord rise among us." Oh Lord. Here it was. More tears, and more tears, and the band continued. "Ohhhhh let it rise." I began taking deep breaths, opening myself up to the music that I associated with childhood.

Before I opened myself up to the pain of the world. Before Jesus ruined my life in the best of ways. Before I was uncomfortable. 

And there was something in this, something in the leaning into that which I associated with the comfort of childhood, that all at once I named as healing. The notes filled my ears and entered my heart, and from my heart were pulsed into all parts of my body. And I opened myself up to the music that once brought comfort and allowed it to sink into my bones. I allowed myself to name that God was in this song, too. 

I allowed myself to name that God was in this song, too, just as God was in the cracks and crevices in the sidewalk in front of my house in Summit Lake. I allowed myself to name that God was in this song, too, just as God was in the black church who loved me lavishly on the streets of Philadelphia. I allowed myself to name that God was in this song, too, just as God was in the psych ward and the flatlands of Bowling Green, and the pigeons of the city, and the land that sifts between my hands. 

God was in this song, too--a song I associated with my childhood and whiteness. And in somehow naming that God was in this song, too, I was naming that God was in my childhood experience of faith, a faith culture I have dismissed as I've dove full-fledged into movements of justice and reconciliation.

But in the midst of all of this, and in the midst of my deep disappointment in the Church and how the Church perpetuates injustice in varying contexts, I find that deep down I have a love for the Church that I cannot shake. And I keep trying to shake it, but as much as I try to hide or run away or not care, I find that I care with a depth that is too much and so therefore it is easier to resign myself to the fact that things will never change rather than think about how to strategically be a part of the change. 

And maybe this is just a part of the healing process. Maybe one day I'll be able to enter back in. But for now I'm in a deep season of lament. Lament on how the Church has not recognized the image of God in others and has perpetuated injustice. Lament on the Church's apathy towards creating more just societies and social structures. Lament that the pain of the world is ignored, and instead covered with a Band-aid "Jesus is Risen!" as if three words (when not fully understood) can wipe away a lifetime of ache. Lament.

But as I sat and listened to the church planters cast a vision, I felt myself have a little spark of hope.

I dunno. Maybe all healing is is just the appearance of a little bit of hope. Or maybe healing is the recognition of beauty and the letting go of bitterness. I dunno, maybe healing is more than both of these. 

All I know is that thirty minutes after arriving back at my home, I found myself in my room pulling out my guitar for the first time in over a year. And my fingers felt the strings that they haven't caressed in months. And my mouth fumbled over the dusty words that my heart hasn't been able to speak. And tears streamed from my eyes as art was the conduit of healing. 

And for the first time in a year, I sang.
And for the first time in a year, I sang. 
And for the first time in a year--I sang.

"Let these bones that You have broken rejoice.
Let these bones that You have broken rejoice.
For You are Good, and Your love is everlasting
In the day to day passing You reign."