I absolutely love the people I work with and the community I'm a part of here in Cambodia. The beauty of missionaries is that they have seen the Love and come away believing that the best way to act that out is love the world. It's truly beautiful, and being in this community has taught me to have a lot more grace for Christians where I used to have hostility and anger.
But the difficult part of this is that most of these people hold a very conservative, straight-forward view of much of the world. And while I honor where they are at (I spent most my life in the same place), I know that I am in a very different place right now. Add on top of that some of the self discovery I have been doing and the realization that deep down I feel like a fake, like if people realize who I really am they will run for the hills. This led me to a place of wanting to advertise my beliefs so that I could watch and see who would leave. It's a strange cycle, I want to prove people hate me by doing things that make them hate me. Terrible, I know. I told you guys I'm working on a lot of inner-healing right now.
The flip side of this is that I am deeply terrified of harming someone else's faith. The people around me have a beautiful faith that leads them to make the world a better place, who am I to interfere with that? Even if I currently believe some of their ideas are harmful, there is much more good coming from them than bad.
So I consulted three of the wisest people I know- my amazing father, my pastor (thanks Aaron!), and Mother Teresa. Through a lot of contemplative prayer and their encouragement, here's what I have come to realize.
- I'm great at loving people where they are at if they are a hungry child or a hurting prostitute. But I suck at loving people where they are at when they are in a religious system I grew up in. I think this is less about them and more about me. I am still angry at myself for the beliefs I used to hold, so I transfer that to the people who still hold those same beliefs. This isn't loving, this is hurtful. I need to learn to love my neighbor and myself if I'm going to overcome this.
- Love is shown, not spoken. In St Francis' words, "Always preach the Gospel. When necessary, use words". Mother Teresa lived this by never attempting to convert people, but instead by being Jesus to them. This Love of the Divine, this Gospel, is so big that when we reduce it to arguments of Heaven or Hell and Straight or Gay, we destroy it. The only way to truly preach this idea is to live it out in our daily interactions.
- Life is a journey, not a test. My faith used to be like a massive Jenga tower. I couldn't let go of one theological idea, because if I did the whole thing would come tumbling down. In the long run, that is exactly what happened. I was so obsessed with right answers and following the "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth" that I nearly gave up on the amazing journey that life and spirituality is. And you know what? If someone would have told me this when I was in that place, if someone would have knocked over my Jenga tower, I would have quite literally died (at my own hands). It took Love slowly creeping in for me to be ready to just let the Jenga game go. If I come to people attempting to knock down their Jenga towers, I hurt them and lose sight of the Meaning behind it all.
So over time I'm sure more of my beliefs will come to light. I am by no means keeping a secret or hiding who I am and what I believe. But I am deciding that what I believe does not have to be the first thing I tell someone. Rather than focusing on where I differ from other people in ideals and beliefs, I want to focus on the Love and Life that unites us. Everything else can flow from that.
