A year and a day

I've debated the writing of this post for several months. Because I know that the writing and the reading of it could cause me to lose some friends and possibly make me some enemies. I won't say I'm completely ready to handle that, but I'm tired of prattling on about silly things because I'm worried about people's reactions.

There is a song by a group called Ceredwen that I absolutely love. In Welsh, it is called Blwyddyn I Heno (pronounced Bloy-thin (th like "the") E Hay-no) or "A Year from this Night". It's based on the ancient Celtic concept that for a magical spell to work, time must pass through all the seasons - a year and a day. Turns out, there may be something tangible to that idea - something the ancient Celts understood about human nature.

A year and three months ago, we left the last church we'd been part of for 2 years. It was my intention at the time to merely give myself some space to step back and pray and think and deal with some practical family issues. It was not my intention to embark on a deep spiritual journey. Nevertheless, that was exactly what I found myself facing a month or two after I'd wrapped up the pressing family issues.

We had made the decision to finally find ourselves an actual *local* church (one not 15 -25 miles away) to become a part of. So, summer of 2009 that's what we started doing. In an effort to not get my oldest all goofed up (Aspberger's kids crave routine) I did much of the searching, only bringing the family along when I thought I'd found a viable possibility. I let go of my idea of getting this done within a certain time frame, allowing as long as needed for the search (figuring that since God was the one who started me on this journey, He was willing for us to do it right this time.) Some Sundays we all just stayed home, and I did a lot of solo Bible reading and prayer.

During this time I began having some very cool and vivid dreams, of a sort that I'd never experienced in such a compressed time frame. These lasted through about half the summer. I wrote them all down for pondering later. I thought things were going rather well on my spiritual journey. But as summer progressed and we were no closer to finding a truly suitable church home, suddenly I found the bottom dropping out from under me, emotionally and spiritually. I tripped and fell into a very deep dark night of the soul. A black hole of despair; a crushing loneliness. Other than the (probably) post partum depression I'd suffered after the birth of our first son, this was the darkest, bleakest point of my life.

I craved relief from it the way a drowning man craves air. And yet, somewhere in the deepest part of myself, I knew that this time I had to confront the cause - and not slap a spiritual band aid on it like I've done all my life.

So, against all the wisdom of society and pop culture - I sat with it - I put the church search on the back burner and I sat there, with the darkness and the pain. This may sound very profound and mystical, but I promise you it was not at the time. It was very messy and disrupting. At the time it felt like my soul had been ripped out of my body and flung in a hundred directions. In between caring for my family I was having a quiet nervous breakdown. (Or, not so quiet, if you ask my husband.)

I thought about therapy. I thought about Prozac. There were times I honestly thought I was losing my mind. It felt like I was walking a tightrope over a gaping chasm at night without a net.

Not wanting the expense of therapy or the side effects of medicine, I did what I do best. I researched. The library became my new best friend. Only (and here's where it may get uncomfortable for some) I quickly realized I would not get anywhere with my self-made therapy if I limited myself to "christian" sources. Feeling half-atheistic by this point anyway, I came to the conclusion that if God flung me on this journey then God would understand that I must face this deep dark night all the way through to the bottom or it would only come back. So that's what I did.

I removed the "Christian culture filter" from my mind. I gave myself permission (possibly for the first time ever) to read any book about any subject that might perhaps shed light on my questions. Within a few weeks I found to my utter surprise that I could no longer listen to my favorite Christian radio station - it felt, cloying and suffocating somehow. Since I live my life to the soundtrack in my head this was disturbing at a very deep level - I found myself dealing with an awful lot of silence - in my head, in my world.

I thought often about contacting my church buddies - I so wanted relief, comfort, acceptance. Many, many times I almost shut the door of my mind on the questions - telling them to shut up and go away and leave me in peace. But a curious thing began to happen. In the silence of my mind and heart - in the place where I'd stopped hearing God's voice - I felt..... a Presence. With me, within me, buoying me up, nestled quietly in the depths of my being. I hardly dared give it a name. It felt older than any Name I could attach to it. By now lacking all outward trappings of Christianity - (I'd withdrawn from church, Bible study, and Christian culture in general) I hung my fragile hopes on this Presence as an indication that God had not entirely forsaken me.

Meanwhile I kept expecting lightning bolts to zot me out the blue - holy retribution for daring to read Dawkins and Hitchens, Pagels and Fox, books on wicca and goddess religion, Buddhism and Hinduism, tarot and psychics and the non-believer's history of religion and the Bible. I shared my growing body of knowledge and experience with no one but my husband. I kept up my (somewhat) self-imposed isolation from church culture.

And... to my complete and utter surprise - almost exactly a year and a day later - it was as though I woke up from a very long sleep. In the midst of all this pain and confusion and uncertainly, I rediscovered myself. That is to say my Self. Dusty and unused, to be sure, but still there.

I felt like one of my favorite Rose is Rose cartoons - one where Rose is looking through photo albums of her life and hugs all her earlier selves to her heart - and her husband Jimbo comes in and says "You're looking really together." That's how I felt.

I guess you could say, like the Velveteen Rabbit, I've finally become Real.

One problem, though. I still haven't figured out the church situation. I don't speak Christian-ese anymore. I no longer worship at the altar of Christian culture. I don't even know what to call myself anymore - I don't wear labels well these days.

And here is where I've lost some of you. Please, don't bother to preach at me - goodness knows I've said it all to myself during the past year or so. But having received a soul-scrubbing from the One Who Upholds the Universe, I can assure you that it is an experience that transcends labels.

A friend used to tease me that I needed to stop putting God in a box. Over the past year, the One Who is Eternal succinctly blasted all those boxes to smithereens.

Maybe I simply am what I've always been - a Seeker....