Grief and Relief
These are two words I hear again and again from people who have read Life After Doom. Here is a recent email that came in (as always, lightly edited for anonymity) …
Last year, I attended an event where you spoke in the midwest. I exchanged only a brief mumbled greeting with you, because I didn’t quite realize who you were until after I had continued on my way to my seat, and I was so disoriented and heavy with grief that I had none of my usual tools for connecting with new people in a sociable way readily available.As you spoke that evening, I remember feeling like I could breathe – nervous, tenuous breaths, not yet the full belly-breaths that can calm our nervous systems, but enough breath to keep me alive for a bit longer, then a bit longer. I came into the event shattered; as I witnessed your unflinching look at reality, both the steadiness with which you faced a truly terrible situation and the refusal to offer quick or easy answers, I felt the pieces of myself stop their fractured swirling and come to enough stillness that I could begin to imagine putting them back together.Fast forward a few months, and I am sitting now with your book, Life After Doom. I have found myself in tears a number of times – from grief, yes, and also from some kind of relief. Relief to hear from someone who shares a similar religious background, and can name the harm that has been done in the name of that tradition while also not throwing the whole tradition out entirely. Relief to be in the spiritual presence of someone who is, at least on paper, unflinching, while not denying the hard road ahead. Relief to feel the sanity that exists in acknowledging the dangerous stupidity of the world without needing to get into a gaslighting argument with anyone about whether or not that is real (“try not to be too surprised,” you said. I will try.)For many years I worked in ministry. I left a few years ago – both the vocational work and the institution of the church – when I could no longer stand in that space with integrity without doing or saying something that could cost me my job (introducing the concept of the feminine image of God, for example – the horror!)It has been a lonely road since then, as I am hungry for the sort of community, meaningful conversation, and supportive action that can be experienced through church, but have struggled to find or create something new. As I spent time with you, in Holland and through your book, I have felt less alone. And I will keep trying.The divine in me sees and honors the divine in you.