If The Shoe Fits

Such is the life of a healthy college student: that learning is evaded in its very pursuit. #procrastination

Two weeks ago today, I succeeded in attending Fountain Street Church for the first time, and I have been thoroughly enjoying myself. After two weeks of exaggeratedly mopish insecurity over the unreliability of the weekend bus schedule, I found a bike and took to the road. It was a bit scary and I was on my own and I'm just a sheltered little freshman, but it was exhilarating, and words can hardly describe the satisfaction when, after like forty minutes of biking, I finally arrived. There is gorgeous artwork and beautiful music and a huge organ (which have always seemed to me to simply exude magic). They focus on orthopraxy, freedom, justice, diversity, nature, science, and rationality. For the first time in my life, I leave church feeling refreshed and stretched, as though a little piece of life has been breathed into me, even if I don't agree with everything that's said. Their backgrounds and reasons for being there are more similar to mine than anywhere I've been; their focus is similar to my focus, their goals are similar to my goals, their flaws are similar to my flaws. It feels like things fit. Several people noticed my excitement and asked if they could come with me the following week. The concept of people coming with me to a church that I can realistically and wholeheartedly associate myself with is both nerve-wrecking and extremely exciting to me. It's something new.

This week, my third week, three friends I've had a lot of great conversations with (two of which were the ones from Big Field. Bright Light and one of which has a car) ended up going. Unsurprisingly, they place a bit right of me on a theological spectrum, but they understand where I'm coming from and why I see things the way I do. In retrospect, because I respect them all, because I know they'll understand what's going on, because I know good discussion will follow, and because this all has never happened before, the whole activity was more exciting and nerve-wrecking than I anticipated.

There are two main things that were pointed out in reflection that I think sum up important weaknesses of the church: first, that despite the enormous, almost obsessive emphasis on inclusion and universal affirmation of personal journeys and experiences, there is an ironic tendency to exclude the average conservative Christian; second, that there is a lot of talking about the church itself, and that comes off as self-centered more than thankful. What can I say, hypocrisy's a bitch. I understand very well where these particular tendencies come from, and I understand very well that it's more complex than just "hypocrisy," because these are the same weaknesses I deal with. They're very deep-rooted flaws, and I've made huge efforts to try to mend them within myself; that's what my senior project was about, and that's a large contributing factor to the reason I felt comfortable applying to Calvin. The irony is terrible, though. Embarrassing. But every single human institution is embarrassing - church all the more - and I think this church in particular is embarrassing to me for all the right reasons. It feels right to be embarrassed not of or for the church, but as the church, for once.

Fountain Street Church does not have a tradition any more than I have a tradition. They have a history, and they can explain where they came from and why they are where they are, but they feel no real need to respect the past as a source of inherent authority or wisdom. This means that the people that attend there all came from somewhere else. The fact that they ended up at Fountain Street, of all churches, on top of that, is another peculiarity: it's a pretty distinct type of church. It's so non-denominational it doesn't even affiliate with the Unitarians. There aren't very many people that go to churches like that. So the people that end up there tend to be searchers; people that feel lost; people who found agnosticism to lack community; people that wanted diversity of belief but didn't know where to find it. It's hard to have this kind of church - a very peculiar church made up of people that didn't fit elsewhere - without developing tendencies to speak as though the places we've all come from were bad and the place we've landed is superlatively wonderful. What does it mean to be audibly thankful that you've finally found somewhere you fit without coming off offensive toward the people you didn't fit with? It's not that I - and I think I speak on behalf of FSC - believe conservative Christianity's a less valid worldview than other religions, but that we understand particularly well why we're not there. 

Talking about these reasons over lunch, afterward, it became almost disturbing to realize how differently we could interpret exactly the same lyrics or scriptures; how differently their church upbringing affected them. Greater Things was playing over the speakers in the cafeteria, and we interrupted ourselves to comment on it. It all has to do with interpretation and emphasis, not even understanding. I know full well how the lyrics were intended. I don't believe the lyricist is malevolent or judgmental. But I hear the words "You're the king of these people / You're the Lord of this nation" or "There is no one like our God / Greater things have yet to come, Greater things are still to be done in this city," I hear projection and boxing people in and imposing one framework upon others. If those people don't worship your God, why are you telling them that they still inadvertently glorify a nonexistent being? Why do you presume that you will bring all these "greater things" to people by claiming that your God surpasses their Gods in greatness? That's so pretentious and offensive, my mind whispers. Of course, I know the answer to those questions, and the intent of the speaker is not actually judgmental. It's perfectly inclusive, understood from the mind of the worldview it came from. But for some reason, that way of thinking and communicating and living just doesn't fit with me, and I don't fit with it. I have to uproot my way of thinking and do all the work of cramming my feet into the speaker's shoes for me to understand what's being said. And they - my friends - seem to have slipped into the faith of their upbringing like Cinderella into her slipper. And for all the right reasons: not because they're closed-minded or abnormally resistant to change or stupid, and not because the religious community of my upbringing were vile, hateful people. Things have just worked out differently, and we don't really seem to know why.

I've got bunions. Lots of shoes don't fit me, and I try to get away with not wearing them when I can. I have pretty often bought guys' shoes, I went through a phase in middle school where I wore flip-flops for two years straight, I got in trouble for failing to wear shoes in public places as a kid. There is this sense of freedom and comfort I gain from walking around places without my shoes, as if the simple absence of foot coverings makes me more authentic, more welcome, more honest, more at home. IRL, I hate shoe shopping. I gain little from it and shoes are pragmatic devices designed to keep society from getting annoyed with me, prevent frostbite, hike on pointy rocks, etc. But in abstract, trying on every shoe I see makes me stronger. It helps me understand the people I walk with, and it teaches me new things about the nature of the landscape we're walking through. I could not be where I am without having walked a large stretch of the way in shoes. I would be a thousand times stupider if I didn't try to understand how the hiking boot sees the world differently from the ballet flat sees the world different from the athletic sneakers. It peeves me beyond belief that it could look like conservative Christian shoes are shunned by those in their liberal counterparts. I owe a huge length of my journey to the former, even if they gave me a couple blisters. But I'm thankful - not boastful, not proud, but thankful - that now I finally seem to have found something that fits.