I wrote a paper in a post graduate theology class that I took for fun. I can hear you all now, “Okay, woah…let’s stop right there, honey…for FUN?”

Let’s talk about that for a moment.  I was newly married, working full-time, and for *fun* I took a graduate, theology class.  Quite the hobby, huh??  Soooo, it’s fair to say –  major nerd alert! Who does that at age 22? Well, I would like to think there are a few other dorks out there that pondered the meaning of life at that age and it wasn’t just me. As a parent and student of all things developmentally appropriate, I now know that one’s brain is not fully developed until about age 25.

The early twenties are the perfect age to search for meaning and identity.  So while most kids were out tailgating and finding identity and answers in Corona Light, I chose a slightly more intellectual and spiritual route.  To each her own, right?! I would argue that there are benefits to both paths of identity and meaning-of-life seeking.  We, humans, eventually seem to all wrestle with the questions in these various manners at one time or another in our lives.  I happened to hit the Corona Light phase around age 38 and it was all good except that I suspect hangovers with three children: one that needs to be at Chuck E. Cheese for a three-year old birthday party, another that has a science fair project due and another with a Little League game in the bright Florida sunshine; are not nearly as fun as hangovers with roommates at Waffle House at noon.

So you do you, sweetheart. At whatever pace and in whatever sequence you choose.  Just one rule about your journey ~ try hard not to bruise anything other than egos along the way. You inevitably will, but, at least, set out with the intention not to hurt others.

So…if you are at that questioning age, whatever it is, rock on with your questions. Go at them fearlessly! Those truths I sought out at that age, I have never regretted.  The deep value of virtues that I settled in to have helped me to weather many storms. There was just one problem.  Somewhere along the line, I got cocky.  That arrogance was mixed with fear.  So that is where my gentle advice comes in.  You can’t be careful enough with your answers. The temptation is to think that the answers that rest well with your soul are those that should rest well with everyone. The cockiness comes in when you think that your answers are the answers for everyone. You will begin to think that your answers are THE answers.

If you are like me, I started hungry for the deeper answers to life’s questions. Then, I somewhere along the way became arrogant. I was proud I had found the answer to X,Y, and Z.  But then someone came along with an A,B, and C life.  X,Y, and Z didn’t work for them.  Rather than seeing that we had different lives and therefore some different answers,  I dug my heels in fear; I was afraid and I was threatened.  I was afraid that their A,B,C answers negated my X,Y,Z answers.  The arrogance spiked as a coping mechanism because deep down there was a fear about being wrong.  What if my X,Y, and Z weren’t really the answers???

I must add that there was this subtle, but pervasive mantra in my religion of choice that we, the humble chosen (I mean that sincerely), had an edge on truth. This did not help. Taken to the extreme, the message was, “If you don’t believe THE truth, you go to hell.”  I wasn’t going to take that risk.  So I was well-trained.  It was this weird irony.  Grace was preached incessantly, yet I was trained that I MUST believe certain truths in order to know God and heaven.  So in a way, the grace applied to everything except my core beliefs.  So I learned to stifle the doubts; it felt as there was no grace, or at least there was not much room, for uncertainty.

So I sought out ALL the correct truths. I had plenty of people to offer up the answers. So I picked the ones I liked the most.  I especially liked the ones that brought the most affirmation.

Somewhere along the line, I started to stumble on a fairly significant reality.  I think it was in my late twenties when my brain was fully developed (AT LAST!).  The harsh reality was this – the more you think you have all the answers and an edge on all that is true, the more life will then kick you in the ass.  Well, that’s if you’re lucky.

The ass kicking does something precious – it softens you and allows you to connect with other less-than-perfect humans. All my black and white slowly turned gray over a period of about twenty years.  Yes, twenty years.  I was THAT stubborn.  Or maybe I wasn’t? Maybe I was just that black and white.  I needed tons of ass kicking to bring life to gray. The most difficult ass whippings to bear were things I am not free to write about here because of the pain I brought to others.  Writing about them here would only re-victimize them.  Screwing up royally and finding that you are deeply flawed does wonders to the black and white soul. It can only be rivaled by the haphazard cruelties of life.  For me that cruel public, ass whipping started with the loss of an extremely, pre-mature, still-born son.  In an instant, everything became publicly gray.  My grief outweighed my fear. But even still the temptation was that I keep trying to find the perfect set of answers.  People gave me pat answers to justify the tragedy, but nothing sufficed.  There’s no answer that adequately works when one loses a child.  Ironically, the only answer to my pain that made a smidgen of difference was the “accidentally” pregnant friend that looked at me anwer-less with tears in her eyes.

Over and over, my xyz life and xyz answers would become slammed with abc experiences; then, another box-blowing scenario would come my way and I would see there was also D,E, and F lives and sets of answers. Eventually, and it was a loooooong eventually, I fell in love with the variety of life experiences and the variety of answers to go with them.

Now, I pity the poor souls that get stuck there in the know-it-all zone, because it’s a rather lonely place.  I started in that graduate class genuinely asking questions and evolved to becoming certain about the answers.  The more certain I became, the more the universe became determined on making it certain that I knew my place on the planet.  My black and white became infinitely gray.  My Abba (my name for the loving god/power of the universe and all that is good) has a wicked sense of humor and she refuses to let me settle into my answers.  Just when I think I have D,E,F figured out…BHAM! Enter G, H, I.

So this all comes full circle back to that post-graduate class. I was given an assignment.  Translate scripture through a different lens.  All my theology books were written by men. So I thought, how about doing it through the lens of a woman- not the lens of a woman with a man’s beliefs, but with the lens of what is traditionally thought as feminine and often deemed less valid- sensitivite, emotional, dependent, soft.  I had read stories where Jesus gave women a lot of kudos for their perspective.  I figured if Jesus did it, then maybe I should. I don’t think I quite understood how counter-cultural this was at the time in my conservative world.  I was about as far from a raging feminist as one could be at the time.  It just seemed like an easy thing to do because, after all, I was a woman. So I did it.

My first task, was to write on the importance of the feminist voice in interpreting scripture. I, then, was given the task of interpreting some New Testament passages from a female perspective. I remember my professor being impressed by my young, but fresh look at scriptures. He thankfully had an appreciation for critical commentary that trumped his conservative notions about gender roles enough to give me affirmation.

This is where it all comes full circle.  He was not afraid to compliment me on my varied thinking.  In fact, he valued it. Not a professor conditioned at giving warm and fuzzies, he genuinely and thoughtfully affirmed my perspective. He didn’t give me shallow compliments by any means.  He critically analyzed my arguments, but he also valued them.  In this he showed, he valued me and my perspective.  He has Dr. attached to his name and years of experience under his belt, but he did not consider that a substitute for MY experience.  I am beyond grateful for that.

I can now appreciate that his ability to do all this was steeped in his own self-confidence and self-certainty.  He was not intimidated or threatened by new thinking.  A sure way to spot my own  and other’s insecurity and fear is to look at the intensity of the defense of one’s thinking. Imagine if he had been tied up in his black and white thinking! He would have told me my impressions taken from scripture were wrong. In an effort to convince himself of his truth, he would have diminished my perspective.  I would have been not only crushed in my honest and accurate analysis, but my process would have been stifled as well.

Don’t misunderstand me, I didn’t shift  from black and white to gray at that moment, but I was offered a gift.  He validated my freedom to ask my own questions and formulate truly, meaningful answers.  I suppose his encouragement always stuck with me even though it was repressed for years.

I didn’t realize it at the time but I was intuitively coming at scripture from a literary perspective which is ironically how I shamelessly approach the Bible now. I was also taking into account the cultural norms of that day and allowing my feminine traits to interpret the content (something typically frowned upon in Evangelical circles).  Still, more than ANY commentary he would make on these forms of Biblical analysis, unbeknownst to me, he affirmed in me the power and value of my journey.

So now, just for fun, it is my hope that I have the strength to do the same for others.  There is nothing more glorious than seeing someone walk their own journey and come to their own truths.  Syncing theirs with mine- well, wow, now that’s just plain magic!