Who you calling flighty?

I just got back from a camping trip with a bestie I’d not truly hung with in a few years. Good thing we had tons of time and quiet because we had lots of ground to cover, including my recent baptism video on Facebook (see below). Knowing my history, the news caught her along with all my other friends and family, by complete surprise. So now that I’m home, I guess it’s time to share on a wider level by blogging a tiny bit of the journey. That’s all I can do at the moment because I’ve only walked a few steps down the path and the way ahead is invisible and completely foreign to my experience.

How does one explain in polite company about coming to Jesus? Or even touch on all the contradictions of past words and actions? About a lifetime search to fill the deep aloneness and calm the low level static of fear and anxiety inherent in my daily life? I’ve studied and considered the majority of world religions and spiritual paths over my 50+ years. Some faiths have resonated deeply, while others left me completely untouched. In the end they all presented flaws (by my critical judgement) that left them untenable.

Discernment is an excellent trait and one I’m glad to have but using it to find “fatal flaws” in people, places and things has led me to spend a lifetime committing, starting and then abandoning in all areas of my life. She even labelled my behavior… I believe the term was “lovably flighty”. For the first few seconds I was almost offended (I mean who wouldn’t be, right?!), then I saw myself through her eyes and totally got it. I am flighty. I am endlessly curious, easily bored, live for adventures and and am always willing to risk failure, start fresh and seek new surroundings. I’m also terribly fearful of being abandoned and rejected so when I find the fault, (which is really nothing more than the flaw inherent in all things human created), I use it as my rationalization to move on. I’ve always done this. Leaving satisfies my mobile nature while protecting my vulnerability from the rejection that I’m sure is bound to come if I stay too long. Nothing and no one has withstood my critical eye, especially myself.

So back to Jesus. I tried Christianity once in my late teens, but I wasn’t being led by my heart which prompted my church to ask me to leave. Feeling abandoned and ashamed, I rejected Jesus and all things surrounding his church . That victim script served me for the last forty years and would have likely lasted a lifetime, had not the last few years prompted me to upheave a whole slew of long held beliefs and ideas.

Months ago I accepted that I needed to revisit my position on Christianity, so I started to research, question, and visit… friends, movies, books, churches, all came into view from a position of an open minded and seeking heart. Two areas I uncovered were pivotal… reading apologetics (a discipline I’d never even heard of until six months ago) and talking with Christian friends about their faith (something I’d intentionally not ever done.)

Then one day it hit me… Holy Smokes! Jesus is really real. He really lived. He really died. He really resurrected. What a game changer! How could I possibly go along my way rejecting him, now that I knew the reality of his existence? Impossible, if I ever wanted to sleep again. In AA, we would probably have called it a spiritual experience of the white light variety. All I know is that God moves in his own time not mine and it seemed like barely weeks before I found myself be invisibly shoved out of my church seat to sign up for this….

So now comes all the rest that Christianity encompasses… doctrine and dogma with a thousand different faces… so many areas I once felt secure, I am now prompted to revisit. Questioning, scrutinizing, reading, praying, listening and praying some more… trying to discern what is of God and what is of man. The journey will last my lifetime.

Being who I am, I have countless questions and see a myriad of flaws that my nature won’t allow me to ignore, but my faith also won’t allow me to completely disregard. So, I sit in the discomfort of the mystery… Hearing my friend’s God given wisdom telling me to just stay and find the grace for myself and everything around me, knowing that imperfection is the beauty and frailty of this human experience and part of God’s plan.