When the Earth Starts to Move Under Our Feet
/The book was trying to burn a hole in my purse. I worried everyone would find out I was reading it. My three children and I attended a co-op for homeschoolers every Wednesday morning at a church. Overworked moms showed up to give themselves and their children time each week to gather with others. We were on a similar education and family life path that didn’t trust, believe in, or conform to classroom school. We were Christians. We prayed together as a large group. We taught creationism, Bible, and character. We taught cooking, chess, and public speaking, too, on those Wednesday mornings. But primarily, we all believed God cared intimately how we lived out our faith in him moment by moment, as in how we raised our children. Keeping them out of public school meant we had much more time with and control over them.
There were many beliefs we never questioned, like the gender of God, which was definitely male. The book I was reading told the story of a woman who left the evangelical church mainly because of the way maleness was elevated over femaleness. She was one of my favorite fiction writers, and as a lover of memoir, I picked up her nonfiction as well. Her ideas were dangerous, but she told me stories I could relate to. By the end of the book, she experimented with a female-centric spiritual practice, something I definitely could not relate to. She participated in moon circles and wrote of goddesses. My culture elevated men like our husbands, sons, and pastors. After all, if God is male, he appoints other men to lead and guide the rest of us. The women socialized with each other once a month at a “Mom’s Night Out.” But we didn’t honor the moon cycles or celebrate the female divine. We celebrated classic femininity expressed in things like our hospitality talents and weight loss.
My marriage's traditional roles with my husband as my spiritual leader and me as the submissive wife did not work in our home. An astrologer once called my marriage karmic (astrology is an example of something I explore because, like moon circles, it has formerly been taboo. But, why is it taboo? These are the kinds of questions I now ask.). My husband didn’t need me to look to him as the head of our household. He wanted a partnership. I am thankful I married someone who wasn’t interested in traditional Christian leadership. Of the two of us, I was the one who was comfortable in the spotlight and held strong opinions. I think I was meant to partner with a kind and gentle man happy to make room for my expressive personality.
In October 2005, Pakistan suffered a terrible earthquake, killing eighty thousand people. Four million of the population lost their homes, and winter was coming fast. We knew a missionary who worked primarily with Muslims, thankfully by serving them instead of proselytizing. They rallied quickly to erect structures that would help the Pakistanis get through the winter. They needed volunteers to help, and we decided Todd should go. We began to fundraise for his plane ticket and expenses. We shared our hearts and story with our homeschool co-op community and asked for financial support.
Todd came to our Wednesday morning gathering a few weeks before he needed to leave. We arrived separately, and I was running late. When I got there, Todd was in the middle of sharing his desire to help. I immediately went and stood by his side, knowing he didn’t want to be up there by himself in front of 120 people.
Later, a friend pulled me aside. “It was just like the Sound of Music!” she said. “Like when he’s singing Edelweiss in front of the Nazis, and Julie Andrews comes and stands by his side.” My friend was deeply touched, and I felt proud to show my love and support publicly. But I was skeptical, too. Our culture elevated specific stories; we read, watched, and taught them to our children. Like “Little House on the Prairie” and “Anne of Green Gables,” we loved “The Sound of Music.” However, the book in my purse was not known, and if it had been, it would have been disdained. I was exploring outside our accepted and mutual boundaries because my heart had been drawn into the story of a woman who left her church community. I had moved into dangerous territory as anyone does who begins to question her culture’s and family’s norm. The story of a woman being true to herself stirred up my deep need for independence. Still, I knew it would mean moving away from the safety of unquestioned expectations and behaviors. I, too, was going to need a temporary shelter. The winter of leaving my culture as I’d known it was on its way, and I needed the stories of others that had gone before me. I couldn’t tell my community. This book was beginning to show me what life could be like apart from our narrow definition of how it should be. The deconstruction of my faith as expressed in the American evangelical church had begun, and I could feel the beginning of the earth moving under my feet.
When the tremors of our true identity start to come to the surface, it can be very scary. I have had the privilege to witness those I love speaking their truth for the first time. It is sacred ground and I treat it with honor and kindness. I also have had friends able to help me speak and see my truth for the very first time. What I’ve learned over the years, though, is that only I can honor my true identity and treat it with kindness day in and day out. I have exchanged this for looking outside myself for spiritual guidance, as in the Bible, church, and men because it is the only healthy way I can move through this life.
“Whatever else you do, listen to your Deepest Self. Love Her and be true to Her, speak Her truth, always.”
